Jul 17, 2018 City Council on 2018-07-17 10:00 AM
July 17, 2018 City Council
Full Transcript
July 17th 2018 it is 10.01 a.m. I'll say that again 10.01 a
.m. we're going to go
through our agenda for our work session reports we've got
agenda item number one
is citizen comments on consent agenda items do we have any
blue cards for
consent agenda item comments don't think so then we've got
two requests for
clarification of agenda items list on the agenda for July
17th 2018
Councilmember Briggs all right so I was just going through
this on the consent
agenda item F so is this it's his mowing service and
maintenance is any part of
this right away maintenance that we heard that CIS is
responsible for or is
this something different
it is a different section of right-of-ways we work closely
with our community
improvement services to make sure that we're not duplic
ating so they do have
almost a kind of an allotment of right-of-ways and we also
have right-of-way
that we maintain separately okay yes thank you one more yes
okay the item G
on playground equipment I'm just curious what we do with
the old playground
equipment I know some of them by some standards are still
pretty good and they
are usable and I'm wondering if we could donate them or
sell them to Denton ISD I
know that the playground equipment that they have on it
some of their schools is
really bad and the PTA sometimes are responsible for
replacing those and as
you can see they're pretty expensive so I'm just curious
about what we do with
them yeah I don't know specifically Denton's history of all
the equipment
obviously some of the equipment replacing is damaged and
there's wear
and tear typical lifespan of a plate structures about 15
years and a lot of
our plate structures are exceeding that already so it
probably wouldn't be a
recommendation from our part to recycle that and reuse it
typically one in my
past history when contractors take that equipment they may
use that for whatever
they want on their own whether it's recycling the metal or
not but we've
never kept that in the past with an organizations I've been
at I can look
further for Denton's history but that equipment has
exceeded its lifespan and
I probably wouldn't recommend that that be a direction we'd
want to head just
for safety reasons okay thanks yes thank you mayor I'd like
to ask that we pull
out items G H and M just for brief presentations because
they're visible
and I think the public would be interested in hearing what
's happening
could you get a little bit more specific I mean how general
or how specific do
you want the presentation because I mean when they come to
give it need to give
them some guidance what what are you thinking about brief
all right anybody
else anybody other clarification which one is that which
one is
5c 5c okay yeah I'll be recusing myself on agenda item 5c
so at that time mayor
pro tem will handle the days okay no other requests for
clarification on
agenda seeing none we'll move on to our work session
reports work session 3a
received report hold discussion give staff direction
regarding solid waste
department's cost of service and rate design study provided
by the new gen
strategies and solutions
good morning mayor members of City Council my name is Ethan
Cox I'm the
director of solid waste for the city of Denton it's my
pleasure to visit with
you this morning I'm gonna be seating the podium here in
just a moment to mr.
Dave Yankee with new gen strategies before we do I want to
kind of do a
little bit of groundskeeping and kind of just leave this
out there in terms of
what we've been through of in the last 12 to 13 months we
've basically just
kind of done a complete retooling of the solid waste budget
this effort began
about 13 14 months ago basically took the budget apart put
it back together and
I think what you'll see today and as we move forward with
the rates is a very
clear picture of where we track our cost and what is the
what the rates are
basically composed of I'd be remiss if I did not think and
point out the
contributions by our staff our managers have done a
tremendous amount of work in
the past 14 months particularly Tina Eck Lee Rodriguez
Scott Lipsack Nick Benson
and several other members of our staff they've done a
tremendous amount of work
along with Dave Yankee and his team in terms of the today's
presentation Dave
will come up and kind of go through new gen strategies
findings and then I'll
return to the podium with a major response at the end but
we're certainly
both happy to answer questions as we go along and so with
that I'll introduce
Dave
good morning for the record my name is Dave Yankee I'm
president of the
environmental practice with new gen strategies and
solutions real quick I'm
going to give you a little background where we come from as
far as our
qualifications so new gen strategies and solutions we're a
35 person financial
consulting firm we focus on working with solid waste water
wastewater and
electric utilities in conducting cost service studies
financial analysis
feasibility studies so that's what we focus on I'm actually
out of our Austin
office real quick on my background just to give you a
little background here I
was the project manager for this engagement I've been
conducting cost of
service studies in the solid waste area since about 1993 so
I've been doing it
for about 25 years and that's what I focus on for a lot of
clients so I come
to this with a few years of doing this just a little
background so let me touch
briefly on the scope of analysis or the scope of what we
were asked to do first
of all we were asked to conduct a comprehensive cost of
service study that
allocates cost to all of your different solid waste
services I'll show those
services to you a little bit later on another slide and
then develop a five
year revenue requirement basically using the fiscal year
2019 budget and
forecasting out through 2023 and then we calculated the
revenues realized by the
current rates versus the projected five-year forecast of
what costs would be
then we allocated those cost or calculated the rates for
the residential
and the commercial customers by the type of service they're
provided we also
looked at a market analysis specifically there we were
looking at your wholesale
rates you have about a hundred thousand tons of garbage a
year that comes in
from non-city sources your residential or commercial it's
from other folks so
we looked at pricing in the market and I'll talk about that
and then finally we
presented this presentation last week at the public utility
board and so we're
presenting it again today just to go into a little more
detail on the test
year we use the as Ethan said we use the preliminary the
fiscal year 2019 budget
spent a lot of time with staff and looking at those costs
key part of that
was forecasting out capital improvement plan for the next
five years with your
rolling stock etc and then allocating the cost to the
different service
categories this involves going in and allocating every
person every piece of
equipment across the different services which takes a lot
of time and yes we
worked with Tina and late quite a bit on that we then
allocate those to the
customer class classes look at your billing units and then
again cost
calculate the cost of service a couple highlights with
regard to in developing
the five-year forecast just a couple things I want to
emphasize again we used
the 2019 proposed budget as a starting point we made
adjustments you know as
necessary in looking at things as far as and again nothing
major but you know
again our costs gonna be a cost that continues on in the
next five years or
is it something that's gonna phase out we looked at
everything to make sure it
was representative if a normal year and going forward into
the next five years
key thing and this is a huge positive for the utility your
annual debt service
payments will decrease by about three point eight million
dollars per year
over the next five-year period from fiscal year 2019 to
2023 so that is a
huge positive for the utility gives you some flexibility of
a slide that shows
that in a little more detail and then complementing that
what that allows you
to do is the last bullet it allows you to look at beginning
to fund equipment
on a pay-as-you-go basis or with cash versus short-term
debt so you have the
interest savings so that's a huge positive to be able to
couple those two
and again I have a slide that will show that in a little
more detail these are
the different service categories you have 22 service
categories you probably
didn't know you had all these service categories a lot of
these services
they're provided people take them for granted they don't
realize everything
that's there so I'm not going to go through them but under
residential you
have everything from the refuse collection to bulky items
recycling the
yard waste e-waste collection all those things under
commercial front load
refuse collection recycling roll-off containers etc and
then over on the far
right you have your disposal operations the landfill the
Murph etc so again what
we did is we allocated when I mentioned all the personnel
and equipment they
were allocated to these specific 22 service categories so
everybody got
allocated yes you may not know the answer to this I was
surprised to see
that keep getting beautiful is funded under solid waste
have we always done
that or is that a novel we don't do it I can address that
we we did make a
change to move KDB to solid waste several years ago I want
to say 2011 or
12 2012 is when that was changed so prior to that it had
been a general fund
expense something we can certainly have additional
discussions on later as well
no it's a it's a good question and just to clarify that's
actually very common
for cities to incorporate that into the solid waste utility
so we see it there
quite a bit so so I'm not going to go through all of the
numbers I mean I can
but I don't think you want me to but what I want to
highlight are some key
things here and let's just focus on the bottom line so 2019
for fiscal year 2019
your net revenue requirement or operating costs these are
your operating
costs cash capital outlays debt service everything is right
at 30 just 33
million sixty seven thousand dollars the key thing I want
to highlight on this
slide over the next four years that goes to thirty four
point three million the
bottom right corner so it's right at a 1% increase per year
so it's a very very
nominal increase of 1% a year the utility is able to do
that in part
because of some of the debt service that's rolling off and
some of these
other things they've been looking at but it does show and
highlight what it cost
to provide all the different services with regard to
residential refuse
recycling commercial front load you know all of those
things in looking at this
basically what we do we get on this slide here with the red
and green we
basically took the prior slide but then we allocated the
cost so I'll give you
an example residential collection services if you looked at
the prior
slide it was about 11 million it's now 12.3 million we've
allocated over their
portion of the landfill disposal costs about 10% of the ton
nage that comes into
the landfill is collected by your residential refuse trucks
so the cost of
disposing you know basically 10% of the landfill costs are
allocated to the
residential customers and incorporated into their rate we
've done that for all
these if you look at a couple things I'll just mention the
green and the red
the green are the utilities or the services you're
providing where you're
over recovering with your current rates versus your cost of
service the red is
where you're under recovering we'll talk more about that
towards the end of this
presentation but I will say it's actually very common when
you go in you
have rates that are in place but until you actually go in
and allocate every
person every piece of equipment across the utility you don
't always know where
you're gonna be but we'll talk about that in just a few
minutes this is what
I talked about if you look at the annual debt service and
revenue funding you can
see your current debt or the outstanding debt it's about
the 8.9 million it
actually declined significantly by 2023 to just under three
and a half million
dollars there's only new debt service phasing in that tot
als by 2023 about 1.6
million so again the debt service is declining from about
just under 9 million
in 2019 to about 5.1 million in 2023 thank you just if you
could just give
us generally an idea why is that what is it that we're that
we're getting done
paying for it okay so it's a combination of debt for both
landfill rolling stock
that is rolling off in other words that especially with
equipment you know a lot
of times it's short-term debt five to seven year notes what
have you to match
the life of equipment so that is debt that's rolling off
and then if you look
at the bottom line which I'll talk about a little bit just
shortly on the
replacement fund we're moving towards equipment being paid
for with cash
versus debt service okay so but you can see the debt
service goes down from about
9 million to 5.1 so about 3.8 million and so then what we
're incorporating and I
will emphasize we spent a lot of time with staff where we
looked at all the
equipment that the utility has what's the life of it how
frequently do you
have to replace it and so we put together a capital
improvement plan that
forecasts out when equipment has to be replaced how much it
costs so what we're
showing here is and these numbers are all embedded in that
revenue requirement
I showed you that 33 million you can see that we're going
from six hundred and
twenty thousand dollars to be funded on a cash basis for
equipment and we're
getting it up to 750 to a million and a quarter a million
eight and then to 3.3
million so this 3.3 million by that point is funded through
the rates put
into a reserve to purchase equipment I'll say it's a very
common practice that
cities strive towards to pay for their equipment on a cash
basis versus issuing
short-term notes final thing I'll mention on the slide with
all of that
going on the really good thing to look at is the bottom
line fiscal year 2019
it's 9.6 million and it still is decreasing by about 1.1 1.
2 million
dollars by fiscal year 2023 down to just under eight and a
half million question
yes so that bottom is it says total but that's total of the
debt service with
the replacement fund so what's the well I'm not sure what
the significance of
that is other than show that we're just basically reversing
money's not going to
debt service it's going into cash funding exactly so when
you talk about
that the cash funding or the replacement fund is being
funded with the rates so
when I look at the differences in the numbers from total
debt service of 9
million to 5 million and then the replacement fund if we if
we just kept
rates the same in other words there's this basically a
turnover a
transformation from instead of those money's going to the
debt service it
goes into the replacement fund so you're not saying that we
're having to
raise rates in order to fund that replacement fund no okay
all right yeah
to clarify and thank you for bringing that up to clarify
when we're at 2019
and this nine million six hundred thousand dollars is in
that thirty three
million dollar revenue requirement that I showed you on the
earlier slide so all
these are incorporated into that overall cost so this is
one of the benefits of
moving from debt service to cash is for instance you don't
have to pay interest
expense on all that so it allows you to decrease the
overall cost for the
equipment so let's look at overall where the utility is
based on the revenue
requirement again that top line I showed you earlier it's
about 33 million
growing about 1% per year to 34.3 million then we're
looking at revenues
realized under your current rates so your current rates
that you're charging
you're under recovering about three hundred and four
thousand dollars so a
little less than 1% is is an under recovery in 2019 going
forward with
current rates your utility is going to be over recovering
going forward you
know next year it's about 750 thousand and then growing to
about 3.7 by 2023
couple key assumptions in here is that's based on the
continued growth rates
occurring customers you know that are taking additional
services so it's based
on continued growth that you've you know been realizing but
so overall the key
thing I want to emphasize the utility from a cash flow
standpoint and projected
going forward is in good shape with the current rates there
's a little tweaking
we'll talk about but overall the utility is in good shape
and I'll stop right
there question so when I look at this and I see that in
2023 we've had an
you're calling it an over recovery so I'm what I'm gonna
call it an over
recovery of eight point one million dollars and within that
is this
transformation from debt service to cash funding right so
that means when we get
all when that last slide that showed that we've got three
point three million in
cash funding or something to that effect is that cash that
's not part of that eight
point one million in other words this over recovery is that
's already been
accounted for this is above and beyond so why would we not
try to in those
years begin to think about a rate decrease if all these
assumptions pan
out the way that we anticipate just sure no it's a great
question so because
that's almost that's almost when you look at the last year
you have a tent you
have an over 10% recovery of what you're projecting your
revenue requirement is
right so yeah let me answer that and it's a it's a very
good I'd ask the same
question so if we're looking at the utility again we've got
all that debt
service and capital is baked into that top line to 33
million grown to 34
million so that's there so this is forecasting continued
growth in the
system it implies no recession occurring over the next four
years our crystal
ball is not that good where we can project when the recess
ions are going to
occur the reason I mentioned that that is especially
relevant to your roll-off
business commercial roll-off business we've seen with
cities when a recession
does hit depending on the severity since a lot of the roll-
off business is C&D
construction demolition related you can see that business
get cut to a third of
its current status or half and so that would have a huge
impact on this
forecast so my point is this is based on going forward with
current growth rates
if it were to develop exactly like this that may be
something you want to look
at I mean that's that's up to to you folks to look at but
it's definitely
something worth looking at so in in whatever slide number
this was slide
nine you mentioned specifically commercial roll-off and so
in the
forecast commercial roll-off is you know 2.7 million
basically give or take you
know a hundred thousand or so so even if you did away with
all of it you still
might be so I guess it's a question for management am I
correct in seeing this
over and under sort of like a fund balance yes okay and we
're Ethan Cox
is gonna address some of this and his presentation so okay
Mr. Yankee
concludes he's got a few slides and we'll talk a little bit
about our
approach to that but you're right all else equal you would
certainly have a
lot of flexibility but there are certainly risk in the
future so we'll
talk to you about that a little bit so then the assumptions
for the forecast
and revenue is this annual growth rate for front-end load
commercial recycling
customers is forecast 0.7 well that's recycling so what is
the assumption on
the forecast is it you said it's a 1% increase based based
upon the slide is
that what you're saying is we may experience a 1% increase
in growth of
customers or demand no we have the growth at a higher rate
and I don't have
that I think it was at about two or two and a half percent
growth on the system
so it's not you know outlandish or anything but yeah this
is forecasting
continued growth on the system and you know then over
recovery in future years
if everything were to play out like that so then help me
understand how these
were constructed then so when I see brush you revenue
requirement which one
of my revenue realizing okay I'm just gonna say revenue
requirement so you've
got about a 1% increase yes but if you have an assumption
of about a 2 or 3
percent increase in growth help me understand and I'm sure
it's a very
easy explanation why we're only increasing revenue
requirements by percent
but we may be forecasting a 2 or 3 percent growth help me
understand yeah
so if you've got growth there a lot of the costs for a
utility are fixed costs
in nature right so where some of this money drops to the
bottom line to allow
your over recovery perfect example is the landfill if you
start taking ten or
twenty thousand more tons a year into that landfill it's a
fixed cost
business you know the compaction ratio it actually can help
with that depending
you know how you're getting that material so that drops to
the bottom line
yeah so you're saying that the the growth because it's such
there's such a
large fixed rate component in other words if we didn't have
any trash
requirements we're gonna be paying X amount of dollars just
for the system
so then you've got a capacity built in there that those
fixed costs can absorb
before you have to really begin to increase the cost based
upon the growth
that is exactly right yes so but that's the the where the
utility is from a
financial standpoint so here are the key recommendations we
make we have two
slides and then I'll be done we don't wreck I know you had
done a recent
residential rate decrease we would not recommend at this
time to do any further
decreases in the residential rate maintain them where they
are right now
we would recommend on your wholesale tonnage that comes in
from say private
contractors there's about a hundred thousand tons a year
that comes in
there we would recommend you increase that rate from twenty
three dollars to
twenty four fifty it would increase the revenue about a
hundred and fifty
thousand dollars another example that would go straight to
the bottom line
from that standpoint our basis for saying that are
recommending that we
looked at the market and most of the landfills up in this
area are in the
thirty to thirty five range now the caveat that's your
posted gate rate but
you they will landfills will cut deals with big haulers say
well if you're
gonna bring me 20,000 tons a year 30,000 tons a year you
know we're not gonna
charge you the posted gate rate of $30 will charge you $24
or whatever so in
looking at the market we'd recommend that increase to 2450
councilmember Briggs so is this a section where we are
receiving and
accepting other cities trash because I know that that we do
that and it was my
understanding that they paid a lesser rate than the actual
citizens so is this
where where you're speaking to that yes there's there's
folks like the waste
connections is the biggest one and they're bringing tonnage
in and so they
pay this rate and then wherever they get their garbage from
and so your
suggestion is that we increase their rate yes okay thank
you
councilmember Meltzer so if if you're saying that you know
we're over
recovering and you know which gives us some some cushion
for unknowns in the
future but you're keeping two components the same and
increasing one you're gonna
increase over recovery versus what you just showed us is
that right well if if
you go and look at that over recovery this is by about a
hundred and fifty
thousand dollars a year to increase that cost the the
reason for recommending
that is that gives some financial benefit to the city these
are folks that
are bringing trash in from outside the city using a city
asset they are still
below the market rate so we'd recommend moving it up I
understand that part and
sounds well advised really the point of my question is
whether there might be a
little more room for a rate decrease on residential you
know if we but it sounds
like you're saying it's 150,000 which might not be
noticeable in a rate right
more or less we're going correct correct and and going back
to that slide where
we have that over recovery let me emphasize I am NOT
against rate
decreases but that 2019 you're still under recovering 300,
000 I'd really wait
to get to 2021 before you start looking at just to make
sure things are lining
up the way it's looking yes question if this recommended
rate increase applies
to entities from outside of city of Denton why not and and
I'm just asking
this because I generally am wondering what would be the
pros and cons why not
increase it even more if that would help offset our debt if
that does strictly if
that increase does strictly apply to outside entities
bringing trash in that
you know increases our no it's it's that's a very good
question because this
is an issue that comes up for cities that have landfills
what kind of rate
do you want to charge for waste coming into the city asset
from elsewhere and
there's a balance there's not when we do a cost service to
say here's what the
cost of services for residential rates or commercial front
load it's very exact
because we have all the costs this is one of these when you
start pricing it
it's market based you know how much what's the market out
there you know are
we the cheapest you know what have you and then there's a
balance because
going back to what I said a landfill is a very fixed cost
operation you got a
lot of costs there before you put a ton of garbage into it
and so when you get
tonnage like this in it can help with covering some of the
small minor
incremental costs and drop revenue to the bottom line the
reason we're
recommending just a dollar and fifty increase versus more
is we always
recommend to clients that when you do this type of change
you do it
incrementally nothing too major because it is the market
you don't want to all
the sudden lose that tonnage and have someone said well it
's too expensive I'm
going down the highway somewhere else that's why we
recommend typically
smaller incremental increases like a dollar dollar fifty
that's my brief and what did you say the area around the
market is comparable
it's generally around thirty to thirty five dollars is the
posted gate rate but
again you know someone hauling large volumes will get
something less than
that but we're not privy to that information okay thank you
sure so just a
couple of quick what is our gate rate it's forty four
dollars okay and do we
know because I know when I've talked to people here in town
who've done work for
me that you know some people drive to Lewisville some city
business city-owned
businesses here in Denton drive to the Lewisville landfill
because and I don't
know if it's Louis well that owns it but it's the one out
there in I believe
it's waste management but it's do we know what they're
getting I'm sure we
looked at their costs to do in the comparisons on this do
we yeah what are
I don't have that handy I believe they were around the 30 I
'm again I'm gonna
I'm going from memory on that so we're not I will tell you
the ones we got
information from no one was below where Denton is with the
twenty three dollars
on the wholesale on the wholesale okay gotcha yeah okay yes
I'm not quite sure how to think about this but I imagine
you can help to what
extent is it to our benefit to be bringing in that outside
tonnage I get
that we're largely a fixed cost operation so that it helps
fund our
operation but it's also a finite resource we want to extend
the life of
the landfill as long as possible from a sustainability
point of view so you know
how do you how do you look at that trade-off you're in the
environmental
practice of your firm right so you know how do you weigh
that it's it is a
question that cities will wrestle with how much do we want
to bring in and it's
something that has to be decided by you know the elected
officials and meeting
with management and how you want to do that I will give you
a couple examples
though I mean we see a lot of cities that they will take
some waste because
it helps to cover those fixed costs to give you a point of
ref I'm gonna give
you two examples I was just on the phone with York County
South Carolina
yesterday we're doing a rate study for them they have a
transfer station takes
120,000 tons a year they need to raise their rates but they
're sensitive to the
market because if they go up too much some of that waste is
gonna go to some
competing landfills so they're increasing it they're
looking at like a
dollar and a half every other year for two years for them
they're a county it's
a little different they get waste from all over but they're
balancing what that
rate is because they don't want to chase off business
because they have debt
service on a transfer station so they want it let me give
one that's probably
more relevant to your situation we're working with the city
of Tucson in fact
we're issuing their final report Friday they take about
five hundred thousand
tons a year into the Los Real's landfill it's a city owned
operated landfill they
have a put or pay contract I was about ready to talk about
put or pay contracts
they have a put or pay contract with Republic for a hundred
and sixty five
thousand tons a year going into the city landfill and they
're paying eighteen
dollars and sixty six cents a ton and the post to gate
rates like thirty five
dollars a ton so people look at that and there there have
been discussions there
what is the right balance for that city they realize they
get a benefit they get
over three million dollars a year from Republic that goes
towards the fixed
costs of the business give you a point of hopefully
clarification one of the
things we did for Tucson we looked at the increment what is
the incremental
cost to put one more ton of garbage into the landfill okay
what's it cost so
you're looking at cell development cell development costs
the closure post
closure costs you know all of those costs for that city it
was about two
dollars about two and a half dollars per ton is the hard
cost for every new ton so
they get that 1866 that other helps to cover fixed costs it
's a balance on what
you want to do they have a lot of cell life they're in a
huge area that they
can grow so you do have to balance how much tonnage do you
want to take in with
how much life do you have there it is a balance yes sure
thanks I don't know if
that helped or not well it leads the next question okay is
it conceivable
based on other markets I don't know exactly how you do it
to create a demand
curve where you could say you know how high could you go
and what penalty and
tonnage would you bear you know so that you might get the
same let's say the
magic great answer would be if you could let's say double
your price and get half
the tonnage you'd still get the same revenue right right
and you know and
considering that you have a finite resource in the landfill
you'd prefer
that now now if it's now if the reality is you double your
price and you get no
tonnage that's not good right so is there a way to model a
demand curve that
would kind of keep our you know revenue intact but minimize
the tonnage it's
yeah it's a it's a very good point there one of the
problems in dealing with
garbage there are so many different haulers out there that
can move haulers
that get acquired and then they sell their firm and they
start up a new one
and it can be a one-person truck or it can be 20 trucks or
200 trucks but the
garbage is it's a very fluid market actually if you look at
I kind of like
this stuff but if you were to look at North Central Texas C
ogs map of where
landfills are and transfer stations it's all moving around
and depending what the
price is that may move otherwise or different areas so
bottom line absent
the ability of doing a demand curve because you got to be
able to track
every person or haulers garbage where it's going and then
you'd have to know
what they're getting for a gate you know a rate below the
gate rate because
they're getting something better than the gate rate and
then you have to factor
in transportation costs because that's your big killer on
hauling is is that
piece so bottom line there are so many variables out there
it's really hard to
do that and with any confidence that's why we recommend
doing a small
incremental but you know increase over time a dollar dollar
fifty per ton per
year yeah councilmember Bragg's and councilmember
Armitage yeah so for clarification so currently our
wholesale customers are
charged $23 a ton but our gate rate is $44 and so is that
what our actual
citizens and city of Denton businesses if they were coming
to do the same thing
the wholesalers are doing would pay yes okay CC I have an
issue with that and I
don't like the fact that our citizens are driving all the
way to another
landfill and then the outside people are getting an
extremely better rate so I'd
like to have a conversation about that and that and if I
can just I I totally
understand where you're coming from and so I'm not I am
certainly not going to
be setting policy or saying what you should do but I'll
give one example then
if you said okay we're gonna put it at $35 you know
starting fiscal year 2019
2020 what have you you probably will lose most of that tonn
age and then going
back to again a fixed cost business a hundred thousand tons
at $23 a ton is
gonna be 2.3 million dollars of revenue you lose that again
the business the
cost of operating the landfill doesn't really change so
there's a balance I
understand what you're saying there's a balance
yes my robert yeah I will second councilwoman Briggs
concern about that
and I would be curious to know maybe not right now from you
but at some later
point how could these you know rates be be played with to
best serve our
residents so that if anybody gets the better deal it's the
residents who are
also of course the citizen known the owners of our of our
public utility my
question and then I'm gonna follow up question based on
what the answer is is
that the rate our rate for tonnage is that the same rate
for non recyclable
weight solid waste and recyclable alike no I mean as far as
your what it costs
to to dispose for the carrier recyclables for commercial
okay for
wholesale so this is just about garbage non recyclable yes
okay and and is there
a difference in the cost for wholesale commercial recite
from a recycling
standpoint the recycling services you're providing on the
commercial side you're
providing commercial recycling services within the city so
you have your
commercial front load you have some commercial roll off you
know with the
big roll off containers that are taking their recyclables
to the material
recovery facility operated by crap so we've identified
those costs totally
different costs I see I see because this oh go ahead
because the landfill has all
the costs associated with cell construction closure post
closure costs
which you have to fund and then you know the big heavy
equipment that operates at
the landfill versus and so we identify all those costs to
come up with here's
the cost service and then in comparison for the recycling
we look at okay Pratt
they have their contract to take the recyclables what is
the cost of all the
different pieces of equipment the city operates front load
trucks roll off to
take the recyclables to Pratt and so those costs create a
different guy got
it so two different operations obviously in this same
department with different
kinds of service costs and also as I understand it
different customers and so
is it correct that we generally don't accept recycling from
outside entities
that are the commercial recycling tends to be people who
use our facility for
commercial recycling tends to be from in the city I think I
know but I'm gonna
let okay okay yeah from a recycling standpoint we actually
have a
partnership with an on-site Murph it's material processing
facility Pratt and
so they deal with a lot of commercial recycling from
outside the work outside
the city we don't process it as a department okay just just
one kind of
just to follow up statement request for for staff something
to look into you I'm
wondering if we were to expand our recycling and do more
recycling on site
getting you know whole set basically doing for recycling
what we do for
garbage I wonder if that's a situation where we could offer
a super competitive
rate to get more customers to get a lot of customers there
and then up the rate
even higher here so you know so we would become you know
more of a basically it
would be a different emphasis on the service that we do
less garbage coming
in from else from outside the city and more recycling sure
so on the recycling
side one of the challenges right now and I was just
speaking to a city in New
Mexico two weeks ago that they want us to do a recycling
feasibility study what
would it cost to get into that business right now the
markets are at all-time
worse levels because of China and they're banning recycl
ables that they
don't want the recyclables that the Murph's you know your
material recovery
facilities here a lot of that material would be shipped
overseas to China China
doesn't want to take it anymore they've cut back
drastically as a result OCC
cork cork getting cardboard prices are pretty good but
mixed paper you know
your newspapers for anybody that still reads a newspaper I
read to every day
but for mixed newspapers and and white paper the prices are
down at like five
dollars a ton it had been at eighty dollars a ton a year
ago point is the
recite the recyclable market is so terrible right now that
the ones that are
successful and that's a good thing with Pratt they have
ties to end markets
where they take their materials so they need the material
but the pricing for
commodities is really challenging right now so that's one
of the challenges I
would mention the other is with Pratt with their contract
they operate the Murph
and my understanding is they operate it they you know you
the city got a very
good deal to have it put there and your recyclables taken
care of at a very good
deal but it gives them flexibility to bring in other
materials so if you were
to bring in more material you wouldn't necessarily benefit
from it because you
already got a really good deal from them if that kind of
helps yes thank you sure
I will just tell you this market issue it is one that
cities will wrestle with
do we want to be a major collector of waste from other
parts around you know
outside the city or do we just want it just have our waste
and no more and
it's it's something that has to be decided ultimately by by
council a couple
questions on your slide we spent a lot of time talking
about outside trash so
on your slide nine is is that figure part of the disposal
operations but
wherein here is is the wholesale is the trash that's dude
let me let me back up
do we have a figure for what revenue is generated by
citizen gate presence other
words people who bring citizens of Denton who are bringing
the trash and
they're paying the gate rate do we have that number and
secondly where in this
revenue requirement is the number you're talking about as
far as the wholesale
sure so let me answer in couple pieces so in looking at
this revenue requirement
this is the 33 million dollars and 33 million sixty seven
thousand dollars all
operating costs cash capital outlays debt service all your
costs to operate
your solid waste utility okay so that disposal operations
number that's seven
million two hundred eighty two thousand that you see for
disposal that is the
cost of operating the landfill so that's your cash capital
outlays debt service
that's the cost of operating the landfill then that cost
gets recovered
right from everyone we're talking about yeah so and and I
think these are good
questions because I certainly understand the concern with a
gate rate you know if
I take a pickup full of debris or a trader full of
furniture or something
out there and I'm paying 44 bucks a ton and then people who
are hauling in but
you've got to you've got to look at this not in that kind
of piecemeal fashion
because we could lower the gate rate we could raise the
other one and the effect
you got to find where the effect of that could be that we
have to raise rates
because we don't have enough revenue so it's a delicate
balancing act of
understanding okay what is our mission we have to obviously
define our mission
and do we want the citizens to pay more for a change of
mission or an increase
in cost so to me it's about cash flow so yeah we could if
we could lower the
rates for citizens at the gate rate and it's a zero-sum
game between raising
the rate for wholesale trash well that's that's but that's
just what we don't
know and so that's that's I think what they're asking for
is some kind of
analysis of that because if you're taking and that's why I
want to know the
number for how much revenue do we get from citizen brought
trash paid at the
gate rate you got that okay well you can wait to present it
when you come up yeah
so I don't want to get ahead of it yes come from a Melzer I
think where we'd
want to end up as a next step on the wholesale piece first
we ought to know
geographically where most of that outside stuff is coming
from and and we
ought to be able to have some idea then of that their
transportation cost for
their next best alternative so I think where we'd want to
be is you know the
other guys rate plus the transportation cost so they'd be
indifferent you know
right and as a first step and then you know because I get
your point about not
wanting to sort of shock the market you know you want to
see if you can push the
revenue up and push the rates up and keep the revenue right
and and I and I
think we want to keep moving in that direction you know
monitor closely are
we keeping the revenue and losing tonnage but you know
without that's
shocking them into making alternative decisions yes small
point added on
to that I agree and I would recommend some form of a survey
to our wholesale
dumping customers on why D on why they come to Denton you
know why they use
Denton as opposed to elsewhere that that would give us some
really interesting
feedback I mean my assumption would be that you know
location is a big
determinant you know I don't know maybe for some of them
there's some things
that we can expect so if there's not if that would be
something simple to do
I'd be curious what the results would be and then we could
factor that in as we
think about who our customers are and why they come here
instead of trying to
second-guess okay
so the the sub bullet there one of the things we've
mentioned with the
wholesale contracts then is we would recommend also that
you consider the
benefit of putting in place put or pay contracts if you're
familiar with
taker pay contracts for water put or pay is the same thing
so let's say waste
connection says hey we're gonna bring 70,000 tons a year to
you and you say
okay fine we'll let you do that for 2450 and they only
bring 65,000 they still
pay you for 70,000 tons it's a very common practice in the
industry again
we'd recommend maintaining the commercial dumpster rates
and maybe
looking at some other options with what we call a
traditional matrix Ethan will
talk about that here in a little bit and then just finally
some other things is
inventorying cut container counts just double checking
container counts for the
customers residential but also the commercial refuse and
recycling since
those are key to your billing and revenue forecasts and
then tracking the
tonnage as well at the BMR and composting facility we would
recommend
any over recoveries to the extent you get into 2020-2021
and you're over
recovering we'd recommend that that money be set aside in a
separate fund or
replacement fund was what we'd recommend for equipment so
you can again pay cash
versus debt service keeping in mind it also could be used
you've got a new
landfill cell you'll be developing in 2024 and those were
really all the the
key things I wanted to address questions comments thank you
very much appreciate
it thank you the presentation I'm glad that Dave got all
the hard questions
save the softballs for me please so thank you Dave again
tremendous amount of
work on his part our staff's part to get to the point to
where we are now and it's
as you can tell there's a number of complex issues here by
no means is this
discussion finished I think this is just kind of the first
step and more involved
process so I do have a few slides today just kind of in
response to new Jen's
recommendations mr. mayor you asked a second ago what's the
mission and I
wanted to kind of put this on the board is our goal is
staff and we were
certainly open to changes in this is we have a rate design
that has cost
recovery through equitable rates for everyone that we're
doing business with
doesn't mean that subsidization doesn't exist but we want
to make sure that it's
targeted where counsels comfortable with in a manner that
benefits our citizens
our ratepayers the folks that we want to take care of so
there is some sub rate
subsidization that's happening between and within rate
classes I'll provide
just a snippet of those here in just a moment but you all
hit on one that has
our attention as well that's the gate rate versus the
wholesale rates and I'll
just emphasize that as staff we agree 100% with everything
that's been put on
the record I think the question becomes is how do we get
there and the market
is going to respond as we make adjustments to rates and we
have to be
sensitive to that and like like Dave said make those
incremental adjust
adjustments so we protect the the financial health of the
fund so our
approach if we're all on the same page of equitable rate
design our approach
is to maintain the funds financial health we've reduced our
reliance on
debt funding we'd like to continue to do that it affords us
a lot more
flexibility essentially we're not going to be issuing debt
for the next two
years and a lot of the accelerated equipment purchases and
stuff that
you'll hear about from Terry in just a moment we're all
doing that with existing
debt and so we are in a very enviable position from a
financial standpoint at
the fund it should give us enough flexibility to address
some of the
issues that we put out there today as a follow-up to the
Blue Ridge discussion
that you all had a couple weeks ago we are going to be
looking to improve
operational efficiencies that may be an area where we can
achieve additional
rate decreases as well as evaluating subsidized programs
and services note
that doesn't mean that we're talking about eliminating
things it may be that
we need to retool something or that we take a different
approach in terms of
our rate design essentially what's happening with some of
these and I'll
just kind of transition to that here in just a moment is we
have programs that
everyone's paying for but only a small fraction or
percentage of our customers
are using and we're not saying that's good bad or otherwise
but that is
certainly a strategy policy decision and we just want to
make sure that that's
all on the table and that we take council direction on
where we want to go
with those I want to thank councilmember Melcer he brought
this up and this is
actually a question that kind of spurred the cost of
service study to begin with
it was you know what is the cost for curbside disposal
versus the disposal
that's crossing the scales and so what we put up here on
the board is basically
proportionate tonnage versus proportionate revenue by
customer
classes and so the green bar there is your tonnage that we
accept at the
landfill and then the blue bar is the proportionate revenue
that we realize
from each of those customer classes for simplicity we've
combined wholesale and
retail here we've talked about that already ideally what we
like to see is
that these are pretty close waste handling waste at the
landfill not all
waste is created equally so there's not always a direct
correlation between
tonnage and revenue I'll give you an example is accepting
regular municipal
solid waste it can be fairly dense and so the weight on
that might be heavier
than say a mattress that you may be accepting but the cost
to process the
mattress and dispose of that is actually much higher and so
there's not always a
one-to-one correlation on this
Councilmember Braggs and then Councilmember Milner
my question was on the last the page before you were
talking about programs and
services I'm just wondering if you could give us the public
and a couple of what
what you're specifically talking about I will have two
slides on that in just a
minute oh it's in the okay thank you go ahead
Councilmember Nolte yeah I was you know nodding as if I
understood then I
realized I did not really understand what's the difference
between commercial
and wholesale retail I get the point of the slide that you
know commercial is in
effect and residential to a lesser extent is subsidizing
wholesale and retail
but I don't actually know what the difference is between
they sound like
the same thing okay yeah I'll carve out that distinction so
residential and
commercial this is what our trucks collect curbside this is
the tonnage
that is entered into the facility via city of Denton truck
wholesale and
retail is basically customers showing up at the scales with
their own vehicle in
the case of wholesale that's your large outside haulers
with retail it can be a
mix in some cases that will be your residents in some cases
it's local
businesses and other cases it may be smaller haulers from
outside the
community and so that's that's kind of the distinction
there does that make
sense I want to make sure I'm tracking so commercial is
what our trucks bring in
it is but they're bringing in residential trash but what
you're calling
residential is individuals coming to the gate yes
residential we have two
different collection systems in our department that's okay
it's a good
question our residential routes they collect from all the
single-family homes
in the community our commercial routes collect from multi-
family businesses
institutions like the city of Denton those are all
collected via commercial
routes anyone that shows up at the scales outside of the
city of Denton
they get classified either as wholesale or retail okay
thank you so I think the
other question that came up was where would we like to see
this mix okay where
would we like to see this mix at an aggregate level you'd
like to see your
tonnage be somewhat close tracking with your revenue from a
proportionate basis
it doesn't mean that there won't be some subsidization but
we want that to be
targeted subsidization and that it benefits the folks that
we want to
benefit from this namely our residences and our businesses
yeah and I just want
to point out for the members of the public who are here and
anybody watching
that you know if you look at this and this is just to pat
our residents on the
back if you look at this chart I mean yes it shows that you
know commercial
and wholesale bring in a lot more revenue for the landfill
but you can see
obviously how little we as residents how little trash we
produce compared to also
percentage wise in our landfill you know compared to
commercial operations and of
course the same is true in in our electric department as
well and I just
mentioned this to you know pat our residents on the back
because there's so
much emphasis on what we can do as consumers and residents
you know to stop
wasting and make a difference in the environment and all
that is really great
but when you look at this you can see really what that we
have a pretty small
foot we as individual residents have a pretty small
footprint so I just think
it's important that that people understand that and that we
you know
figure out a way to to go back to the point councilwoman Br
iggs was making
before that we can reward our find a way to in terms of
that balance that you
were talking about as well to reward our residents for
their really relatively
low consumption small contributing to our our landfill and
our small
production rather of trash you know in a way that keeps
their rates low so do you
have the figure for the I do I do and so again I combine
wholesale and retail
here for simplicity but if you were to break those two
apart essentially what
you're looking at from a tonnage standpoint retail is about
41% of the
tonnage but makes up about 57% of our revenue at the scales
that's about 3.1
million dollars and as Dave said when he was at the podium
our wholesale is about
2.3 million dollars on an annual basis from revenues what's
the tonnage on that
on the wholesale 101 thousand 662 sorry percentage because
you said the retail
was 41% so that the wholesale would be 59% yes
all right so in terms of our approach of addressing rate
subsidization this is
kind of what we're proposing for each rate class and tracks
very similar to
what Dave said at the podium for residential we do
recommend maintaining
rates at existing levels I will address kind of some of the
programs and
operational efficiencies on the next slide just as a refres
her and Terry
cater from our fleet department is going to come up speak
to this in just a
moment we do have some areas of opportunity in both
residential refuse
and recycling improved routing fleet maintenance we can
probably reduce some
operational costs there in addition we also want to assess
and seek direction on
some of the underperforming programs that are being subsid
ized for commercial
we have a lot of areas of opportunity here we want to
simplify the rate
structure address the over recovery that's happening as
they put up on the
screen short term what we plan to do on that is utilize
some of our excess
reserves to reduce some of the over recovering rates that
are most
substantial we'll be bringing that forward to counsel in
the next few weeks
as we bring our proposed rates long term as recommended is
we will slowly adjust
those rates toward cost recovery and essentially the
leverage that you use
there is not only reducing expenses and cost but also
adjusting to the market on
your pricing in some areas of the operation it's not just
landfill that's
exposed to market risk we also compete commercial recycling
that's a
competitive market and we also have a lot of special types
of waste like sludge
and some other things that get brought into our facility we
believe there's
some areas of opportunity there that we can leverage and
perhaps accelerate some
of the rate correction strategies councilman breaks has a
question so on
the on the chart commercial was tonnage was really high and
then I'm looking and
I think we are we overcharging for commercial recycling was
that part of
the rate study I'm not sure I'd have to take a look at that
that the challenging
part about commercial at an aggregate it's over collecting
but within the
commercial rate structure some fun some rates are over
collecting some are
under collecting so it's not a blanket answer that's
something that we intend
to address and kind of fold into this rate correction
strategy ultimately I
think one of the questions that came through an email was
what's the timeline
for this the answer right now is we're not sure we're still
unpacking our
existing rates trying to do a gap analysis to see where we
need to be and
then I think once we get there then we'll bring back the
the correction
strategy for you all to consider well just looking at the
the tonnage for
residential being so much lower I feel like it's because we
have a really great
recycling program and and rate for our residential
customers and so I'd also
kind of like to to see that figured in as well okay with
the commercial sure we
can certainly look at that in terms of landfill we've
talked a bit about this
already address subsidization while remaining competitive
in the market I do
think it when you look out three to four years this
discussion of do we accept
outside waste if so what's the price we do have quite a bit
of flexibility
financially as you can see with the the bottom line as you
get to the out years
what that will afford us the opportunity to do is have that
type of policy
discussion with council is do you want to accept it right
now we probably can't
contend with a 2.3 million dollar hole in our budget if we
were to step away
from wholesale but two or three years from now we will
certainly have that
leverage if that's what we want to do and it really becomes
a strategic
discussion for council on where do we want to be and if we
want outside waste
in here what's the price for utilizing our asset in
addition there are some
additional subsidized operations still at the landfill we
talked about those
during the the Blue Ridge discussion BMR and rubble
processing to kind of give
you an idea of how cost of service kind of tracks this is
one of our residential
cart services and it kind of gives you a pie chart and a
breakout of where a
monthly bills cost go by and large most of this is centered
around recycling
collection and refuse collection which we consider core
services and then you
fold in disposal so landfill cost for a resident with a
large cart it's about
two dollars and eighty nine cents a month down to a small
cart it's about a
dollar forty five then you get into some of your ancillary
services like yard
waste and brush collection on chemical collection bulky
items here's the BMR
and rubble I have that highlighted red because understand
residents don't
necessarily get any benefit out of that service however
when we have an
operation that's that's losing financially or is not
recovering its
cost basically that gets allocated out to the other service
categories we also
have the KDB which was mentioned earlier at 64 cents a
month and then you have
your franchise fees and administrative overhead so as we go
through kind of and
talk about some of these programs and such really what we
want to look at is
how do we balance the value of it we want to put it on the
table to make sure
that the council understands here's the benefit here's the
purpose of this
program here's the value it's providing how many people are
using it and here's
the associated cost and again that discussion is not
necessarily to curb a
program or to remove it and maybe do we want to try to
tackle a different way of
providing that service and trying to get a little bit more
efficient
councilman Ryan the councilman Riggs when you have up there
the disposal cost
does that include is that simply what goes into the
landfill or does that
include where is the so I guess the yard waste the cost of
processing the yard
waste is built into that 539 we don't actually process the
yard waste that's
with beneficial reuse and they recover their costs through
the dino dirt and
composting operation this is strictly for the collection
okay
councilman Briggs on keep it beautiful public outreach do
other keep whatever
city beautifuls do that is that normal for that to come out
of residential
rates I mean is this typical of what other cities are doing
we typically try
to allocate you know where we're the benefits being derived
and we can
certainly go back and I think this is is this allocated
directly to commercial as
well or just residential so it's allocated across the board
is spread as
overhead
am I misremembering or did we not discuss BMR and what my
recollection is
is that we concluded that that that evaluation would go
through the
environment committee but that in the interim that we would
revert to the
status quo ante and and have self sorting you know rather
than do the
current the current process is that is that still the
direction or it is it is
in the Friday report I provided an update on on that so if
you pull that
out it we're planning to launch that next Monday in terms
of the public
disposal area as well as the recycling drop-off the
downside to the the kind of
temporary approach to that is you don't really get to
extract much cost now
understand too much like landfill mining even if we had
direction today that we're
gonna step away from this operation it's kind of the effect
of debt service it
takes a little while for that to taper off and so just a
rough estimate would
be that we would be able to extract ourselves from 67 to 70
percent of this
cost within the next three to five years and that's just
kind of the step down
effect of the debt service so question I think we used to
now correct me if I'm
wrong when I see bulky items and I see I guess HCC is
household chemical
collection also can like paints and stuff like that they
also do electronic
pickup appliances things of that nature so did we used to
charge for that
specific individually I thought there are some charges now
home chemical
collection does not have a charge that's provided as a
bundle service right for
certain pieces of electronics televisions things like that
there is a
reason because it's like if they have free on or something
like that for
refrigerators yes and then electronics I believe there's a
$25 service fee at the
curb and bulky item is not that's free of charge okay I
guess the reason I say
that I asked the question is because obviously I mean you
probably have the
data how many of those types of pickups we do based upon
our residential count
right and and I don't know what that number is so my
thought was if that
number is real low then in essence everybody's sort of
subsidizing this
small program whereas if you don't need it you're paying
for it and then if you
did need it you're paying for it in the subsidy and if you
don't need it you're
still paying for it in the substance I think at one point
we had maybe not with
household chemical but I thought with bulky items maybe you
're allowed some and
if you have more than that you get there's a fee yeah
typically with bulky
items and that's what actually one of our ancillary
services that's that's
performing very well kind of the trade-off there and why it
's built like
it is today is you try to curb illegal dumping is really
what sure no
understand that yeah that's not a criticism I'm just trying
to understand
no no no but that's that's a good example of a program even
if it has a
small percentage it helps the cost is relatively low to the
value you
delivered so as you look at some of these other programs we
certainly have
participation numbers on it I think the thing that we would
come back to
counsel with on an analysis is how much do you save by ret
ooling and trying to
make a different approach on chemical collections a great
example if we just
do drop-off instead of coming by and picking it up you're
really not going to
save that much money but what you try to do then is expand
your your reach
and how do we get more participation out of this program to
up the value of it I
think yard waste is an interesting study because it has a
very seasonal effect
but it's it's a lot of fixed costs and so the cost is kind
of there year-round
and so I think all these are going to be kind of an
interesting discussion and we
want to make sure that we kind of put some options on the
table for council to
consider yes I want to say regarding the home chemical
collection I would
strongly encourage and this is reiterating something I said
last time
with the blue ridge study that where we have underperform
ing programs that are
important to us that we value as a city that we up
education and make sure that
we are retaining staff who do education and who are
reaching out to the
community to to up those levels and I would also add that
even even at the
current level and I admit it is too low and we need more
people to know about
our hazardous chemical collection services these services
are still
benefiting everybody all of us because we're all benefiting
in a way that's
hard to quantify but by not having these hazardous
chemicals in in our in our
water in our air having a go to you know places where it
can be contained and
disposed of safely so that's something that we all benefit
from so you mentioned
I think is a couple months back about a pilot program where
you were gonna
because I know what the home chemical collection you're
limited I mean let's
say you're dealing with paint you can put out I think I
think the maximum at
each time is I think 10 gallons or something like that but
I thought we
were gonna look at a pilot program where it was a drop-off
somebody had more than
that that you know if his commercial instead of them
throwing in the dumpster
which then goes in the landfill that if they want to come
by and drop it off
somewhere they can do that did we ever we do and I don't
have the data with me
mr. mayor but we're seeing about 10 drop-offs a day give or
take and that's
just out at the landfill and that's just out at the
landfill we have some
signage out there that directs and we'll be also instit
uting some signage for the
public disposal and for soccer thank you so in terms of the
programs again this
is just kind of a rehash of what we talked about Blue Ridge
however we want
to reiterate our proposed approach for each of those
programs is we are gonna
be performing additional analysis that includes feasibility
what's the purpose
of the program is it meeting those needs as well as kind of
the financial
analysis which we've gotten a lot of today we'll also
present the results to
the committee of the environment public utilities board
council at your
direction and then we'll also kind of move forward from
there the schedule
discussions that we have is posted up here on the board as
well we do want to
read this at the BMR and the rebel processing what we'd
like to do is have
about three months under our belt with the new
configuration see how that's
working come back and get some guidance from the council
yard waste is also in
the first quarter as well as recycling and then we have the
home chemical
collection and bulky items in quarter two and the enhanced
leachate
recirculation system in quarter three councilmember Melzer
I would just like
to offer a thought for preparation for when you come back
on the home chemical
collection if they're maybe you've already done this I'll
put it out there
when you think about the communication strategies I think
probably you know 99
percent plus of the time people aren't thinking about their
home chemicals nor
nor will they no matter how loudly we talk about it because
it's only gonna
matter when you've got home chemicals to dispose of your so
if there's you know
if there are strategies and I'm not saying I know what they
are yet but I'm
kind of putting this out as a as a maybe like a challenge
you know think of
strategies but I think of strategies that would target
maybe citizens at the
point where they consume chemicals just some way to speak
to them when right
when they actually care about it because you know putting
stuff in the you know
the electric rate the electric bills and so on it's you
know I think it's
largely not hitting people at a time where they're gonna be
receptive to them
I think that's a great point and in the area the areas of
opportunity or
something we want to be sensitive to is you know we're to
University town and not
not that a college students tend to accumulate chemicals
but when you move
in or you move out of a home that's typically when the
garage gets cleaned
out and some of that stuff is available for disposal and we
definitely have some
opportunities we acknowledge that in terms of the outreach
and communication
and so we're definitely gonna ramp that up in addition we
also have the
possibility of going regional and introducing a revenue
stream into that
we wanted to kind of get our feet under us with our
citizens first to make sure
we can service them and then we can certainly go back and
explore that down
the road point will take us just for right now anyway I
really like that idea
of expanding home chemical collection as an added source of
revenue and in in in
addition to increasing customer awareness it just kind of
two suggestions
about ways to increase awareness one advertising on you
know television and
radio and then another through our schools and and I don't
mean just
educating children for the future generations but I mean so
that kids are
because kids love recycling and science teachers love
having projects especially
with this new I mean we're doing it with roots and shoots
programs you know the
root the Jane Goodall program that we're doing through the
schools something
where kids are coming home saying guess what mom and dad
you know these these
medicines and and paints that you have here you know this
you know you're
disposing them wrong here's how you need to do it right I
mean there's nobody
like a kid to guilt trip you into to doing things the right
way so I would
strongly suggest that as well and I think the teachers
would love having
that opportunity you know to elementary I'm thinking some
elementary bit of high
school to partner with the city in addition to the
universities on that
thank you in terms of next steps like I mentioned earlier
we do need to complete
the rate design we're in process of that right now we
should be circling back
with the council within the next few weeks to have that
discussion new gen is
also gonna be wrapping up the market study in addition to
studying some of
the landfills are also gonna be looking at some of our
special ways some of the
things that require some special handling for us we're
gonna partner with
Nugent as well to kind of craft that rate correction
strategy that'll be
complete with timelines and kind of the incremental
adjustments and we definitely
want to get council input on how do we want to go about
that and implement it
in addition our department budget will be going to the
public utilities board on
July 23rd and then we will be circling back with council in
early August to
have our budget discussion as well and with that I'll stand
for any additional
questions you have any additional questions yes just a
request because the
the chart that you showed is not in our backup and I didn't
see it if you could
just send that to us or or upload it to the backup on the
agenda thank you I
will do that any other questions yeah to what extent now we
received something
about this on our council Friday report can you speak to to
what extent are the
plans for for staff restructuring to what extent do they
factor into
projections you know both in this response presentation and
and the
previous presentation in terms of budget projections
expenses so when we come
back with our budget we'll be recommending a reduction in
of 10 FTEs
now the vast majority of that was achieved through programs
that we just
continued last year so you had landfill mining being the
big one and so we do
want to maintain some budget flex or some personnel flex
ibilities we go
through our restructure as a matter of fact fleet service
is going to come up
in a moment we have an existing vacancy that we're going to
be proposing
converting to a fleet technician we'll certainly dive into
that as we get
through the budget discussions but all that is fully baked
into these
projections that you received today yeah that's thank you
that's my
understanding and you know because I know that that that
there things have
happening now and even you know plans for towards the end
of June to begin
this restructuring process I want to take this opportunity
since it is
factored into these calculations just to say you know I'm I
'm concerned about
about staff morale of course you know anytime you talk
about restructuring
there's going to be a crisis in staff morale so I just want
to emphasize not
just me happen myself but for all of our citizens who value
so much the services
that our landfill provides even the ones that are that are
being being
underused that that that care be taken to retain the the
talent that we have
and to keep up morale to try to raise morale as we're rest
ructuring and
letting people know that we really value their talent and
that we don't see staff
as just a burden and an extra cost but really is essential
to what we do I'd
like to take this moment to emphasize that in no way shape
or form do we see
our staff as a as a burden or an expense our staff is what
makes what we do
every day possible and so I understand the concerns in
terms of a restructuring
these are always difficult processes to get through and I
think we've done our
best to take the ultimate cares we kind of work through
this doesn't mean it's
going to be easy I think the end goal in terms of the rest
ructuring is to allocate
our resources where we need them the most I think you'll
get some of that when
Terry comes up and as it kind of relates back to Blue Ridge
is we have positions
that are needed in some areas of the organization that aren
't currently being
funded and so we're using this as a means to address those
issues in addition
to that I would just say that as we go through the even I
've just gotten word
from the city attorney that we're sort of getting we're
sort of getting into more
personnel issues and and so I think the budget question was
addressed as far as
it baked in and isn't only a personnel issue if you
mentioned specific
personnel well the the personnel issue it's starting to get
into the budget
discussion which in my understanding you're coming before
the council on
August 2nd when these questions about personnel restruct
uring would probably be
the best time to address those issues rather through a the
cost of service and
rate design study that's being presented today okay well I
was well anyway thank
you for answering that and I was just since I know that
that that that
restructuring is already beginning I wanted to just have
that opportunity to
address in public but thank you thank you so much for that
appreciate it
thank you all right we're gonna take a five minute break
before we come up for
the next one
welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Dent City
Council on Tuesday July
the 17th 2018 it is 1137 and we're on agenda item number
two receive report
hold discussion of our work session excuse me agenda item
number two of our
work session receive report hold discussion give staff
direction regarding
an action plan in response to solid waste fleet maintenance
recommendations
contained in an operational review performed by Blue Ridge
Services good
morning mayor one of members of council as promised I'm
Terry cater fleet
services superintendent I'm going to continue discussion on
solid waste but
I'm gonna shift gears here a little bit and talk about
refuse truck maintenance
so we want to address some of the recommendations that came
about as a
result of the Blue Ridge study there were a couple of areas
that they looked
at that that we want to address they made some
recommendations and we want to
bring a couple of the solutions to you that we've come up
with both immediate
and some long-term areas as well so one of the things that
we looked at was
reducing truck overloading we know it some trucks come
across the scales on
some routes they're overweight and this of course is very
harsh on the trucks
and damaging to the suspension system so we want to monitor
that scale data on a
daily basis and Ethan's group is working on some
performance measures to put in
place to remind operators that there is a weight limit on
the truck and to keep
them within that weight limit as they come across the
scales on the pre and
post-trip inspections we currently use a paper system and
what we're proposing to
do is upgrade that to an electronic format and what that
will do is give us
real-time notification us fleet services as well as their
supervisors that there
are issues with the truck and we could get those queued up
and get the parts
ordered in and queue those in place for the maintenance
activity that needs to
be performed and we think that'll just give us a little bit
of heads up and and
allow us to schedule those in better so it'll really
enhance the repair process
we've looked at revising our repair processes just to the
whole focus here is
to reduce the downtime of the trucks and to give Ethan's
group better
availability of the refuse truck so in light of the fact
that we have limited
repair space in the shop our base base is maxed out we were
looking at double
teaming trucks as they come into the shop using an
experienced technician
along with one of the inter-level folks that we have on
staff that'll do two
things it'll get the truck out quicker it'll also allow us
to cross-train and
bring those young technicians up to speed a little bit
quicker as well we
want to be looking at the use of our overtime and making
sure that we can do
that productively make sure we have the parts in stock
before we schedule over
time on the trucks and also if a trucks in the shop just
extend the shift for
those technicians that are currently working on the truck
to get the truck
out and especially in a case where we have parts in hand we
're just short of
time we can allow those texts to stay over finish the truck
and it could be
back on the route the next morning we're also looking at
implementing a quick
service lane what that will do is allow the drivers to come
by the shop in the
mornings as they pull out when they find a minor or safety
related issue with their
truck we can if it takes less than 15 minutes we'll
dedicate technicians to
that quick service lane and allow them to change out light
bulbs mirrors
headlights those kind of things that could be a safety
issue on the route we
want to make sure that that's first and foremost and then
any non safety related
stuff we can schedule schedule them at a later time and
that'll also allow us to
get those parts up and schedule the trucks so we'll have
advanced notice on
that as well we've we currently outsource some repairs to
mobile
technicians on the chassis side but the major problem that
we're having right
now with the refuse collection trucks is on the body side
of the truck so we've
contacted the manufacturer of the trucks as well as their
local distributor and
we partnered with them to provide us with some local
technicians a couple of
times a month to come out and do repairs on site and that
would be at a time when
the trucks are normally not on route as well so it'd be
after their normal
service hours and they've agreed to provide us with some
help on that one of
the recommendations is that we open communications up
between operators and
technicians and see how that we could work together to help
each other better
maintain the trucks and I think opening some dialogue on
that we're going to
schedule some meetings with tax and operators fleet
services currently
schedules quarterly meetings with all of our operating
department supervisors and
managers we're going to extend this down to the next level
for our technicians so
that we can understand what their operators are going
through they can
understand what our technicians are going through when it
comes to
maintaining their vehicles and then scheduling periodic
vehicle inspections
with the vendor the OEM of the vehicle and matter of fact
they've already done
that they've came out and done a study on the current fleet
situation and so
we're in process of prioritizing those repairs so that we
could queue them up
and get the trucks in and get them back in service one of
the things that we are
looking at is addressing the staffing levels and so we
yesterday was a big day
for fleet we became fully staffed for the first time since
2016 so we just
brought another young technician on staff so we've been
working with HR on
some incentives to get technicians to come to the city to
go to work for us
experienced technicians as well as retaining the
technicians that we do
have the ones that we're currently working with and
training so we've got
several recommendations that we will bring before
management on how to
attract and maintain the technicians there's a nationwide
shortage of
technicians right now dentin is not unusual in the fact
that we can't get
people to apply for positions we've also looked at how we
advertise those
positions what incentives can we or can't we put in place
to make that more
attractive for technicians part of it is just getting the
word out to people and
maybe advertising in different areas that we normally
wouldn't advertise in
and I'll talk a little bit more about working with some of
the local schools
and technical colleges to partner with them to bring that
realization to those
to those folks as well so over time this didn't happen
overnight but over time
we've had a tendency to keep some of our older trucks
longer than we need to and
we're spending quite a bit of maintenance time and money on
the on the
spare refuse fleet if you will and we would like to retire
six of those trucks
as quickly as we can and get those out of the fleet that's
going to reduce
maintenance costs first of all but secondly it will allow
us to allocate
the current technician time to more frontline units because
even though
they're not frontline units we still spend a lot of time
working on these
trucks and money as well and we'll talk about how we would
like to retire those
trucks and what we're going to replace them with in a
minute one of the things
is the leasing or rental of six new trucks and we can do
that over one year
period there are short-term leases that we can engage in
there are also some
rental options on a month-to-month basis and working with
manufacturers recently
because we thought the purchase process would be quite
extensive to get new
trucks into the queue into the build queue but we found out
that there are
some chassis on the ground that we could take advantage of
and we could get some
trucks in here really in just a couple of months council
member Ryan thank you
mayor are any of these six that you're talking about
retiring are they part of
the CNG fleet these are not these are more units than the
CNG these would be
2013 models and some 2012's primarily 2013 and 2014 thank
you
because my bricks and on that I'm wondering so if we if we
lease the six
new vehicles then if they have an issue would they go back
to the dealership and
not use some of our maintenance time that's correct they're
under full
warranty for the year they will either come on site repair
the trucks we were
we would be responsible for the normal preventative
maintenance right so oil
changes and tires things like that and so to his question
about the fuel what
type of fuel will these use lease and rental trucks are
both going to be diesel
the fact is that there's just not enough entities out there
that are leasing CNG
vehicle so there's no CNG trucks to my knowledge that are
available for lease
or rental okay thank you so the longer term solutions we've
looked at and
recommending are accelerating the refuse truck replacement
schedule we've looked
at this year because we're so late in the year purchasing
the current year
model trucks combining those purchases for this year next
year and purchasing
an entire group of trucks at the same time that would get
rid of the not only
those six trucks but you know another six or seven trucks
behind it as well and
then in the long term procuring a contract so that when we
do go out to
purchase trucks we have like we have with some of our other
vehicles the
light duty vehicles and some construction equipment we have
contracts in
place where we can just go out for three years it's a one-
year contract with a
couple of renewals and we're able to just buy off from that
contract for the
next three years and say it's real time saver when it comes
to ordering
equipment one of the recommendations were that we were
short on technicians
we we realize that so we are advocating dedicating five
technicians just to the
solid waste fleet we have currently approximately the
equivalent of three
full-time technicians working on that sort of on that side
of the fleet so we
would be actually adding two technicians to provide that
service and one of the
one of the ways it's easy to say hire technicians but if
they're not out there
then that makes it a lot more difficult so even though we
'll be advertising we
don't look at that as a next 30-day thing it's going to
take some time to get
some candidates in and even if we do they're probably going
to be younger
folks that are less experienced so experienced refuse truck
technicians are
just about non-existent and so our councilmember Briggs has
a question and
with the five technicians is that what you recommend even
with the lease trucks
that you're proposing I mean is that go hand-in-hand it it
does because the
actual recommendation from Blue Ridge was up to eight
technicians that we
needed dedicated I kind of paired that back to five I think
that's more
reasonable number especially in light of the fact that we
're going to be retiring
a lot of the older vehicles in the next year and it just
makes more economic
sense to me and I think we'll still be able to stand top
the program and it's
my understanding that solid waste built a mechanical
building out at the
landfill is that where these are going to be housed or is
all going to be in
the same that's a discussion that we're gonna have because
we're gonna present
a discussion on how we're gonna expand the fleet facility
and whether we expand
on site whether we go off to solid waste and propose a bit
of building out there
or look at some new site so that will be coming up all
right thank you so to get
time to get technicians we're looking at targeting some of
the technical schools
there's a couple here that are local just reaching out to
them with some
materials on the city let them know that we are an entity
that does the exact
kind of work that they're being trained for let them know
what the opportunities
and benefits are for working for the city and spend some
time at some of their
career career days at these schools and you know bring them
up to speed on the
city of Denton fleet and then looking at the onboarding
timeline it it really
depends on the initiatives we put in place to attract
technicians to apply
we've had positions open since January of this year and
they've been very
difficult to fill just with any kind of experience at all
so very few
applications come in we're also looking at salary
considerations especially when
it comes to specifically dedicated refuse technicians that
's an area of
repair that's not very appealing to a lot of folks and so
we want to try to
see what we can put in place to make that more appealing
and typically that
has to do with salary yeah has any thought been given into
given to what
the the costs would be to train here in house to have some
sort of city
sponsored you know tech job training program that actually
has been discussed
initially because what we're proposing in light of the fact
that we don't feel I
don't feel that even in the next 18 months the technician
shortage is gonna
get any better it's just gonna get worse frankly so we've
actually talked about
the possibility of bringing an on-site trainer and to take
the entry-level tech
from entry-level basic whether it has tech school or not if
he has the
aptitude and bring him from entry-level up to master
certified over a period of
time and I think that's certainly worth looking into that
just to follow up yeah
thank you I would I would support that and to do you know
outreach to you know
if we could if we could do that to get that and then
outreach to all kinds of
people who in our community who need jobs we're pretty good
for jobs here and
it but but but I know there are a number of people who
would categories of people
who would benefit by something like this I think that would
be really great to
have city sponsored something and advertising at the rec
centers and all
around town thank you
we're gonna be looking at the feasibility of the
implementation of a
transfer station at solid waste and what a transfer station
is basically it's a
dumping pad that's away from the working face that allows
operators to bring
trucks in and dump them in an environment that's not as
hazardous to
the truck itself because going in and out of the landfill
every day with a
refuse truck fully loaded that's 40 to 60 thousand pounds
that's really hard on
tires it's hard on steering suspension components and there
are a number of and
indeed number of cities that operate landfills that
actually have transfer
stations or dumping pads that so they don't allow their
trucks to go in the
landfill at all and I think it would help increase the life
of our trucks the
longevity of the trucks and reduce the maintenance costs on
the trucks over the
life cycle and then question on that Terry quick question
so currently the
trucks go up to the edge of the landfill they dump it and
then the bulldozers or
whatever come in and spread it out so forth and so on so
with a transfer
station they just dump it somewhere let's just say it's a
big either concrete
pad or something then you have to have equipment that moves
that to the working
face to the to the landfill to the so I guess they would be
in close proximity
to one another typically there well they can be or they don
't have to be you
could have a central location where the transfer station is
where all the truck
routes can meet up and dump there's a lot of different ways
looking at it I'm
certainly not an expert on the transfer stations or how
solid waste is operated
but I'm just trying to think of different actions we can
take to reduce
maintenance costs and increase longevity and then that
would be compared with
what are the additional costs for the transfer station and
maintaining the
yes sir you'd have to do a cost study on that okay yes
exactly yes to that point
when you are considering those and if you bring something
back to council if
you could just include if that type of thing would increase
the smell since
we're dumping twice and if there's any environmental
concerns of just dumping
everything on a large pad about runoff and whatnot okay
thank you and then
we've talked a little bit about additional base base we
know that our
shop was has reached capacity basically and we're doing a
lot of work on the
outside so we do have a presentation being developed that
will bring forth
the council with some such alternatives that we can use in
terms of increasing
base base whether that's our current facility or at Ethan's
location or another
location that's convenient so just a summary the quick
solutions basically
we've already started on some of these things to get them
implemented and you
know improving communication you can never go wrong without
one we want to
want to look at the lease of six trucks and or the purchase
of trucks if we can
accomplish that through a contract fairly quickly the main
objective is to
increase the uptime of the trucks and that's going to
involve getting rid of
the six old trucks that we have at least six trucks and
yeah I'm sorry
do any of those the six kind of trucks that we need come in
electric models I
don't think they're fully electric that I'm aware of there
are hybrids out there
now that are in the refuse industry so they're they're
hybrid electric but not
fully electric vehicles at this point thanks yeah I'd be I
would support
looking into that and also looking into projections for
when fully electric I
wouldn't be surprised if there's some in test on the west
coast right now that's
where you're gonna see him show up first and I wouldn't be
surprised if they're
already in the testing but I don't think they're out for
production at this point
so it will be coming though thank you so we already talked
about the long-term
accelerating replacements and dedicating technicians base
base so be happy to
answer any questions any other questions councilmember
Hudson yeah so just to on
the electronic monitoring on the vehicle itself have we
talked to anyone that
has utilized that I know I read something easy they're
easily damaged
maybe that's a different model different version but just
trying to understand
you're talking about scales that are that are on the
vehicle itself yes we've
actually tried in several different solutions when it comes
to scales and
we've talked to a number of entities that have tried that
as well where it
works best is where you don't go into the landfill
environment like a transfer
station because the all the stuff that gets kicked up under
the chassis tears
those systems up and so for us for our application it
really became a maintenance
nightmare because we couldn't keep them functional so they
weren't reliable
calibration is another issue entirely keeping them calib
rated and how you know
how accurate are they that seemed to be a problem as well
but we have tried fork
scales we've tried chassis scales where it weighs the
entire body of the truck
we've decided and the other thing that's they're very
expensive systems too so
what we found is we've expended a lot of funding for that
and then it didn't
realize the potential and so the other thing you touched on
was can you is there
a fixed time as far as at least truck being repaired so we
report an issue
with the least truck do they have a fixed time if they
reply to you or is it
just kind of as business demands I believe that we can
specify that in the
contract with them the lease contract would have to go
through a legal
department of course but those those type of things can be
addressed if we're
the lease or rent a truck in the contract itself and I'm
assuming that
it's in most cases it's gonna be slower or cost prohibitive
versus if we did it
in-house that's that's what I'm trying to measure that's
the trade-off typically
you're gonna wait on them rather than we do it and there
may be a case if it's
something minor we just do it and get the truck back in
service and build them
on the back end of that okay and that's an option it's some
depends on the
manufacturer so manufacturers allow us to work on trucks
and build them for it
which we do now and some won't we have to be authorized to
do that okay and so
that would be my preference that as we whenever it comes
back that we either
one allow us to do the work find someone that sourced
someone that'll allow us to
do the work second to that if there's someone that just
will swap the trucks
right just hey if there's a way to build in a contract you
bring us one take this
one back bring it back to us yes sir that's an excellent
idea yeah that's
my preference if understanding that's gonna cost more but
it's it's worth it
to then just have the ability to have a runner or something
even on our end that
just kind of swaps them out exactly thank you down time is
the key yeah any
questions yes yeah to follow up on that on the scales I
think in one of your
beginning slides you mentioned that the trucks become
overweight and is that a
skill issue or is that because we need more trucks out
collecting I would have
to defer that question to Ethan actually that's okay yeah I
think it's more of
just an operational issue to be honest with you I mean it's
we took a look at
our commercial loads and about 16% over about a month we're
overweight a lot of
times that happens because our drivers are out on the route
trying to beat
traffic you know they're trying to get into the commercial
and the businesses
before business opens we may have to trade that off and say
you know the
average weight of a load or of a container is this once you
hit this mark
you need to be working your way back to the facility we can
that we can add
complicated scale systems and all that it's going to add a
lot of cost to it I
think we can take a less scientific approach to it and say
operators when
you get to this number of containers typically you need to
start planning your
route back to the facility to the point that Terry had on
the slide earlier is
we can implement performance measures that will kind of
track that we have
those weights on a daily basis because they're crossing the
scales two or three
times we just haven't used that data to kind of manage our
weights in the past
and so that would be what we would recommend moving forward
and in our
discussions about downtown collection we talked about maybe
some of the
solutions needed different types of vehicles or types of
trucks and I assume
that by leasing vehicles that may be better for us in case
we do decide later
on to use a certain different kind of truck we didn't
factor that into the
plans I think the least that we're doing right now and we
can always reconfigure
I would guess the lease at a later point is to try to get
us kind of out of the
the downtime situation that we're in with our vehicles we
're carrying a lot
of backup fleet right now because we have so many issues
with our vehicles
being down and unavailable to us that we really didn't
factor that into this
round of leases but that's something we can look at in the
future I think the
councilmember Briggs question though we have looked at a
couple different
systems and the companies that provide those solutions also
provide the
equipment that's on the truck so it's sort of you you can't
really plan
for that until you know what system you're buying and
because they have
different pickup mechanisms any other questions thank you
very much
appreciate it all right we'll move on to agenda item 3c
receive report hold
discussion give staff direction regarding homelessness
initiatives and
update from the Denton County homelessness leadership team
and if we
could when once we get into the presentation I believe from
United Way
is when we want to you know take a couple slides two or
three slides let
them get through two or three or four of them and then
accumulate the questions
try to get through it comprehensively hi mayor Watts City
Council my name is
Sarah Keckler I'm the director of public affairs and today
we're gonna be doing a
presentation to give you an update on the homelessness
initiatives we last
presented to the City Council in February of 2018 at that
time we showed
this graphic on a slide I didn't describe it then and don't
worry I'm not
gonna describe it now but just as way of a reminder
homelessness is a very
complex social problem that we face that there's many
factors that contribute to
homelessness and then there are very many organizations and
agencies involved
in trying to address homelessness to help navigate that
complexity and to
unite all of the organizations that are working on it we
have taken a
collective impact approach in the county and in our
community and so
leading that collective impact approach for us is the Dent
on County homeless
leadership team and the United Way of Denton County is the
backbone agency
supporting that team and they're here today with us to
share updates on what
that team has been working on but really over the last two
years they've been
able to put into place the foundation necessary in a
housing crisis response
system I think that word system is very important prior to
2016 all these
agencies were working independently of each other and now
we're all on the same
page we're all in the same system we all under the same
data same measures able
to understand what is our outcome what are our gaps what do
we need so our
objectives today for the presentation I'm going to turn it
over to Courtney
Cross with the United Way she's gonna go through the first
half of the
presentation provide updates and then I'll come back up
provide some other
general updates that we're doing things that we're working
on and then as well
as give some background on research we've done on other
homeless employment
programs so I'll turn it over to Courtney.
And Courtney as you're going through if you think in two or
three slides if
that's a good stopping point for you to take questions I'll
just sort of let
that be at your discretion.
Some little numbers on the top of the slides we sectioned
it off so when we get to the end of a section I'll let you
know.
Okay good thank you appreciate that.
Good afternoon thanks for the introduction Sarah my name is
Courtney Cross I'm the
director of homelessness initiatives with the United Way of
Denton County I
always do this when I come up here. There we go. I'd like
to start with a few thank yous first to
Mayor Chris Watson Councilwoman Keely Briggs they have
served on our county
wide collective impact initiative to make homelessness rare
brief and
non-recurring for the past two years and so we just like to
thank them for their
dedication and service and we'd like to thank the City of
Denton for your
investment in this issue and the staff that we work with on
a regular basis
Sarah Keickler and Danny Shaw and just you know the city as
a whole and the
leadership for making this a priority issue we work with
multiple cities
throughout the county and we've talked with cities
throughout the US just about
you know people with different perspectives at different
levels of
their housing crisis response system and Denton is really
light years ahead of
many other communities so I'm sure you'll have plenty of
really great
questions for me today about what we're doing and how we
can make it better I
just want to start off by letting you know that Denton does
a lot and to even
you know have the infrastructure in place to address some
of these needs and
these really complex issues like homelessness you know it's
I think you
guys should give ourselves a pat on the back and just know
that we're really
grateful to be able to play a part so there are a lot there
's a lot of
progress being made and Denton County right now and from
United Way's
perspective and support of the Denton County homelessness
leadership team to
support the city and the county and reducing homelessness
and today we'd
like to focus on really three key progress updates for
council we're going
to talk about our coordinated entry system and what's
happened as a result
of that implementation we're going to review our 2018 point
-in-time count
report and then we'd like to give you an update on our our
newly established
Denton County Barriers Fund and request support for a
landlord outreach
initiative called doors for Denton County there is some
information provided
and backup about the additional progress updates but just
to let you know we are
working on a community facing data dashboard to include
some system
performance measures how long are people experiencing
homelessness is it their
first time homeless are they experiencing an increasing
income as a
result of receiving assistance things that really let us
know how we're
performing as a community how to better allocate resources
and and where we can
mobilize additional resources we are working on some
standards of excellence
really it's a mixture of best practice and also you know
incorporating in those
those data points in those metrics to really be informed by
best practices you
know and by by the data and what's really happening in our
community and
this includes some long-term long-term planning for our
shelters as well and
then additionally we've the leadership team has formed an
ad hoc work group or
committee centered on new housing and we know that our
county is growing we
consistently have a very high occupancy rate which I'll
talk about again later
but you know we're not as the mayor said before we're not
gonna really be able to
build our way out of this but we can build some and then we
know that in
addition to increasing accessibility to existing housing
stock we are gonna need
to be mindful of how much housing quote-unquote affordable
or work what you
would hear called workforce housing is developed and not
only in Denton but in
the county and realizing the whole purpose of this
initiative is to make it
a county or regional initiative and just to be mindful of
developing and placing
affordable housing equitably across the county so that's
not Denton kind of
carrying that burden as Sarah mentioned we serve as the
backbone support United
Way of Denton County serves as backbone support to the Dent
on County homelessness
leadership team our mission is pretty simple to make
homelessness rare brief
and non-recurring we primarily you know we oversee
strategic planning and
implementation coordination of services training and
support of our Denton
County homeless and housing service providers from shelters
to financial
and rental assistance and other supportive services and the
utilization
of data to improve our performance and make recommendations
and mobilize
resources Gary Henderson is our CEO and I'd like to
introduce Katherine Gonzalez
she's our she's our coordinated entry and HMIS support HMIS
is our database
where we put all our data in and I'll talk about that in a
moment but she's
what you gave us the last time we were here and and I'm
excited to kind of get
into the the progress we've made since the last time we
spoke so two and a half
years ago we sat down and said let's take a look at our
data and make some
informed decisions on homelessness and housing solutions
and then we realized
we didn't really have any data to pull from and what we did
have was not
reliable and it was a lot of comparing apples to oranges
there was no
uniformity and so that's that's what led to the
implementation of coordinated
entry and we kind of realize and collectively agree as a
community to
start consistently collecting data across our programs and
so that's how
coordinated entry came in into being it's also a tiny
little unfunded
mandate from the federal government so that was helpful to
have some necessary
participation but didn't counties coordinated coordinated
entry system I'm
just gonna stay pretty high level but if you have more
questions let me know and
that utilizes a common assessment tool to really meet
people where they're at
and quickly refer them to the most appropriate housing
intervention based on
their level of vulnerability what it really says is how can
we responsibly
and you know fiscally responsibly prioritize the resources
we have in our
community to house those most vulnerable of dying on the
street and what this
process allows us to do is to capture uniform data in a
shared database and
follow our referrals from start to finish so when someone
enters our system
to the point when they get housed how long is it taking and
what is that
experience like and that is that information is housed in
our homeless
management information system it's a shared database that
providers use and
agree to share information it helps us to it cuts down on
time when a family is
coming into an agency and having to give their information
and it also helps us
track their journey from homeless to housed and like I
mentioned and I will
continue to mention it helps us analyze performance it also
coordinated entry
also helps us really know the needs of people experiencing
homelessness through
that common assessment tool we get to learn about their
mental health needs or
physical health needs and then things like that how long
they've been
homeless if they're a family or if they're on their own it
's led to improved
coordination and performance across our agencies you know
when you're sharing
information and sharing a process you know there's a lot
more conversation and
communication and you can kind of it's a really great tool
not only the
database itself but the process itself is a great tool for
fostering increased
and improved communication across our agencies and it
allows us to develop a
working prioritized list of every person experiencing
homelessness in Denton
County the current focus of coordinated entry is literal
homelessness so the
folks who are living in an emergency shelter living out of
their car in the
woods that kind of thing a place not meant for human hab
itation we have
established two new front door or entry points and front
door agencies into our
coordinated entry system as of this year of 2018 so the Sal
vation Army in
Louisville is now a front door for folks experiencing
literal homelessness
further south in the county and also the Goodwill Denton
Job Resource Center the
next phases include expansion of coordinated entry
throughout the county
just access to to the process and access to housing
resources and that includes
you know heading up towards Sanger making sure they're set
up to be able to
access and operate the system it includes working with
Little Elm Police
Department has reached out to our street outreach team
recently and so we're
getting in contact with that community so just really
working to establish those
relationships and connect with agencies throughout the
county and then
additionally we would really like to see coordinated entry
expand to our at-risk
population so the same way we've seen not only an increase
in data but
streamlined and more efficient processes and getting people
in the door and
pointed in the right direction you know more quickly we'd
like to see that for
our at-risk population and when I say at risk we're really
talking about
homeless prevention and if we kind of say on a daily basis
if we could
accurately track those numbers people to walk through the
door and truly in need
you know we I think we'd be a little surprised and we'd you
know we'd like to
have that data as well to improve our processes I've got
one more slide and
then we'll take some questions so basically what this slide
outlines is
our most current homelessness data so like I mentioned
coordinated entry has
resulted in the improved quality and accuracy of our
homelessness data for
the county as a result of coordinated entry implementation
we are now actively
managing a prioritized list of every known person
experiencing homelessness
in Denton County we know who enters our system we know who
exits our system and
we're prioritizing and preparing the most vulnerable
households for as housing
units become available how we cleaned up our data
significantly and we continue
to work with our homeless and housing service providers and
is something a
little new to our community of it's called case confer
encing so what this
tool has really provided us is we can sit down as a
community you know with
all of the various programs and resources available and
know who are the
top 20 50 people in our community in need of housing
assistance experiencing
literal homelessness and and collaborate as a community of
providers and know you
know who's accountable for reaching out to a certain person
or a certain family
you know how are we mobilizing resources how are they
getting housed how soon are
they getting housed and that sort of thing this happens
about every two weeks
providers meet to review the list discuss like I mentioned
you know who's
responsible for who and it's a really great sharing of
resources and ideas as
well we began these meetings about March of 2018 and we've
seen a really big
increase in communication among our providers and
performance improvements
no shocker that when you sit down and look at a list of
names and you know
what agency is doing what that they kind of start to
realize that people are
looking at the work they're doing and so it's been a great
tool to kind of have
the allow the community the the agencies to support each
other and also hold each
other accountable initially this really helped us to clean
up our data I don't
know if you remember but I think one of the last times we
talked we had around
800 people told in total on our list and we sat down and on
our first case
conferencing meeting and took about a hundred off because
the providers were
able to tell us they're leaving they love the community
they were housed and
that that discussion itself directly led to you know us
going back to our
database and not to get too far in the weeds but to be able
to really say and
more accurately consistently say you know who's coming into
and who's leaving
our system and what's happening so just to review the
numbers a little bit I
apologize the toll the grand total of people experiencing
homelessness is not
on this slide but it is 608 the reason we divide it this
way and this
information was provided in backup and I can just very very
briefly overview it if
you like but diversion so when someone's assessed they're
referred based on their
eligibility you know and how you know how they were just
this their level their
level of need so what this tells us is 161 households were
eligible for what's
called diversion or what we kind of call a lightest touch
intervention so this is
you know not quite eligible for short or long-term
financial rental assistance
that's available in the community but really all many of
these households are
good candidates for maybe some mediation or redirection or
provision of smaller
amounts you know a financial assistance maybe that through
the agency they went
to or another community partner but to really kind of keep
them from having to
even enter our housing crisis response system and really
utilize those
resources for the folks who are have a higher level of need
rapid rehousing the
way this works in our community it's pretty short-term it's
three to six
months of assistance and this is the folks who are
literally homeless let's
get them rapidly rehoused back into housing and this
involves like I
mentioned you know assistance with deposit and about three
to six months of
rent and that that case management support so there's about
three about
345 households eligible for that level of housing
intervention in our community
and then permanent supportive housing these are the folks
who are likely
experiencing chronic homelessness which just means they've
been homeless for an
extended period of time in total at least about a year and
they're also
living with some sort of disability be it mental physical
there's the there are
federal programs that operate that have the chronic
homeless requirement which
is that extended length of time and living with the
disability of some sort
and we've estimated about a hundred and two households in
our community are
experiencing homelessness and eligible for those programs
and then you'll see
in the last column since November of 2017 our community has
housed a total of
54 households and now I'll stop for questions just one
quick one just for
clarification is this this is countywide correct all right
customer breaks and it's countywide and I asked one of the
meetings if it was
possible to separate out the dent and it's not it's not
that easy to not quite
to do not quite yeah we we are that is a question we've
submitted to the agency
that oversees our database and so we hoped you would have
that by today but
it's not not quite there okay so a few questions on your
previous slide the
last little bullet thing was that housing priority list and
so we hear a
lot about list in our community didn't housing authority
has a long list and
then we see list here and it's my understanding that these
are separate
this housing priority is strictly for those that are
homeless and I I like
that you mentioned at risk because when I look and hear of
that 600 number and
in my mind I think that's gonna increase it's because we're
not reaching the at
risk population who we who needs help just staying in their
home so I'm glad
to hear you say that but as far as the priority list and
the dent housing
authority list can can you just speak to those so that the
public is is aware of
the difference sure so our housing priority list is
directly refers to the
people experiencing literal homelessness in our community
who have entered through
our system and presented as literally homeless so like I
mentioned they're
living in a place either an emergency shelter or a place
not meant for human
habitation the housing authorities list homelessness you
know is not a someone
could be experiencing homelessness and beyond their list
but it's not a
requirement to be eligible for what's called a housing
choice voucher through
the housing authority and so their list would include you
know probably more of
those folks like you mentioned who may be at risk they have
their own criteria
income and disability and that sort of thing so right now
those lists are
separate and and are they on do they use the same system
that we're asking
everyone else to use okay so they're not a front door at
the moment not the
moment we we had attempted I think about a year ago to try
and see you about
bringing them on and just it wasn't within their capacity
at the moment so
at this time the housing authorities not a front door okay
all right thank you
yes go to the data slide yes just to understand the
difference between the
rapid rehousing population and the permanent supportive
housing do you
think that those hundred and two families in the permanent
supportive
housing those be in your opinion more likely the kinds of
people would benefit
from those sort of collective housing arrangements we've
seen other
communities with rudimentary shelter and you know
collective eating areas and
that sort of thing potentially I think you're referring to
some more
traditional permanent supportive housing projects or for
instance we went to
Austin and saw a refab I think it was a best Western or a
motel or something
that was kind of turned into a community living center so
they have their own you
know participants have their own individual rooms but a
community kind of
kitchen and eating area and living areas and things of that
sort and that is an
option and yes those folks would be according to the way we
've set up our
process would be eligible for that type of program
yes yes yeah I want to related to this to thank staffer
recently sent sending
out a press release about cooling stations and how our
libraries and fire
stations and police provide spaces in our Civic Center
where people who are
experiencing homeless are actually welcome and you know
allowed to use
these public spaces if I was wondering if you could address
some possibilities
for other ways of that the city can provide places for
people to rest
during the day and I don't know if this is the whatever
point in the
presentation I just wanted to make sure are you coming back
after okay that can
wait we could just log these yep absolutely member great
question so I
have a number about the question about the numbers here so
total households or
total need is 447 and and is that the 54 is that of that or
is that no that's
who's been housed and taken out of that 447 number okay all
right and so do we
know or have we followed through because we do use the same
system if those 54
are still housed I couldn't say off the top of my head but
we we can find that
out it's a matter of kind of exit planning and follow-up on
the providers
that is some reports that we could pull from our system but
I couldn't say for
sure today because it would be a good it would be good to
follow up to know
because of just how important the supportive of housing and
the the
supportive groups around to help that person stay house
would you be getting into the percent that are currently
holding down jobs and
and is that different between these two populations so I'll
be getting into that
one as it pertains to our point-in-time count we we don't
quite have that
information readily available in HMIS we're working on how
we can track that
better but I'll be getting to that here in just a moment
okay so now about another another piece of data in our
community which used to
really be our only measure of our county's homeless
population the annual
point-in-time count this is an annual census of everyone
experiencing little
homelessness in the in the county and now that we have our
kind of more
consistent and collected data throughout the year we like
to look at the annual
point-in-time count really is a snapshot of anyone
experiencing homelessness on
any given day in our county or a sample size really again
the focus is literal
homelessness so who's staying in an emergency shelter who's
staying in a
place not living crap for not meant for habit human hab
itation excuse me and
this really relies heavily on or primarily on volunteers so
the din
county homeless coalition is another entity here in the
county it's primarily
networking body there are they do kind of serve a purpose
for some of our
federally funded programs to do things like oversee this
count and and a
support or coordinated entry implementation as well but
that group
really relies heavily on on volunteers throughout the
county and as you can
kind of imagine that fluctuates from year to year and
having enough volunteers
to canvas the entirety of the county can also pose a
challenge but
nevertheless it does give us some really a really good
picture of or a snapshot
of you know the homeless experience in our county so this
year's count resulted
in 255 people experiencing homelessness that's an 11%
increase from from last
year about 238 last year and this is a national trend so
this this count is
done nationally the last week of January across the US and
across across the
country there was an observed increase in homelessness just
kind of the
snapshot demographic of our homeless population is majority
white male 25 to
64 and living on the streets the average age is about 48
one thing I didn't want
to mention our majority white homeless population and that
's a little bit
different than what we see around the country especially on
larger more urban
areas there is a racial disparity of people experiencing
homelessness so for
instance in Dallas they have more minorities experiencing
homelessness
you know kind of as it compares to their general population
but consistently then
has result has that in this point in time didn't counties
point in time count has
resulted in a majority white homeless population we did
count 11 individuals
under the age of 18 just about 4% almost half of our
homeless population is their
first time homeless and this is this is a big data point
because if we can prevent
someone from ever entering our system we can you know
significantly affect the
likelihood that they will you know fall into things like
substance abuse or
develop any kind of physical disabilities or that sort of
thing and so
that kind of just touches on the necessity for homeless
prevention in
addition to this response to our little homeless population
53% be reported
becoming homeless in Denton and last year we saw a slight
increase in this
number and any excuse me an increase in the number of
people who reported
becoming homeless outside of Denton you might remember last
year Dallas closed
some tent encampments under 45 and our community did
experience kind of a wave
of an increase in homeless population this year we've seen
it kind of go back
down a level out to match prior years 44% reported living
with a physical
disability and 33% reported living with a serious mental
illness and to your
point council councilman Meltzer about working the working
homeless population
it's not a question that was asked on the survey this year
and we do not have
full control over what is exactly asked on the survey and
but last year's count
there was just under 50% of our homeless population had a
job of some sort and
I'm sorry I don't have a top of my head but a good majority
of those were
working full-time and then part-time but but 50% of our
homeless population as of
last year's count was was working in some capacity and
still unable to afford
somewhere to live do you happen to remember last year the
percentage of
people in the point-in-time count we were living with the
physical disability
but I might my guess is that would be somewhat consistent
with with this year
because if and I know that it you know that the statistics
don't quite work
this way but it's it's quite stunning if you consider that
about half are
employed and you know of course we'd want to see what
overlap of those
employed have physical disability but I know that a number
of people with who
have physical disabilities have a hard time getting
employed and even
qualifying for disability even though they have disability
so if you factor
that in that could be at least a significant chunk of that
other half
right there which you know there goes the myth that that
homeless people don't
work okay so the top five reasons for homelessness and this
is self-reported
data from our from our annual survey were unemployment and
ability to pay a
rent or a mortgage domestic violence crisis a criminal
record and maybe kept
them from finding employment or housing and then physical
health to your point
councilman or mentor there are some additional reasons for
becoming homeless
in the supportive documentation but some other top reasons
included eviction
mental illness and conflicts with family members and then
you'll see the little
graphic on the right side of the screen like we just like I
mentioned before
about half of our homeless population is experiencing
homelessness for the first
time 2% reported becoming homeless because of a natural
disaster we didn't
see a ton a huge influx after Harvey about a quarter have
some sort of social
security disability benefits 18% reported being victims of
domestic violence and
this could have been the reason for their homelessness or
could have happened
after they became homeless we know from national trends
that women who are
experiencing homelessness are at higher risk of domestic
violence than than not
homeless 45% have some sort of GED or high school diploma
and then even 40%
have education beyond high school any other questions
do we know anything about the geographic origins of the 10
County homeless
population you know one one hears kind of
conventional wisdom that people come to dent and because
our services are
generous we also hear that people are taken to the border
by you know police
forces and other communities is there any truth to either
of those it's really
hard to say definitively I will say Denton the city of Dent
on is very
resource rich it is somewhat of a hub of resources that you
know someone
experiencing homelessness might benefit from but at the
same time you know our
county is growing as a whole you know we're projected to
grow 350% in the next
30 years you know we do see pockets further out throughout
the county I will
say the focus of our street outreach locally is primarily
in Denton we do
work in Louisville and now more recently in Little Island
but it's kind of
difficult to say definitively you know if why folks might
come to Denton that
sort of thing so I answer your question well I mean do you
have a general idea of
in fact have they come to Denton or are they from Denton so
from our account
would tell us that 53% became homeless in Denton roughly
half our population
you know originate in Denton our homeless population there
is a slight
transient nature to you know people experiencing
homelessness in general but
from what our data tells us about about half or you know
from Denton originally
so looking at the data with that 53% became homeless in
Denton and then going
back to your top five reasons for homelessness so these are
reasons they
became homeless and reasons they continue to be homeless
correct yes I
believe the question was you know in your what would you
consider the reason
that you became homeless so when we look at this these are
the things that are
happening in our community which are causing people to be
become homeless and
then when I look at the criminal record I know that that is
a main issue keeping
people homeless because they can't get a job which leads to
many other things so
that's my offer oh yeah I just wanted to say there are for
any public watching
and you know this and colleagues know this that in addition
to this
presentation there were some other items in the backup
about different programs
that that the city is doing some of the different things
being done to help
people experiencing homelessness I want to add just kind of
speaking to these
statistics considering that we all consider you know fact
oring in in our
minds anyway you know if not here in the backup the way in
which something like
for instance if you look at that unable to pay rent
mortgage twenty seven point
eight percent and if you factor that in if you think about
the 53 percent
experiencing homelessness and dentin so we've got people
who that 53 percent and
I realized by the way that you know the point in time count
is not it's it's the
best we can do to come up with a number but but there are
all kinds of holes in
it and we all know this and I volunteer with the point in
time count so I know
that but just working with the with those statistics you
know that shows that
there are a significant number a significant percentage of
people who are
having a hard time paying their house either house payments
and paying their
landlords here in the city of Denton and that that is an
issue that's directly
related to homelessness in Denton so when we think about
considering a
homestead exemption and I know that sound like getting off
the topic but it's
not because I'm saying you know if if we could find a way
to do that that that
would be a factor that we could consider as one of the ways
that we're help
trying to help prevent homelessness also you know ways in
which we can in in
addition to the barrier fund which is you know describe
about you know kind of
having caseworkers and there's a very good description of
that you know in a
chart of that in our in our backup on this item having our
legal department
partner with services with a nonprofit service that
provides legal assistance
to renters to help them stay in their homes and negotiate
with their landlords
to prevent evictions these are also and that was something
I called for last
time there's going to be a future work session on but I
mentioned this just to
say that we can think and I think should think of all these
things as other ways
in which we can help to prevent homelessness question well
first of all
want to make sure I understand what you're what you said
just then you're
saying that you think that our legal team on city time
should be representing
private citizens no no no no no so the city of San Antonio
well I just I wanted
to make sure I and we'll talk about it but I just wanted to
make sure I
understand so I have a question okay yeah no let me ask you
this question when you
talk about homelessness prevention which is people can
apply to different
nonprofits for rent subsidies but when you but when the
federal government and
the state government looks at your statistics for grant
funding now correct
me if I'm wrong because I think I heard this in an earlier
meeting of the didn't
homelessness County homelessness leadership team that they
don't care
how many people you prevent from becoming homeless it's are
you meeting
the metrics like for our emergency services grant are you
meeting the
metrics where people are homeless and you're putting them
in housing to where
they're not homeless that if you prevented 70% from being
homeless that
that really doesn't count in some of these grant form
ulations am I right on
that is am I off on that I'm gonna say yes and no okay so
homeless prevention
is a program within our emergency solutions grant and it is
factored into
our overall score you know depending on the percentage or
number of people that
we say we're going to commit to preventing from becoming
homelessness
throughout the year you know we're scored in a certain way
based on what we can
commit to as a community and that affects how much funding
we get but I
think what I hear you saying is if we prevent this many and
you know rehoused
this many they're not really going to take that into
consideration if the
number you prevent is significantly larger you know or more
extensive than
you know your homeless population in general they don't
really take that into
consideration yeah they want to see you moving people from
homelessness into
housing that that's the predominant mission for at least
that particular
grant right yeah and and especially other other federal
funding like
permanent supportive housing or other rapid rehousing
programs that okay yeah
all right because I I agree with you that you can prevent a
lot of people you
know it's just with a little bit of help right the problem
is that prevention
comes in the form of dollars right and if somehow your
grants aren't taking
that into consideration well then it's very difficult to
get those resources I
think that's a lot of pressure on the local community to
come up with the
resources to help you want to respond to her yeah Council
man Armitage to your
question about you know learning how to kind of operate as
a tenant in
relationship with your landlord I'm going to get to it just
a few minutes
but our doors for didn't County initiative that we
developed within our
work group has taken into account things like you know
legal assistance and other
and even to your point Councilwoman Briggs about you know
criminal background
that may pose a barrier to even getting housed our landlord
initiative that
we've collaboratively collaboratively developed with our
work group seeks to
address some of those things through some landlord outreach
education tenant
education and really kind of mitigating some some of those
risks which you know
the ultimate goal is long-term helping people people stay
in there and their
units thank you okay anybody else on this section good
thank you okay moving
forward moving on so in our efforts to make homelessness
very brief and
non-recurring we've implemented solutions to increase the
number of
housing units that are accessible and available to
individuals and families
who face barriers to housing part of the solution has been
to establish what's
called the Denton County barriers fund this fund is
governed by the Denton
County homeless coalition as I mentioned they and United
Way of Denton County
access fiscal agent the coalition came to United Way and
requested that they
act as fiscal agent for this fund we've observed it in
other communities and how
it's been effective in some of what you mentioned Mayor
Watson prevention and as
we'll get into in just a moment mitigating some some risks
for folks
that have barriers to housing and then the our barriers
fund the mission as you
can see right there is to promote housing stability through
self
sufficiency and there are really three major components to
this fun the first
being family support so families working towards self-s
ufficiently you know what
are some smaller preliminary costs that maybe a federal
grant can't cover such
as you know help with transportation just keep their job
while they're in
shelter trying to save up and get placed into housing or
that sort of thing
landlord outreach and I'll get to that in just a moment but
as I mentioned
outreach to landlords who may be limited and their ability
to rent to families
with poor rental histories or criminal record and then the
last piece is really
that continued outreach and community awareness about the
homeless experience
in our community so supporting things like the point-in-
time count as needed
and that sort of thing since May of this year we have the
the Dent County
homeless coalition has a steering committee that governs
this fund so they
approve every request that steering committee has approved
seven requests so
far since May totaling about $2,600 requests range for for
things from
transportation assistance like I mentioned to overcoming
some fair market
rate barriers so some of our federal federal grants have
some somewhat
outdated fair market rate limitations or maximums on you
know on units that
people experiencing homelessness can can move into based on
the type of assistance
they're receiving and so this fund has been helpful and
kind of if it's ten
bucks over our fair market rent and it's gonna cost us 120
bucks to lower their
rent for the year you know that's a that's a short-term
solution but really
more helps them more in the long term and then we've also
helped to provide
assistance for a veteran moving from a temporary to
permanent housing solution I
was gonna talk about this later in the report but I did
want to say I think it
was maybe last time we were here we had a $7,500 pledge
from a community member
to get this fund up and running off the ground and it was
meant to be a match
pledge and I'm very glad to say we have matched it and
reached that and so I'll
talk more about a bit about that later but the United Way
of Denton County and
the Denton County Homeless Coalition are working together
to actively promote
this fund we're this close to having information on both
websites about
detailing kind of successes of the funds so that you know
kind of like I just
mentioned what's worked and how has it impacted families
abilities to get
housed or stay housed a primary component like I mentioned
of this
barriers fund is to make housing available through landlord
outreach and
that's where our doors for Denton County initiative comes
in as I mentioned this
was collaboratively developed by the Denton County
homelessness leadership
teams housing work group their strategic goal is to
increase access to housing
and so we've researched programs in Austin Houston Seattle
you know programs
really in larger communities who are a step ahead of us in
that they've
experienced a very limited rental market vacancies and a
growing population and
so we've been able to kind of look to them and learn about
some kind of
innovative solutions and as I mentioned before Denton
County has consistently
has about a 96 to 98 percent occupancy rate for rental
units so what this
initiative really seeks to do is you know to assist those
with barriers to
housing to really overcome those barriers it's modeled
after some of the
programs we observed acknowledges the limitations that
landlords may have
renting to families with like I mentioned a poor rental
history or a
credit background and seeks to to mitigate those risks
really key to this
model is a housing navigator this is and I'll get to kind
of to more of it here
in just a moment the specifics about their position but
right off the bat
they really are intended to liaise between the nonprofit
and the real estate
communities kind of realizing that the variety and
requirements of different
types of rental subsidies are numerous in the community and
it you know it takes
some you know some some close attention to be able to stay
knowledgeable of all
those different eligibility requirements and also that
there are a number of you
know local landlords and property managers out there who
want to help
people want to get people housed but they have a business
model that you know
it's their it's their source of income it's their business
they're running so
how can we kind of meet in the middle to say you know we've
got the housing
navigator has this working knowledge of available rental
subsidies you know and
a working relationship with landlords throughout the county
so the same way
that we've kind of streamlined access into our housing
crisis response system
this housing navigator will be really key in streamlining
getting people out
and getting them placed into housing and a lot of that has
to do with the housing
search and placement process which I'll just skip around a
little bit but as
you can kind of see here I know you can't really read it
but right now all
the blue and the white down there at the bottom one case
manager is kind of
expected to do all that with with the family and it
includes kind of meeting
their basic needs getting them housing ready when I say
that I mean do they
need identification you know they need to get anything off
of their credit record
or they need to get into to work so they can sustain their
living situation what
do they need to do you know do they need health care or
mental health care that
sort of thing and the blue is all housing search and
placement so how do
you know how do we develop a land relationship whether find
a landlord who
will take someone that maybe has an eviction or two on
their record not you
know in somewhat recent years or a criminal background or
things of that
sort right now you know kind of a single case manager is
expected to do all of
those things and and the model of the doors for Denton
County landlord
outreach model really seeks to kind of those blue boxes
take take those away
from the existing case managers thus increasing their
capacity by about 25%
and really kind of housing those responsibilities of
partnerships
relationship networking with landlords and placing families
into housing kind
of in a centralized process like I like I mentioned really
increasing the the
capacity of our case managers that we have today are we
yeah okay yeah sorry
and so when we presented to council last July we requested
support for coordinated
entry and also included the need for a housing navigator at
that time and when
council asked us to prioritize our ask we selected
coordinated entry and as I
mentioned in the previous slides the support has led to the
development of an
active managed list of everyone experiencing homelessness
in our county
and has provided the tools necessary to quickly identify
the most vulnerable for
housing since our last discussion we've developed the
framework for a landlord
outreach initiative that was provided in your backup and we
're now ready to
deploy this program and what we need now is a housing navig
ator and that's what we
kind of want to talk to you about today as I mentioned the
position is really
intended to increase access to the private market knowing
that to some
extent and this is happening on smaller scales throughout
our agencies but we're
still not meeting our metrics for for example for emergency
solutions bring out
the metrics we've committed to and our contingent upon our
continued funding
from the federal government you know we're housing people
but not quickly
enough and it really is a capacity issue on the part of our
providers to be able
to have you know the dedicated case management staff to to
like I mentioned
kind of streamlined placement of people into housing so
this position really
will support housing search and placement for eight
agencies across the county six
of them primarily operate here in Denton and as you'll see
our request is not the
full amount it's a portion of it we are we have gone to
city of Louisville we're
talking to the county and other smaller cities around the
county and we're also
applying for various forms of grant funding to support and
sustain this
position in the long term you know we really see United Way
as an incubator
for this position the long term is really to prove the
validity of this
model and incorporate it into or you know increase other
forms of funding
sources in the future so over time we'd like to you know
incorporate a housing
navigator into our existing grant grant program so all the
way from our emergency
solutions grant to city of Denton Human Services that sort
of thing and as we
continue to increase case management capacity you know at
individual agencies
the goal is to eventually implement a uniform housing
navigation process
similar to the way we've done with coordinated entry you
know we know
primarily from agency to agency the experience in the
process for someone
coming into our system now let's streamline you know the
very crucial part
of getting them into housing and this is something that we
've seen especially in
Austin they've got a really great robust program and it's
it's led to you know
a significant number of people being housed in their
community and as I
mentioned right now this is happening on small levels but
agencies are still
struggling and so this position really will you know kind
of free up some of
their capacity and help them get people placed into housing
I did want to
mention that as far as like a housing navigators maybe day
to day or time
spent we imagine about 60 to 70 percent is really building
those partnerships
especially at the very beginning building those
partnerships with the
landlords and we see a programs like this really successful
with the smaller
kind of mom-and-pop operations versus the larger kind of
corporate complexes
or multifamily units that might have some more set in stone
policies but
really spending the bulk of their time not only networking
with but educating
landlords it's not as scary as they might think to take
someone on that might
have eviction on their record you know what does it mean to
take you know to
accept us you know some kind of subsidy and then the rest
of their time really
contributing to that case conferencing like I mentioned it
really is the
missing piece we know who's coming in we know who's
assessing them and referring
them to services but but this role will be really key and
kind of like I
mentioned getting people off our list into permanent
housing I think that's
mostly it for now
so a few questions yes you say it's one time but it's an
ongoing position so
maybe you can describe for us why that would be one time
because we realize the
the so really sustain a position you know we need to be
able to incorporate
it into funding outside of the cities realizing that you
know in the past
we've come to the cities and asked for support city
councils and asked for
support for these kind to sustain these positions and
realizing that over time
if we want to really see these innovative solutions being
sustained and
grown in an effective way that it needs to be incorporated
back into other grant
structures so for now that's why we just came with a one-
year ask at the
same time and then you see the goal is for homelessness to
be rare brief and
non-recurring correct do you have a definition of rare
would something like
a hundred be rare a hundred versus we've got a 400 families
now so it's not rare
now so what would rare be that's a really good question um
I'm not sure
that I could say for a community of our size like I
mentioned Denton is really
ahead of the curve and collecting these numbers in this way
so we don't really
have a lot to compare it to I know best practices you know
really refer to
things like 90 days or less of length of time experiencing
homelessness and that
sort of thing but as far as setting that kind of benchmark
or that metric that's
something that we're incorporating into our standards of
excellence like I
mentioned within our work groups to really set those goals
as a community to
say you know over time where we want to see this production
you know what number
do we or do we are we envisioning all right well just for
argument's sake I'll
say a hundred but also if you want if you want it to be
brief and non-recurring
right then then you're talking strictly about the you know
the ones left after
we've had a long successful set of programs they would be
in the rapid
rehousing category right because the folks needing
permanent supportive
housing that's not brief it's chronic sure right so so you
know it's complex
puzzle a lot of arms and legs but you know clearly that
that needs a different
kind of solution than this right I mean because those are
folks who need
something different than just ordinary kinds of housing and
as we said before
they might be more suitable for some kind of you know
collective transitional
well not transitional but some kind of collective housing
that's different so
if so so let's say that hundred those hundred two families
you're gonna come
to us with some different kind of proposal for so now if
this is targeted
toward the 300 smart families that are in the rapid reh
ousing kind of category
do you have a point of view obviously can't know exactly
but you have a point
of view of about how much of that population we might be
able to
realistically hope to address through this program funded
at this level I mean
our goal would be all of them there's a lot of factors that
come into play of
course everybody's journey you know to self-sufficiency is
different but
additionally it also depends on the market and just the
availability of
housing so I mean ideally the goal is to to first and
foremost meet our our
metrics per some of our larger federal grants to really
sustain those but then
beyond that you know we don't quite have specific numbers
at this time about you
know what weren't how many numbers were envisioning
reaching but I do know that
we didn't include it in this slideshow we have in the past
but we have about I
think 12 or 13 families a month on average that we need to
see rapidly
re-housed so that's our first goal but then anything over
and above that would
kind of have to be a collective decision of our work group.
I think you
mentioned that it's like a 25% increase in the capacity of
current caseworkers
you do this yeah so what is the capacity for current case
managers you know in
other words where does it ask me about this the one time I
don't include that
chart in my presentation say that again with the class well
you know I'm trying
to get an idea of like if let's say we're ultimately
shooting for ending up
at no greater than a hundred that's a number I'm completely
making up it's not
part of the hundred and two families that need permanent
supportive housing
because this isn't that so you know the question would be
ultimately you know you
said hopefully all but I mean there's a capacity that you
're sure that you have
so is it realistic to assume based on the capacity of
current case managers
with a 25% increase could we rehouse 200 families in a year
I think that is
reasonable like I mentioned I don't have those numbers in
front of me but we
estimate about 30 families per case manager annually for
rapid rehousing 30
to 40 and so whatever that percentage increase over the
course of a year would
be I can't do that math on top of my head but it is
reasonable to say that
we'd see an significant increase in the number of folks
being rapidly rehoused I
do want to mention briefly was something that's called
functional zero so getting
our system to a place where we have enough resources to
meet the need because
you know there there may still be folks that are
experiencing homelessness that
for whatever reason you know are hesitant to access
resources or things
like that we won't get into you know the brain chemistry of
someone who's living
on the street for 15 years and then going into you know an
apartment unit
but functional zero really seeks to achieving functional
zero is really a
matter of saying you know we know how many veterans we know
how many chronic we
know how many rapid you know clients are experiencing
homelessness in our
community do we have the resources to meet that need so to
your point that
25% increase for our current case managers I would say that
hundred ballpark
is safer than about 200 for the course of a year okay so so
then we might need
some other tactics to get further into the population I
mean I'll take all the
solutions and resources we got it's a this isn't gonna be
the be-all and end-all
yeah but it is you know it's kind of our logical next step
as a community where
we come to build and grow and improve our system you know
it's it's seen as
our logical next step to really support what's already
happening instead of
coming and create something completely brand-new how can we
build on and
improve what already exists so that's I guess I'm coming
from is I want to
support you in seriously taking seriously the goal right
and you know to
see if we've got a plan that in its entirety gets to the
goal right so so
that that's the point of my asking how much of it does this
achieve no it's all
good questions yeah they're all good questions so I just
wanted to mention
for the people watching exhibit three in our backup has a
lot more detail on the
housing navigator in the barriers fund for what it can be
spent on risk
mitigation barriers and buy down specifically so if there's
something
that is missing from the presentation exhibit three is
probably where you'll
find that and so for me looking at the 54 individuals who
have been housed and
then the housing navigator I assume is going to be working
off the housing
priority list that our front doors are all contributing to
so if you're on that
list no matter if you what type housing you need you will
be getting the
attention right right so supportive housing and in rapid
rehousing all of
those would be looked at for the housing navigator yeah the
way the case
conferencing happens right now you know all of our various
programs the case
managers respective case managers get in a room and review
the list as a whole so
those eligible for current supportive housing we review you
know the top folks
on the list and then those eligible for rapid rehousing
review the top folks on
those on that list and then just kind of collaborate as a
community of case
managers today so I just want to make nobody's getting left
off if they're on
the list they they are going to be looked at okay and so
any idea for this
position as far as kind of to his point counselor Metzler's
for this housing
navigator position like a goal say so since November we've
housed 54 if we
were to have this navigator how many more you know will we
get not and I
assume that that data if this person is hired would be very
good to have
especially if you're applying for the grant so maybe since
it's a one-time
that's maybe why it's considered one time we have a full
year to work on and
see how productive yeah and absolutely and that would have
been really good
numbers to include in this presentation but I can say that
as we go out and
apply for other grant funding and we're asked questions
exactly like that how
many people are we expected to serve you know we're taking
closer looks at our
data and how many people enter our system on a regular
basis on a monthly
average on a quarterly average and then that in addition to
you know our grant
metrics will all be taken into account as we really
establish a logic model
and some of those outcome expected outcome measures and
metrics to measure
throughout you know like you said the first year I like
this idea of the house
of having having the housing navigator and working with
helping people get
into spaces that that we already have I'm wondering so
first I have a question
for Todd would the housing navigator be covered under the
ethics ordinance as
it's good as it's currently written or maybe for Aaron
because you know we're
sharing this position with other cities so yeah I'm
thinking about just kind of
screening for and don't get me wrong this isn't I'm not I'm
not again I approve
of this but to make sure that we don't have conflicts you
know conflicts of
interest and that if that conflict of interest does arise
because you're
talking about lots of apartment one person you know lots of
apartments if
this is someone from around here that conflict is bound to
arise I'm trying to
determine exactly the nature of the conflict if this
council as a whole is
is authorizing through the budgets certain type of amount
to go towards
this position everybody here is making that decision so I
don't see the conflict
there between funding it as far as individual council
members having a
potential conflict with the end user or the no no no I'm
sorry so no I mean in
terms of so this is not in terms of council but but the
housing navigator
will be dealing placing people in in apartment buildings
and dealing with you
know there will be money exchanged it with landlord so if
the housing navigator
has a you see where I'm going with a landlord etc just
simple simple you know
thing I just just wondering how we so this would be a
contract with the
United Way where the city is providing funding through a
contract for United
Way to hire that person so United Way of Denton County
would have hiring
personnel decisions over that person they would probably be
subject to their
ethics policy under the United Way of Denton County okay
yeah yes okay so I
would so which means that they wouldn't be covered under
our I'm having a hard
time understanding what you're really asking I mean are you
saying if let's
say I'm the housing yeah and you're an apartment owner yeah
that you're saying
that somehow if you and I have some kind of special
relationship am I getting a
kickback am I funneling people to you because it's
financially beneficial no no
no I'm just well no no I'm just talking about the
appearance just the appearance
of conflict of interest just I'm not talking about whether
there really is
something no no but I'm still trying to understand what
what is the oh yeah sure
sure yeah so in other words yes so if just so there's
disclosure I think you
I don't know Todd if you just does that make sense I think
are you are you
envisioning a scenario where perhaps United Way brings on a
housing navigator
and maybe they're related to a landlord yeah I think that
we I think I probably
have to first of all you know defer to Gary Henderson to
make sure I understand
how United Way would treat that and we could certainly look
for consistencies
within our own ethics policies but my guess is that your
ethics policy would
likely handle that because of the detrimental impact of
something like that
getting out of hand yeah I can think of three areas where
this employee would be
bound by a set of ethics first would be our own United Way
of Denton County code
of ethics secondarily would be our board approved anti-disc
rimination policy or
policy against discrimination and the third would be if
this employee were a
licensed social worker they would be bound by social work
licensure ethics
does that help yeah yes thanks yeah and I just want to make
sure that if there
is a conflict that that's not preventing people from
getting housed in there you
know so that there's somebody else like backup how you know
a backup housing
navigator that can make the arrangement to avoid the
appearance of conflict of
interest but that's it's so sorry I had such a hard time
explaining that but
that's but just because we're thinking about the ethics
ordinance I just wanted
to make clear I just wanted to be clear that there's you
know at least it's kind
of something in place and then along those lines to say
that I would like to
have you know assuming that we do approve this have the
housing navigator
at the end of the year you know not not just United Way but
not United Way in
conjunction with the new housing navigator report back to
council and and
and also I'd like to see you know probably many many pages
you know pages
of at least as far as City of Denton is concerned where
people have not just
numbers on how many people have been housed but where they
've been housed is
there yeah and to your point we do have some governing
policies in place
specifically to the barriers fund and any any source where
these funds might
be coming from we'll have a lot of eyeballs on this both
internally at
United Way and through the homeless coalition steering
committee you know
governing over this you know every every you know a request
that's chucked off on
and reviewing the financials and that sort of thing so in
addition to all of
the you know ethical guidelines that Gary mentioned we have
some other measures
in place as well just a quick point we would be happy to do
that and we'll also
do that in a way where we maintain client confidence yeah
of course of
course yeah no yeah we wouldn't not to see the name the
names of the
individuals so the numbers of how many but where you know
where in the city
they're getting hat what what prices they're paying for
absolutely
etc and also you know be nice to have and I assume you
planning on that doing
this also feedback presumably to United Way that would then
be shared with Denton
and the other cities that are partnering feedback from the
people who are helped
absolutely every every policy and procedure document that
we developed
takes in to account the client experience and you know
avenues for
providing feedback or expressing any grievances so we would
absolutely include
that in this thank you so Sarah I have another ask of you I
'd like to see a map
if you consider the rail station is kind of if you're
looking at a map of them all
you are here right and then like a city of map aerial view
whatever nothing too
detailed but then points out kind of the stops along the
way right so our daily
bread or our daily our daily protein as I renamed them it's
a long story but but
there or you know the months in your king you know I just
want to kind of see
this this path right understanding the the obvious places
they'll go I want to
kind of see that pathing and and kind of then you utilize
that as a tool again
when talking to people or when we're looking at scenarios
about where things
should be placed it'll just be good for me to have to kind
of understand and try
to bring that closer together and it's all over the place
right now so I want to
try to understand how we can kind of circle the wagon so it
again just not a
problem we can create a map that shows us that shows the
social service agencies
and centers and where they're located at right okay thank
you and then if I may
mr. city manager can we work with I don't know which
department it would be
I guess it'd be Carolyn kind of department but I'd love to
see some sort
of 380 agreement that allows us to leverage I think we're
right at the
tipping point based on the people I've talked to about you
have these legacies
apartments that are now filling kind of a a law in rented
renters during this
time of year when schools out right and so there's I think
there's as the new
apartments come online I think we're gonna see some pain
points start to
bubble to the top I'd love to see some sort of agreement
where and what I kind
of noted is we give them the promise that hey you can keep
the same amount of
parking there's some obviously tax incentive that we're not
gonna raise
your your your valuations but what I'd like to see is those
older units be
replaced so we say if you make certain amount of units
available for housing
for emergency housing in exchange will out will maybe give
you a height increase
allow you to freeze your taxes and allow you to maintain
the same parking so now
I'm incentivizing hopefully this older cement city to say
hey now is the time
I'm losing units anyway I'm not jam-packed as always now is
the time for
me to rebuild and maybe try to if there's I don't know you
know I yield to
them on what they see and if that's if that's viable at
this point but I feel
like we're right on the edge of that yeah there are cities
in the country
that are giving density bonuses that sort of thing for
providing affordable
housing to certain income levels so we can certainly take a
look at that and
investigate how we might be able to offer that as a tool in
the DDC rewrite
okay and then lastly so I'll just tell you my hang up on
the navigator is
simply this I mean and maybe it's just I've worked in
Commission too long but
you eat what you kill and sometimes you get hungry and so I
would I'd be all for
the program I want to understand guaranteed money versus
incentivized I
want to create a true meritocracy right so it's important
to me that you that
it's not a position that here's the base salary and I'll do
the best I can I want
to and so my quick math says at 40k a year and then we hold
out that other that
other 20k divide that over 12 months that's a that's a one
thousand six
hundred sixty seven dollar Commission if you will based on
on how you produce
and I don't know if there's any traction for that I'm just
telling you moreover
my concern is that would position would get there and not
function at a level
and there's no way to it's it's harder to walk that back or
to you know
separate from someone go find someone else and so I'd like
to find you want to
see actual preset measures well you know and metrics to be
reached yeah well not
even as I just don't want I want someone to be motivated
not that they're not
motivated but I want them to for example I can go to a
lunch every day and talk
to a lot of people and never get anything done or I can
know I've got to
close this to get to the to the carrot at the end of the
line and that's so I
just there's there's there's busy work and then there's
productivity and my
concern in this position is that you can go to lunch with
everyone and show that
you're busy and then if that doesn't produce there's no pun
itive consequence
to that and when we're talking and like it or love it this
is a very sensitive
subject and it just needs to be in my in my opinion it
needs to be something that
is is incentivized and that's just I could be absolutely
wrong and I could be
absolutely alone in that and so but that's just my that's
what's going in
going on in my head and in my question at the end of all
this is if you can go
to the slide about the the figures how did we arrive at
because Denton County
is the biggest of those three and they're paying the least
and so I just
don't understand how that was divided up this was based on
previous support when
our community lost our emergency solutions grant funding
the these
percentages are based on the percentages that the
respective communities listed
on this slide contributed to making up for that loss okay
thank you as far as
the reporting on rents and locations and all that not only
is the
confidentiality of the tenant important the confidentiality
of the landlord is
important too because they don't he or she may not want
number one to people to
know that they're doing that not because they're afraid but
because that's just
something that they like to keep private and so I think
before we start searching
out and talking to these people we need to have a clear
understanding of what we
need to share with them will be reported what level that
data will be reported
because that may come into play sure with with with that
and if you could go
back to the barriers fund and the yeah I don't even know I
had you go to that
this is more what everybody is missing in this equation is
something that it's
it's it's it's obvious it's it's like air in front of us we
can and I support
the navigator position and I think what at least what I
heard councilmember
Huss was saying was hey we're gonna pay this but we were
paying we're wanting
this to achieve this very specific goal of number one off
loading some of these
tasks from the case managers and what is the ultimate goal
we have putting people
in units there's another part of that equation and that is
you have to find
the units and that to me is is is the challenge because and
I think you've
you know I have had a conversation about on the the
landlord outreach doors for
Denton County is every landlord has a different set of
criteria and I think
there's plenty of landlords out there probably more the mom
-and-pops than the
large organizations because they they have maybe a
different set of policies
and procedures they have to go by so that's that's the real
key now I will
say councilmember Huss but I mentioned this to the city
manager and I think you
know it's sort of along the same lines you talked about
about incentivizing I
don't know about incentivizing people to tear down existing
ones because I know
right now nobody's empty I mean for you to be empty in this
city you've got to
have something that's almost uninhabitable which that's not
a good
thing because people are living in but having looked at and
talked to some of
my friends about the project that you know was the housing
authority project
where it's tax exemption you know nine hundred thousand
dollar a month there
are apartment owners already providing affordable housing
to our community in
the form of what rents are categorized as affordable
housing so you know maybe
we can explore in tangent with yours how do we you know
maybe enter into
collaborative agreements with landlords to say okay if you
maintain this level
of rent and we are able to come in and double check and we
are able to get some
kind of data that you know not you know breaching vice
confidentiality that we
can provide some kind of incentive at our level we can't
speak to the school
district or the county but how can we do it for because we
're already we have a
ton of affordable housing units in this city I mean that
are being rented for
less than the affordable less than you know some of the 60
70 80 percent area
median income so really our challenge is how do we help
people maintain those as
well as expand the opportunity for to take clients that you
know some may have
a policy that if you have an eviction you don't even get a
look I mean there's
some and that's they're right I mean there's some apartment
owners that may
say if you've if you had an eviction within 12 months or 24
months but if you
had it longer than that we're okay with it that's really I
think where we're
missing the data I think we're missing the data on what is
the the processes
and procedures for application approval because they're all
different except for
your standards fair housing laws I mean you do have a you
have a floor in
federal law that you that you have to maintain because I
really do believe
that as you get out there and start talking to people you
'll find individual
owners maybe small shop owners that you know they may
provide one or two units
because let's face it because out of the goodness of their
heart it's not not
necessarily be because of a financial situation but yet it
may not be that big
of a financial burden for them to do that with a lot of
this support so I
think this is I don't think we're ever gonna know if we can
really pull this
off without having this position because you just can't
keep doing it as
piecemeal as we've been doing it I mean you've you've had
experiences with the
doors for Denton County with larger landlords that there's
very little
flexibility and flexibility is right because you have to
treat every client
you know the same as far as per your procedures and per
federal law
standards you have some flexibility in some of those things
like evictions and
criminal maybe criminal convictions and things such as that
but as far as your
fair housing laws there is no flexibility so this is really
the key you
said we're gonna build our way out we will not build our
way out of this
problem if that's what we're expecting to do number one
nobody's got that kind
of money to do that and when you say you build it they will
come you're always
going to have a population that needs help especially as we
grow so I think
this the doors for Denton County is really one of the major
initiatives that
can help really provide some really quick solution and well
I'm gonna I'm
gonna promote the Denton County's the Barriers Fund this
fund is not subject
to grant regulations it's subject to the homelessness
coalition board of
directors or the steering committee who approves this so
this is a way we're
people can truly financially contribute to directly help
people get from living
in a car to live in somewhere that's a little bit more
permanent without all
the necessary regulations that I think so many ways kicks
people out of the
system so I think we're on the right path I think there are
some very
creative ways that we can continue to do the difficult part
and the challenging
part this all takes money and it's how can we find the way
to maximize the
money that we have to to apply to this this problem and
maximize it so I'm for
this I am for the reporting I'm for the data gathering with
some conditions as
far as confidentiality I certainly am for looking at some
other alternative
methodologies to incentivizing for me it'd be more I mean
that's a voluntary
basis what you're talking about it's not you're saying we
're gonna create a
regulation that does it's a will you volunteer to move into
this program and
I think once we get going and those those lunches can occur
and people can
make contacts I get calls from organizations hey do you
have anything and
it's just a batter getting more people who they can pick up
the phone and call
and I mean how many rentals do we have in this town and in
this county a ton a
ton and I can only speak for Denton a lot of them are small
owners they're not
the big corporate student housing it's small
yes yes so several things addressing points that have
already been made
before first just adding on to Councilman Hutzpeth said
about the map if
bus routes bus routes could be on that map that would be
really good idea
second about because I agree we've got a lot of these you
know and I don't know
exactly how many but these mom-and-pop landlords in this
city already and there
are and not only would the job of this housing navigator be
or partly include
finding out who are the landlords who are already offering
you know low rent
without all this red tape but also in addition to that
seeing of those who
don't do that why they don't do that and what the barriers
are in their way and
if and this is where it kind of turns to that this the city
are there things we
can do and and I know that other cities do things to try to
keep rents low
outside of rent control things that can remove some of the
obstacles that are in
the way of these mom-and-pop landlords for instance code
enforcement you know
if you're mom pop landlord and you know you might have a
place that's kind of
not up to code but then if you renovate it you know you're
not going to get
grandfathered in under the new codes and then that that
adds costs so you know
what can what can we do at the the level of our code
enforcement to make sure
that that we are not as a city raising rents because
unnecessarily you know and
if there are repairs that need to be made to get up to
codes that we don't
have an unrealistic timeline or that we give breaks to and
I don't mean lower
our standards but that we make sure that our standards are
not too high that
they're driving up the cost of rent because I I hear anecd
otally that that's
the case so so that is that's one concern also electricity
for those
landlords who have utilities included I mentioned
electricity but all utilities
you know we the city we can and other cities do give
discounts to you know
landlords who are providing a certain percentage under
market value whatever
we want kind of like what you were saying you know we're
not and what I
find so exciting about this is that when when we're not
subject to somebody else's
red tape we get to decide what we consider truly affordable
rent what our
values are right so if it's that important to us and if the
cost of
utilities is a big prohibitor well that's something that we
the city can
control so I would I would be open to that to that too and
to looking at ways
in which other cities have you have have scaled back on
rates code enforcement
and other kinds of things in the city control one question
very specific
question just about the community partners for the on the
exhibit I think
it's exhibit three for the Barriers Fund and earth for the
Navigator and you list
the costs you know the salary health insurance dental is
this the this is
health insurance this is the health insurance for the
person who's the
housing navigate oh okay got it thanks okay are you yeah
before we know well
we're gonna need to take a break here a minute I think one
of the natural breaks
would be between your presentation presentation so I'm
gonna let I think
council member Messler has a question so we'll take his
question and then that's
the natural break we'll take a break yeah I guess it's it's
more of a
comment and you know what I would like I'd like to support
this and I would I
would like it to have a reasonably derived goal that thinks
realistic and
so there's some kind of accountability and whether it's you
know through an
incentive which I think is very worth considering or just
somehow you know
have something to measure progress against not not so that
later we can say
did work or didn't work but so we can see hmm we thought it
would work this
way but if it fell short what were the problems we learned
otherwise we just
don't know whether what happens is good or bad you know we
're just gonna sort
of like whatever we get and then secondly I'd like it to be
ideally
within the context of a kind of a master plan we're not
talking about solving
thousands and thousands of families worth a problem I mean
we didn't have
the data for years now we have the data thank goodness well
done so we're trying
to solve this 400 family issue and you know maybe we're
only solving it down to
a hundred so once we establish a reasonable goal for this
you know I want
to at least start identifying the tactics against the other
pieces of it
and particularly against the the permanent supportive
housing group you
know there was an excellent film that was distributed to
council members I
don't know if you all watched it it was distributed by a
member of our Community
Development Board that was about solutions not San Antonio
but it was
like in Oregon and places like that where they have rud
imentary structures
pardon me probably Seattle they do everything rudimentary
structures that
are more like $2,500 not you know $20,000 you know that are
managed by the
residents not done by neighborhoods not done by retail
areas that address this
people who are some of whom will move through but a lot of
them are just gonna
stay in some kind of supervised housing but you know have
sanitary conditions and
have security and so on so you know that's a piece of it
support a master
plan is my second point and my third point and it'll be the
last one is when
we have this sort of plan it'll take us a while to achieve
you know we're gonna
be looking at still the emergency housing needs you know
and I don't know
if anyone here knows that when senior King was originally
established to just
deal with inclement weather you know and here we are now
looking at you know I
when I initially raised the request to have this review you
know I was looking
at inclement weather thinking about freezing temperatures
and now we're
looking at 100 degree plus for many days on end so you know
do we at least have
an eye on that do we know for instance if maybe this is our
week to learn it
you know do we have enough capacity to handle the people
who will need to be
sheltered on an emergency basis in 100 degree plus weather
you know do we need
to be able to support volunteers at the Civic Center for
overnight shifts or
something you know so those to me are the pieces it's
having a clear goal
identifying a goal for this tactics against the other
pieces and then having
at least a game plan for dealing with any if there is any
unmet emergency
shelter need in the meantime to me that would be a
comprehensive master plan
okay just a comment it can be the next presentation it's
just generally so I'm
good we got it I think they're wanting direction some
direction at least some
idea of direction on the housing navigator position or the
funding because
we have upcoming budget discussions so I think it's so I
think I heard you say
you're supportive of it but you'd like to see these other
things developed as
we move forward with it is that right yes and I want to say
gold put on this
reasonably derived okay go all right in a perfect world it
'd be three three and
I can then negotiate my fourth position to be sold to the
highest bidder so I'm
not so your position is so yes no I'm for it but again I
think I want to see
what it looks like I'm for it but I would ask those that
are filling a
position to be forewarned that I'm gonna be very sure a
tense third
I think that's that's the best I can do is tell you in
advance it's coming yeah
yeah good all right appreciate that and with all their
respect we recognize that
but realize this position is starting at less than a first-
year teacher in Denton
ISD okay and so am I am I getting a consensus to move
forward with what some
of the caveats of you know to make sure that there's going
to be a sense of you
know let's make have some results even though understanding
that it's first
year right and this is brand new initiative and what are
our goals and
master plan these go ahead and go ahead and make your
comment so the city of
Louisville and the county both have an amount there have
you spoken to them and
invite we've spoken to the Louisville City Council and they
are in support
okay we are still in conversation with the county okay well
I am in support okay
yes just one more just following up on what what Gary just
said about you know
that is a modest salary for someone with a very very very
big job and I know you
already have you know staff in the United Way but I would
encourage you know
looking at our universities and other areas where interns
can be found who can
get course credit help pay off their college loans you know
all kinds of
things who could help out people who really care and have
it and also have
the skill set to help this person do their big job because
it's a very big
job that was actually gonna be my next point is that we do
rely heavily on
interns and so we will definitely have multiple interns
supporting this
position and just one final comment in response to all of
your requests for some
kind of clear outcome measures and metrics we will take
that we hear it and
we will you know set some some some clear realistic goals
based on our grant
metrics and our community needs and be in consistent
communication with Council
and the community at large in our attempts to reach those
goals and then
lastly to your point Councilman Meltzer about you know a
master plan we've said
before and we fully realize this is gonna take a diverse
set of solutions
there's no one answer to solve this we're not gonna build
our way out of it
you know we're always gonna need more hands to do the
helping and that sort of
thing but we are strategically both on paper and just in
conversation working
to ensure that the types of funding and the amount of
funding we're bringing in
is really reflective of our needs so we're looking at
existing federal
grants especially in regards to our permanent supportive
housing population
we have two programs right now and they're consistently at
capacity one of
those programs is looking to expand its eligibility
criteria to be able to
accept you know more folks and then both of those programs
over time you know
we're looking at the community to see how can we leverage
existing resources
to expand those those programs and the capacity of those
programs to meet the
needs so we are in full agreement about you know the master
plan approach and
ensuring that with everything that we're we're doing and
implementing that the
results are not you know our first and foremost to see
people getting housed but
to ensure that you know we're using that knowledge and that
experience and that
data to improve and expand upon what's already happening.
So if I can borrow Gary again please.
I just want to and we can talk offline but I want to be
very clear I 100% get it
but I'm trying to tell you my salary is way less than this
now I make commission
that I do very well but my point is this I don't think that
I'm I think if
we're gonna help further even if you look at the barriers
fund and you look
at the example of hey there's a $7,500 match out there that
serves as an
incentive to get people to hey if you if you're on the if
you're on the verge hey
let's let this allow to push you over the edge and so that
's my that's my
focus is that I think there's ways to if we come back and
imagine the
conversation the navigator was so successful they were able
to house 30
people in two quarters we need an additional X amount
because we're
having great success that that's my motivation it's it's it
I need a number
to go back to push some people over the edge sure and and
for those that would
say why this versus that I can say there's a number to
support that and I'm
not saying all things are that straight line right but I
but I am saying that
that 60k is a lot just under 60k is a lot to me it may not
be a lot to anyone
else and I may stand alone in that I'm okay but that's just
because I look at
my text up and my base salary does not match 60k sure or 50
you know but
there's other mode there's other carrots out there and so
when I when I criticize
that number it is just because reality in my world and
those that I would talk
to is precious few people that I talked to that are you
know at that range and
I'm not saying that's a bad range good range and different
I'm just saying the
people I talked to that that is that that is a lofty range
and so I understand
teachers make that and and Lord knows they need double that
for hazard pay but
but I get it so so excellent point you're really describing
the way we would
approach writing a grant in the first place and our
veterans navigator program
which was funded by a Health and Human Services grant in
that grant we
committed to serve 200 veterans in crisis and with two full
-time case
workers at a different salary level but at two case workers
they serve 260
veterans in crisis in a 10-month period so having that
going in number we knew
260 was a phenomenal year and that's a great program and
you're gonna see it
sustained through other measures not in the nonprofit
community but in the public
sector so I love the benchmarks so we know whether we
missed the mark or we
exceeded the mark I just want to clarify that what you're
looking at councilman
is a fully loaded number that includes taxes as well as
benefits so my comment
was directed to a base salary of 40,000 not to a total cop
package including
payroll taxes of 60 okay thank you yep one final question I
'll get the final
last question on the fifth on the no Ryan can 54 families
does that include
the 10 veteran bash vouchers so that's it so we were able
to how we were able
to get those housed using that system so it doesn't that
that's in addition to
the 54 is that correct okay and then go ahead oh I thought
it's councilman Ryan
I'm sorry well then for sure so on that to the to the data
point and the the
questions that have been asked so our homeless leadership
team does receive
backup information with the the amount of people say the 54
have been housed in
the 400 that are still on the list they we know exactly how
many units
are needed and what that would cost and where the gap is
and what we have and
what we need so that data is there and I've asked that that
be shared with the
rest of council so you have that that to start with yeah
okay anything else thank
you very much great presentation great great work says we
'll come back with
Sarah's here in about 10 minutes on our jail and police
issues related to to
homelessness that we would be saving if we if we didn't
have those numbers of
homeless because obviously that has a lot to do with public
safety as well
correct yes okay and this slide there's just a few updates
in terms of what our
other agencies and partners in the community are doing to
contribute to
homelessness initiatives so this isn't the city directly
but I just wanted to
highlight a few just to show the collaborative approach
that really this
the community has taken the Denton Housing Authority
appointed 250 thousand
dollars of funds to United Way of Denton County for a
supportive services
community impact fund that 250,000 was broken up and
granted to three local
agencies to provide housing services and programs for those
families that are
struggling with housing stability additionally the Denton
Housing what are
those three and that is giving a hope Denton County Friends
of the Family and
Christian Community Action receive those funds from United
Way and then the Denton
Housing Authority also received 10 additional vast vouchers
so those are
for veterans so we went from a total of 10 to 20 that we
have available in our
community for veterans DCTA recently increased the discount
for nonprofits
that are purchasing pass transportation passes for their
clientele from 25% to
50% as of June 1st our daily bread also has mobile showers
available at their
facility and they just increased that from on Fridays only
to Tuesdays and
Fridays so two days a week they are providing mobile
showers to the clients
that are visiting them and then the last point here is MK
OC and our daily bread
are also partnering to have a full-time case manager and
that's very important
because both of them see the same individuals that may be
going back and
forth from their facilities each day and really trying to
help connect them to
the services that they need on an individual basis any
questions okay so
the last part of my presentation is in regards to homeless
employment programs
and we staff was asked to do some research research on
homeless employment
programs of municipalities around the nation and really
seeing if we could
restart our employee to empower pilot program and so this
first slide I just
want to kind of do a quick background review of what was
the employee to
empower a pilot program so this this was a program that had
the goal of employing
ten participants five for the first six months and another
five in the second
month it was through an MOU was served dentin they would be
the main program
organizer and also partner with other nonprofits that would
provide in-kind
services so that MOU was in an amount of forty two thousand
dollars it was split
between two fiscal years 16 17 and 17 and 18 and the
employees were earned nine
dollars per hour working on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and
doing various jobs for the
city mostly litter cleanup and removal but also some parks
maintenance work
that didn't require heavy equipment operation so that
launched the MOU was
done in June of 2017 and the first employees went to work
in September of
2017 there were a lot of individuals that were interested
in participating in
this program however through the various processes of
interviewing doing the drug
testing and then reporting for work there were four
participants that did
participate in the program all of them left early to did
secure employment one
move to another city and the other left because of child
garnishments child
support garnishments so served that and came back to the
city in February of
2018 and requested to terminate that pilot program they
felt it was a
fiscally responsible thing to do realizing that the program
design that
they had structured wasn't working and they really wanted
to kind of take some
time to refresh and see is there a different model that
could be more
effective in meeting the goals councilmember Briggs and
then councilmember
Horta so for me success is defined differently because I
think if the goal
was five and we got four that's not a big stretch and if
two of the four which
is half secured employment then that's a 50% I mean success
rate I mean which
to me is good because now you have two people working that
were not and so I
just kind of wanted to put all those big giant you start
out with 50 and then you
have this but still if you look at the scope and you narrow
it down I mean on
success I mean you have two people working that generally
didn't so I just
wanted to throw that out there that's my doctor yeah I
would you know I see in
Fort Worth and I believe Austin you know where they've done
this more successfully
you know I would like to see a study of what they have done
you know that that
we haven't done and to reconsider doing this including you
know to consider
having this be a program that is that is run by the city
where the city where it
would be up to the city to control you know what our
metrics for first success
are and aren't you know one thing that I would like to see
considered is you know
the drug testing requirement all right you know why you
know to me that's not
important and to me it seems to go against the the whole
housing first I
realize this isn't about how just I hate to interrupt you I
think they've got a
few slides on some recommendations that are gonna address
some of what you're
describing so okay yeah yeah and that's true that's true
yeah yeah so this is
just kind of review of the pilot program and so what I'd
like to transition well
let's first we'll talk about the review of the challenges
after the pilot
program this is in discussion with served at and the other
nonprofits that
participated we did as mentioned we did have some limited
success and recruiting
and hiring participants the lack of stable housing was a
significant
barrier the program was established thinking that the same
five individuals
would come to work over a six month period to have that
consistent employment
without a house to go home or a roof over your head every
day was a
significant barrier to participation and then I think the
other the last
bullet point here these nonprofit agencies and served at
and we're trying
to provide this at their existing capacity and with a new
initiative there
was limited resources and attention that could be provided
to a brand new program
unemployment program for the homeless so going into what
staff has done since
we've researched other programs around the nation that
information was provided
in your backup in exhibit 7 there's actually a spreadsheet
I think of six or
seven different municipalities we looked at and we really
tried to break it down
to understand the program dynamics so what was the city who
was their partner
what were the program goals what was what did the city
provide the city's
role the budget breakdown what were the outcomes overall so
that we could try to
glean some lessons from some of those other municipalities
and so reviewing
that what we learned is all of those municipalities had a
strong nonprofit
program lead that nonprofit was in charge of managing the
program providing
the supervision and they're also the fiscal agent so there
were the ones
taking on the liability and they're also paying the
employees it's also very
important because in the nonprofits are closely connected
to providing that case
management and the support of services that the homeless
individual needs to
move on to self-sufficiency so we thought that was one
aspect that is
common amongst all the programs that we saw is having that
strong nonprofit
program lead where the city provides funding or other
resources but they
manage and implement the program going forward and then as
well as when we
looked at the program budgets not only did they have
funding for the program
participant weight for those participants and their wages
but they
also provided funding for other things that were needed
such as case management
driver supervisor tools protective equipment so really
trying to build an
all-inclusive program and make sure that it can be
successful and have the
attention that it needs the program goal for some of these
programs was slightly
different than what ours was in the past most of them
stated it was to provide a
work opportunity whether that be for the day a few weeks
for whatever time it
might be so a little less focused on the structured you're
gonna participate for
six months but if you're able to work for the day and can
work and pass
whatever is required by that nonprofit you can come out and
work and really
the theory behind that is that you're engaging with those
folks on a regular
basis and trying to connect them to supportive services and
help them move
on to self-sufficiency so that was a little different than
our program had
been in the past and then the last one we saw was examining
lowering barriers
to work now this would be dependent on the nonprofit that
we would partner with
trying to understand what things are flexible and what
things are not
flexible to them any questions on the research that was
provided or things that
do you have do your following slides go into the specific
kind of proposals
that you're asking for okay yeah so we think after
reviewing all that
information we think it's quite possible to restart a pilot
program where we
could go through a process to see what nonprofits might be
interested in being
our partner and really understanding how they would
structure it what are their
ideas to be successful how do they define success looking
at some of the
other models that we've seen however we think annual
program budget estimate is
more around 70,000 and that's to provide for as mentioned
previously the program
participant wages but also for all the other support that
is needed such as
case management and a driver and a supervisor and just
overall program
administration and this would provide for five participants
working 16 hours
per week may not always be the same five individuals but
you'd have five spots
each week and so really what staff is hoping to understand
today from council
is this something you'd like us to explore further knowing
that we think it
would take $70,000 plus or minus to make this program
successful for the
community just understand you know really what the what the
requirement
would be potentially are we talking about work that we
would need to get done
one way or another anyway you know these in other words you
know the wages wages
that we would be budgeting one way or another with or
without this program it
might be in part some of the litter cleanup is not budgeted
and things that
we do on a regular basis but would help to beautify the
community some of it
might be such as our parks maintenance we do use seasonal
day labors to do
planting of flowers and some other work that we might
actually be able to instead
of doing that that contract for day laborers we could use
this crew to go
out and do things for parks maintenance as well I mean just
as a follow-up I
mean could could could we consciously steer it more toward
kind of already
budgeted items so that your total really incremental ask
would be something like
33,000 we could and we can go back and look at that further
and really try to
pinpoint what do we think the reduction and our contract
for day laborers would
be to really get to that what's your net budget we just
didn't dive that for that
much into details yet so I thank you for doing all of this
I I definitely support
this initiative you know we talked about wanting to create
more jobs and this
this creates this is a double duty thing that if if we do
this right and that
creates more jobs and also helps to prevent homelessness so
just kind of
going back to what I was saying before the drug testing I
would hope that that
wouldn't be a part of this or if it does end out to be
maybe there's some you know
law or something that I'm not thinking of where you need to
where you need to
do that that if this is somebody who has an addiction
problem that we help them
with treatment you know instead of seeing it as a disqual
ification seeing
it as this is another this is another thing that our case
worker can help with
so where are they going to so we're not providing a place
under this model the
70,000 model to for them to sleep no that would not be
provided as part of
this program yeah so I would like to and for me this is not
a all or nothing I'm
not saying I won't vote I'd say yes and because I say yes
to this as is but I
would like to see it also us to try to find a place for
each of these people to
sleep and I don't mean build a barracks for the you know
workers but work you
know talk to landlords and see hey we've got this person
doing this this program
you know would you be willing to you know if if we pay this
much for it
said we're looking at all different kinds of whatever the
possibilities they
are because that's essential and as you mentioned before
that's a huge
preventative and one reason why some people don't come back
to work because
they don't know where they're going to be and people don't
sleep well and then
my you know final thing would be seeing if there's are
things that some of our
homeless with disabilities can do you know for those who
either just know in
advance that they can't do the trash collection or who try
and it's just too
hard on them physically you know is there something that
they could do in
this operation that would not be so strenuous on them
physically something we
can look at that's my brief thank you for all your research
looking into this
I I too am in favor of bringing this back I think it could
be really
successful and beneficial for our community and I would
like for us to
engage with a nonprofit who is familiar with the population
and establishes
those relationships because I think that is extremely
important but I also want
to just say that when you see the budget down there is
seventy thousand also
remember the amount of weight that is put on our public
safety and our EMS and
our police department with all those calls and I know that
five people is
really not that much but if this program can be successful
and five can turn into
ten and ten to twenty then you know we're we're paying up
front and you you
hear that you know it's sometimes be it's better to pay up
front and be
proactive than it is to start paying at the end you know
when they end up in the
emergency rooms and in ambulance services of course and
they can't pay
that bill so I'd like for everybody to keep that in mind as
well so the number
does look large but then when you think about all the other
ways that we do pay
in our community after the fact it it makes it look a
little bit less
customer right thank you mayor having to look through the
other cities and what
they've all done I think I like the Tucson plan the best
because it has a
very small amount that the city puts forward in the
community as a whole puts
forward the rest and so if we're going to look at that I
think that's the way to
go I think better route for resources is my personal
thought is to look more into
the funding of MHMR or substance abuse you know anybody can
be employed for a
day but the number one reason people lose their job whether
it's directly or
indirectly is alcohol and substance abuse and until we can
get them off of
those items we can't get them gainfully long-term employed
and completely
self-sufficient so that's that's my two cents on it that I
think we've got some
great organizations here in town that could really we could
partner with to
help out in those areas yeah when I read this I mean we in
every program we've
talked about today we've all I think almost all of us have
desired to have
well what's the goal and what's the end result that we're
hoping to achieve and
that's where I really struggled with not wanting to help
but in this what is it I
mean if we're just saying hey come we're gonna pay you nine
dollars an hour eight
hours at seventy two dollars end of the day I don't know
how you get paid I don't
know if you get paid daily or if you get paid there you go
and they just wander
off somewhere and that I mean that I don't understand that
because I don't
see that there's really a goal there I don't see that it's
I mean if we're just
wanting to give people a chance to earn some money okay
that's fair enough but
can we do a better job of it because when you say five
turns to ten and ten
turns to fifteen well what I'm hearing is does that mean we
multiply that 70,000
times five we double it again we double it again so I
certainly am for doing
something but I would like to see more of a an outcome
based approach to this
because like councilmember Briggs said well two was
successful because they
came employed became employed but we just talked about in
the last
conversation on housing did the people who got housed are
they still housed so
to me it would be we before we can say that successful are
those people still
employed so there's a it's a matter of philosophically for
me what is it we're
really trying to achieve with this program and if it's
really we're just
trying to say we're just gonna give people opportunity pick
them up drop them
off pick up from trash plant some flowers we'll pay you 70
bucks and we'll drop
you back wherever you want to go okay well that I would
hope to think we'd
have something and this isn't directed towards you
obviously I mean I'm looking
at you but yeah I don't want you to think I'm saying what
are you doing I
mean come on no so obviously you know that Sarah so I would
like to see a
little bit more flushing out of what if there isn't a more
of an objective than
what I just described because what I see is half of it
almost half of it is for
administration and truthfully if all we're doing is what I
described you could
take that other 32,000 and I'm sure we've got somebody in
the city can
supervise three or four people I just I would like to parse
the numbers a little
bit and have a little bit more clear objective of what we
're trying to
achieve here because our goal in housing is to not just
give somebody a shelter
for one day is to try to give them an opportunity to stay
sheltered you know
permanently whatever that means for them and here how do we
you know so those are
just some of my thoughts I'm not opposed to it I don't
think it's the best use of
our money if it stays in this form of sort of unstructured
without a whole lot
of kind of tangible goals and and outcomes that we're
trying to achieve
it's just sort of our way of saying we're gonna take $70,
000 give it to a
nonprofit and they're gonna pay some they're gonna pay five
per system it's
$37,000 over some amount anything if we go through a
process process to try to
identify if there's a nonprofit partner what how did they
define what those
outcomes are that's fair enough just hard for me to
comments on that because I
don't know exactly how they were defined that and put that
together they also
might have some ideas to save on costs or to really add
more service enhanced
service to this as well but we just didn't have an approach
them yet we
wanted to see if this is something that council even wanted
to look into
restart so what you're saying is as you put it out there
then those nonprofits
will have maybe their own set of goals and criteria correct
to to to move into
the program we're not defining the we're not saying here do
this program we're
saying we have these funds available what can you propose
as a program that
can best utilize these correct we'd like to hear their
creative ideas and
thoughts and their synergies with the other agencies
understood that I
appreciate that yeah I agree I mean I just I there has to
be an end goal to
define what what success is and stable shelter shelter is a
main a main goal
for this and it we would have to have it for it to be
successful because that's
it's really hard for somebody to have a full-time job and
not have a place to
shower or to sleep and so those are those are known issues
so I I was
thinking it would be somebody on the housing priority list
or someone who was
just housed because I have come to realize that people get
into an
apartment and are not working and so then that means that
they may end up
back on the street if they can't keep you know once this
original support runs
out they don't have a job so this would be a way to help
those people stay in in
their apartments so there are creative ways I mean you know
or before I think
we were partnering with with the shelter or the nonprofit
was to guarantee that
there were that many beds available so no I mean I I'm in
agreement I don't
think that spending $70,000 and then just saying here's
your $70 by see you
another day is is what I had in mind of being a successful
program I think just
as far as the connection between this program and housing
is concerned
concerned if somebody has a minimum wage job or this is
what was it nine dollars
an hour that on its own is not going to help keep them in
an apartment unless
the rent is low enough and so I would say you know that
making sure that we're
working with landlords to help lower rents and do what we
can ask them what
their costs are and doing what we can to lower them so that
people can stay there
on nine dollars an hour because given the the current cost
of rent you know
fair market value and even what counts federally as
affordable housing and and
what we would consider relatively affordable it's still
hard on a minimum
wage anyone that would participate in the program we'd want
to have that case
management and those wraparound services to really
understand what is what do
they need and what are their challenges even if they
currently are have just
been placed in housing how do we maintain that housing
environment for
them just to chip in I think the idea of taking proposals
from a number of
nonprofits is great I think we'll learn a lot I agree and I
want to make sure I
understand this because there's been a couple of comments
about people who are
in apartments keep them in their apartment is this for
people who are help
in so this is just gonna come through the program proposals
from the nonprofit
okay gotcha because I thought this was for people who are
actually homeless but
I could be wrong based upon the target of most of the
programs for those
individuals that are experiencing literal homelessness so
if they're still
in a shelter environment that they are picked up from that
shelter taking for
the day to work and maybe return to the shelter and have at
least a secured bed
for the evening however we don't know that I'd want to put
parameters on it
maybe there's some creative ideas to hear for those that
may have just moved
from homelessness to house councilmember yeah I'm gonna
start where you in it
because I think that's spot-on I think that as I'm
listening that's that's my
question what's the focus it's focused to get them at homes
for focus to put
money in their pocket you know I see those two very
different things one's
huge and not going to fit in this small box right and the
other is I think
achievable and it's it's a value to the community in this
what's the question I
would have is and I think that's maybe where we can partner
with some people
and find out how much you making per day panhandling
because if you're telling me
I can go work and I don't want it but I can go make more
not working that's
competition right and we need to understand what that is
right so I think
there's some baseline questions steeped in reality I mean
and again it's asking
that population what type of work you know have you done
before what do you
what are you used to what type of hours what you know those
kind of
conversations but but I think so that's kind of that that
baseline we've talked
to those that are potential to take advantage this program
and here's the
feedback we've gotten that's kind of what I would like to
hear versus us
sitting in this room you know putting labels on and then
also I'd like to take
a different approach to that I'd like to ask that we find a
company for example
what a lawn care service because the perfect job for me
that I see that that
fits this that that I could get behind today is we have so
much overgrown growth
that code enforcement then tries to reach these owners then
we have to send
city staff or contracts out someone to go out there and cut
it and then try to
recoup our money well if we're investing in that segment
then it's okay because
it's hard enough to recoup our money from these people that
don't come cut it
anyway it beautifies our city and if we do recoup then then
that's great this
program almost pays for itself by receiving those funds
back from from the
labor they did so now it's self-sustaining it's beautifying
our city
and so I see it as a different component of focusing on a
company that a lawn tree
maintenance company that can then quote-unquote hire day
laborers and kind
of manage it that way with the wraparound services or hey
if you want
someone you to talk to about these services you can that
that's kind of I
see it a little different than going through a so the it's
almost this
company serves as that that in between management if you
will that's
associated with a nonprofit and I could be absolutely wrong
that couldn't work
but that's just how I see it and then I have one Aaron I'd
love for you to send
us an email because I don't think that I think there's some
legal liability that
I'm not comfortable with if you're talking about the city
being associated
with someone and it's one thing to say we didn't if we know
someone I don't know
whatever that drug test scenario looks like just lay it out
I mean here here's
the liabilities here's the non liabilities and and just but
that's just
let's just be clearly right or wrong early versus wondering
later so if you
can send us some sort of report on your research on that
area that that'll already
have that noted down yeah go ahead it's getting it's
getting late it's not even
230 yet councilmember hudspeth kind of prompted a thought
with your mentioning
of code enforcement just another possible area of work you
may or may not
have already considered I understand that code enforcement
does graffiti removal
at no cost I don't know why it's at no cost but it is at no
cost and I don't
know what kind of resources are currently employed to do
that but there
might be another area where you know these resources could
be targeted okay
so it sounds like you have direction to continue with the
proposals and then as
they come forward we'll come back and have a conversation
sort of flush this
out a little bit more as far as whether we want to move
forward there some of
these other programs that were talked about lawn care and
graffiti removal and
things like that sounds good thank you thank you appreciate
it thank you all
right great all right move on to agenda item D I believe it
is yes receive a
report from staff and the Denton Parks Foundation give
staff direction
regarding the city's proposal agreement with the Denton
Parks Foundation
good afternoon mayor and council Brian Langley deputy city
manager I want to
visit with you this afternoon about Parks Foundation
agreement this is
something that we had presented to you as you may recall
back in the May
timeframe to get some direction of how to proceed on this I
want to take a
moment to recognize Tim Smith and Molly Tamkey with the
Parks Foundation they're
here I'm gonna have a very short presentation and then turn
it over to
Tim to make some comments I think he has a short
presentation that he'd like to
go through with you as well so just in terms of the
presentation overview for
today we'll be talking about briefly the process that we've
been through the
progress made today talk about the key components of the
Parks Foundation
agreement that we've prepared for you today for discussion
again there'll be
an additional request from the Parks Foundation that they
want to talk to you
about specifically about the pay for the executive director
position and they'll
brief be coming forward to discuss that and then we'll give
you some options at
the end to give us direction on terms of just a little bit
of history here as you
may recall back in October of 2017 we did suspend our
relationships with the
Parks Foundation as we conducted a comprehensive review of
that arrangement
in February 2018 the results of that review were presented
to the City
Council and we worked over a period of months to implement
many of those
recommendations and then in May of 2018 we came forward
with a status update for
you and then talked about options to proceed and the
council at that time
directed us to go forward and and to work on an agreement
that can be brought
forward for consideration there is a 13 page agreement that
's in your backup
that's been provided that we've worked very carefully with
the Parks Foundation
on in our legal department I'm going to go through some
highlights of that the
responsibilities for the Parks Foundation that we've come
up with and
then the responsibilities for the city again one of the not
ations from the
review that we had was just blurred lines of responsibility
there weren't
clear expectations for either the city or the Parks
Foundation so one of the
tenants of this agreement is that this does lay out those
things very click very
carefully and very deliberately so it is a little bit
lengthy but we think it
meets that purpose so one of the first expectations of the
Parks Foundation
would be that they would present and receive approval of an
annual plan a
fundraising plan that would be brought forward to the City
Council on an annual
basis and the Parks Board as you may have noticed in your
your backup that
is not included that's something that they're working on
right now and would
be presented with any final version of the agreement that
would also include a
report of their current year financial information all
their donations and
contributions received they would prepare quarterly reports
on items related to
scholarship dollars donations their disbursement all other
activities they
will prepare gift and pledge records in accordance with
their policy gift
acceptance and financial procedures policy again that was
one of the
recommendations of the review that we had that they did
that we presented that
to you back in May of their recommendations they would
raise
funding for youth scholarships something they've done for
many years and remit the
current balance of those funds almost $13,000 to the city
they would also
remit the remaining balance of the youth sports enhancement
fees and what's known
as the morale fund to the city as well those are dollars
that are on their
balance sheet they would support and fundraise for seasonal
programs such as
Juneteenth Cinco de Mayo these are ones that are unaffili
ated with the city but
the agreement would allow them to do that provided it didn
't have any
interaction with us and they would engage an independent
firm to do an
audit on an annual basis so that's it I'm gonna keep going
the role and expectations of the city one of the things
that we talked
about with you back in May is providing some office space
for the executive
director or any kind of presence the Parks Foundation might
need to meet with
potential donors or conduct their business there's an
office that was used
previously for that in City Hall East it's approximately a
hundred square feet
so that would be part of the agreement we would provide all
the operating
utilities Wi-Fi service those kinds of things as well parks
maintenance
planning and installation support for equipment and legacy
items so if there
was something that was donated we would provide the
maintenance for that and
work through those issues with them we would help identify
projects initiatives
where they can help us with fundraising support we would
record donations and
any related expenses into our record-keeping software so we
'd have good
accurate records of all the types of things that have been
done and we'd allow
the Parks Foundation support and fundraise for seasonal
programs or
projects on affiliated with the city again these are the
Juneteenth Cinco de Mayo
type events that we've talked about before and ensure that
the accepted
gifts are used in accordance with the donor agreements that
we have
yes Councilmember Brisman
was there is there an amount that's tied to that top square
there about the use of office space in
operating utilities we didn't we didn't look at that on a
per square foot basis
and I'm struggling to remember the number off the top of my
head I want to
say it's about two to three thousand dollars is what we
estimated Gary I ask
you if I'm misstating that but I think it's two to three
thousand dollars on an
annual basis of what we thought was a market kind of base
rent for that
okay
you're going to go further into the agreement I'm one I
have a sort of
alternative concept I'd like to float away to an
appropriate point if you've
got kind of more you want to say about this proposal yeah
let me make sure so
you've got a presentation then Tim Smith has a presentation
that's right from the
Parks Foundation so what let's wait and see the
comprehensive presentation then
allow you some opportunity to share that okay fair enough
so there is a potential
for additional agreements what we would call additional
service agreement so if
there was a particular large project say Eureka 3 McKenna
Park that the Parks
Foundation wanted to raise funds for and it was a
significant undertaking that
was outside of any kind of annual fundraising plan then we
would bring
that back as a separate agreement and ask the council to
approve that with the
Parks Foundation there were certainly any resources that
need to be committed
for the city in terms of staff support or anything like
that we would ask the
council to approve that separately so it preserves that
option for us down the
road if we needed to do that we also have a provision as
well that donor
sponsorship recognition programs that those that have to be
separately
approved by the City Council as well so in other words if
the foundations sought
to have some kinds of advertising or naming rights to
facilities or any of
those kinds of things then we would want to bring that back
and have a separate
agreement govern that or a separate policy that governs
that and that's
something I've been working with Gary Packing on and
director of parks to
bring some type of naming policy forward to the City
Council in general but
anything in particular related to that we would have to
come back and cover
with a separate agreement in terms of the contract term
what we've proposed
here and again I'm sorry yes so pertains to this slide in
particular that in the
agreement it talks about that and this is I've shared this
with you beforehand
about a must or a shall but it talks about approved in
writing by the city
manager his designee but it does not mention council
approval so we may want
to make sure that gets added into the agreement yes sir we
can certainly do
that thank you and it's meant to be discretionary I think
there's a wording
question about shall be required it's really discretionary
item on the part of
council so we can make that clear in terms of the contract
term what we
propose for you is initial initial term of one year again
with an annual plan
that would be associated with it and then to one your
options so that we
would be able to come back after 12 months show you the
progress that we've
made what the foundation could describe for you the
activities they've had and
you could see that relationship and decide if you want to
renew it again each
entity the city and the parks foundation have the option to
terminate it within
30 days of written notice very standard procedure that we
have and pretty much
all of our agreements the foundation does have a request as
I mentioned to
you to include pay for the executive director I want to be
clear that the
current draft agreement that that's in your backup does not
include that
provision that's something that there was quite a bit of
discussion on with
the council the last time we spoke in May there was not a
consensus on that
and so we've not included that in the base agreement again
Tim's going to talk
in a moment about his request related to that but they have
requested funding to
cover that executive directors pay $75,000 for the current
fiscal year and
then prospectively going forward councilmember Briggs so we
had the
discussion a little bit ago about base and all in so is
this just base or is
this I think that's a question that Tim probably should
answer about what is
what is in that what's included in that figure for the city
's point of view it
would be $75,000 contractual payment I don't know what kind
of benefits would
be provided with that okay thank you okay okay so the
options that we have
before you really we came down to three options option one
would be no actions
don't proceed with any type of agreement option two would
be proceed with
finalizing the draft agreement again it does not include
any kind of provision
related to pay for the executive director may include any
council
modifications or discussion that we have today we bring it
back for action later
and option three would be to free to consider the executive
directors pay at
$75,000 or whatever amount that you would you would want to
look at for that
so that concludes my presentation again Tim is here and be
happy to answer
questions now on my comments or if you'd like Tim to go
through that we'll be
happy to do that do you want to go ahead and okay okay okay
any other questions
Brian seeing none thank you yes sir mr. Smith
try to make sure I get the right one yeah this one yeah
awesome thank you
afternoon my name is Tim Smith I'm the board president for
the parks
Foundation a couple other things before I get into this I
think it'd be
important to note about myself before we go into this one
by trade I'm a
financial planner my technical title is I'm a certified
fraternal financial
manager I've been financial planning for the last six years
it's important for me
to note before I go into this because a lot of this is
going to be very
analytical as I'll go through a lot of this this
presentation was predicated by
requests from a couple of City Council people as well as
Mayor Watts to give an
analysis of return on investment in regards to executive
director pay both
past and going forward into the future so I will break down
and go into some
some financial conversations here so I'm more than willing
to dumb it up as
much as I need to or to go in as deep detail as you'd like
to so I'm looking
at John Ryan there but awesome great so quick overview we
we did an analysis of
the ED stipend that was requested by the City Council
members we were directed to
do an return on investment for the city providing for a
stipend for our staff as
well as going into an analysis of the efforts and benefit
of the the parks
foundation prior to the 2014 agreement for an executive
director as well as
after so we'll go into that also requested from Councilman
Councilman
Nutsmith was a delineation between our organizations was
other community
organizations I know Councilman Briggs Councilman Briggs
requests that as well
and so we want to be able to go through that we're also
going to address our
annual fundraising plan we've got some pretty pretty high-
level overviews of
that that's not including your backup as well as a talk
about our executive
director the past pay the fiscal year 2017 2018 pay as well
as a recommendation
for future pays and what we would like to see as a
foundation as well as
giving you guys an update on why the executive director
what the executive
director has been doing since the end of really since the
beginning of the end
investigation all the way till now before I move into this
and get to the
numbers I do want to be able to address a couple of the
questions are brought up
during assistant manager Langley's presentation one in
regards to office we
did not include the what you'd call the marketable cost of
the office and to
this analysis reason why and this is something that
actually came from a
conversation with offline conversation with Council Hutzp
eth after the last the
last presentation I did now was that the city's no longer
paying for that
building it could be it very easily could be leased out to
another tenant as
it currently sits the city is not leasing it out nor has
had any attempts
to lease it out it's actually sitting full of all of our
stuff and it's just
been sitting there we have not had the executive director
of Molly Tampy going
into that office until we have the MOU drafted so and done
so just a heads up
on the office space lastly we'll address before we get into
speaker spend most the time talking about pay the the money
that's given
Councilman Briggs is contractual that's not not there's not
an all-in it's just
that there's no benefits gonna come along with it and it's
actually gonna be
split between an executive director and then a part-time
assistant and that's
mirrors what we had approved for last fiscal year's budget
ed amount to be
given which is that 56 76 5 which is gonna be given 61 5 is
gonna be given
to Molly Tampy the 15,000 was before a part-time assistant
and that was
approved in last year's fiscal budget so that's what we're
requesting this time
as well any questions I have a question about that no no
you are yes no I'd get
the light if you want so that's helpful information so in
on the
retroactive pay yes sir so you're asking for not only the
executive directors
retroactive pay but also the assistants retroactive pay the
assistant has not
been working since January if I'm correct I'm looking at
our executive
director so no we were actually only requesting the
executive directors which
would be the 61 something on five okay
okay all right a couple of analysis notes here almost all
the note all the
numbers that we pulled were sourced from within city staff
whether it's from from
Gary pack in the D part director or there was given a
source from the books
or numbers that were provided during the BKD report so just
to give you an idea
of where we're sourcing our information it's not us we're
just making up numbers
out of nowhere are we internally sourcing it it's it's
being sourced from
books that have been looked over by a professional auditor
that you guys hired
as well as has been sourced by the city staff so these
these numbers are coming
from a trustworthy source one statistic was not there is
one statistic we're to
use in here and that is volunteer hours we're direct we're
using a twenty three
point five six dollars an hour average that was sourced
from independent sector
it's a nonpartisan non-governmental nonprofit organization
that
conglomerates multiple nonprofits and they've put that out
as that is what the
value of a volunteer hour is for nonprofits so that is the
one statistic
that we are using for this analysis it's not internally
sourced now about return
on investment so the conversation that was had in regards
to ROI specifically
in regards to the the BKD report was that the ROI
underneath the underneath
the old D par director was miscalculated in the eyes of the
BKD report that it
wasn't looking at truly return on investment and this is a
little bit
different than you look at in my world of investments where
if you have money
that's sitting in a cash account that money isn't earning
you nothing whereas
if you use that money you purchase a say a stock that money
then can have
possibility for return in this case it's not that's not the
exact same the
organization exists and was creating fundraisable dollars
that was given to
the city for use prior to us having an executive director
so there needed to be
a new statistic that need to be used here so you're gonna
see a conversation
between ROI and what is called what I'm calling weighted
ROI I'll get into the
calculation part of that in a minute and how we how you
formulate the formulaic
conversation regards that well you will see this W ROI or
the weighted ROI
within this so the BKD report did make note of total fundra
ise dollars that was
reported on our 990 I will say that while yes those are as
money that we
were raised in those current years those aren't reflective
of money that was
raised for specific city projects that's also including
income that was for
the pass-throughs that we are helping support as well as
through scholarships
and a number of different projects that didn't directly
affect city of Denton
facilities didn't directly affect city of Denton Parks and
Rec Department so
we will see me also use a CTFR which is basically stands
for city total funds
raised so money that we raised specifically for for for
projects on
city property does that make sense Chris is already wiping
his eyes
falling asleep I know I'm sorry so for clarification on
that what you're saying
is the total fundraised dollars from what we had in our
report is not the
correct amount not that's not correct that you actually
raised more but it
wasn't on your IRS filing no no we actually so we what we
was shown on our
990 our is filing is the most that we raised as a whole
organization okay well
so so and I'll show you numbers will make more sense in a
minute but you know
in one of those and one of those 990s so we raised a
hundred thousand dollars
well really that year only 12,000 of that went to city
projects does that
make sense the rest of that was going to non non city uses
there were some of
that was money that we raised and took in from the pass-
through organization
some of that money was money we raised and was using for
specifically for
scholarships so they weren't for it wasn't like it was
being used for city
facilities does that make sense okay councilmember Melter I
'm gonna
paraphrase to see if I'm tracking so in the ROI up against
the expense of the
director's salary you're gonna look at this is all a
question you're gonna look
at city specific funds raised less the baseline of what was
raised before you
had the director so it's incremental city specific funds
raised I'm gonna
show you the formula in a minute but essentially yes that's
what it's gonna
be we're gonna we're gonna there's gonna be a different yes
and sure answer yes
we're gonna get more in time yeah don't you okay to get
into this the the pre I
call this the pre-ed post-ed and you know sometimes they
work on a project to
get so into your own jargon someone doesn't even know what
you're talking
about half the time so if I get a little bit too far in
please stop me but pre
executive director post executive director so we analyze
our financial
reports it was 2007 was when we had a treasurer change I'm
I'm sad to admit
that prior 2007 well before me being involved in the
organization if you want
to date yourselves I was still in high school in 2007 so
you know let that sink
in but but but but in two hours before 2007 we had we didn
't have very good
record-keeping so we have changed that and you've seen that
in the in the
financial in our in our financial guide that you've been
giving your backup but
we're doing 2007 till September of 2017 which is when the
investigation started
and not beginning of October so a couple of data points we
're gonna be going over
income wise the total funds raised you'll see the city city
project specific
project funds raised the CTFR you'll also see monetary
value for in kind and
volunteer hours so just a heads up on that and expenses you
'll see us talk
about Civic Center expense room cost deep hard staff time
actually just to
make note I didn't put in the presentation that staff time
is
calculated off of current 2018 salaries so all we might go
back and say you know
per hour of what this is what the the foundation was taking
away from the deep
hard directors time was X amount of dollars an hour that's
actually based off
of 2018 salary not necessarily what the salary was in 2011
which is probably
less than what it was today so we did we did take a lot of
shots against
ourselves in this analysis as well as additional city cost
including when we
get to Eureka - we'll talk about the the poor in play and
the equipment that was
purchased and then we'll also go into the executive
director and assistant
support that we received from the city so our first graph
as you can see here
this is a basic general overview you will see the big out
the outlier there
which is 2015 that is the that is the main fundraising year
that we had for
Eureka - you can see the other years in there as you'll see
here that this red
box these are the years in which we had the executive
director involved and then
of course the blue and the orange differences are just the
total city cost
versus what we totally raised for the city so you'll see in
some of these
earlier years that yes there's still we're raising more
than what was costing
to the city later years it was different in the big outlier
year it's very clear
that we raised more money that was was spent by the city
and so just to let you
guys see this is there any questions about this graph that
I can break down
for you while we're on it yeah I'm sorry I'm sure you're
very clear about it but
I lost track of what you meant by total city cost that that
that's I think you
had it a slide ago that's the director the cost of the
director plus some yeah
let me go back let me go back real quick yeah it is right
here the expenses is
the Civic Center room cost the deep hard staff time
additional city costs that
come through like on a per project basis specifically when
we get to this the big
blue bar there but it's all costs that are somehow driven
by Parks Foundation
costs to the city driven by Parks Foundation yes okay all
right so so
you're so you know if the orange bar exceeding the blue bar
is the is it in
essence the return on the investment correct yeah we're
about to get in a
given period correct yes any other questions on that sure
sure okay so now
we are gonna be comparing return on investment versus the
city total funds
raised here so you can see all back to 2007 that orange
line that's moving that
is the moving the moving point of return on investment for
us whereas the blue
the blue bar is actually the funds that were raised in
those current years so
it'll be easier when I break it down this way and show you
sorry show you pre
executive director and post executive director the the
money that was raised
you can see the trend lines there the dotted lines are in
the middle of those
two graphs you can see that before the executive director
we had a negative
trend line of a negative return on investment for the city
that what we are
costing by having the deep hard director sit in on our
meetings us not paying for
the Civic Center that we were using as a meeting location
for our board meetings
staff other staff time that was used to consult with the
board and what we were
actually returning back to city projects because we didn't
have so much of an
incentive to be looking at specific city projects to be
helping out on you can
see a negative trend line and return on investment so you
're using allocations
of kind of fixed city salaries as if they were expenses in
the past
incremental expenses so if you okay so debatable right well
no so let's let's
pretend that you know Gary makes no I won't disclose what
Gary actually makes
but you guys probably actually know but 500,000 just to see
a 500,000 start
there Gary what you doing for dinner you got any plans or a
hundred hundred
thousand dollars to say Gary makes hundred thousand dollars
and we're
taking 38 38 hours a year from from Gary we're gonna split
that down and we did
I don't have him on this presentation but how many hours 38
hours a year does
that equal to of his salary that we're taking away from the
city be able to use
those 38 hours that year for something else for city
purposes does that make
sense still debatable because it's not what way is it
because we don't save
when when you don't take his time we don't get the 38% back
there you have
his time value right but it's not a cash it's not a cash
out no but I'm not
fixed expense sure and I guess I'll guess I'll preface it
because the reason why
this is in the presentation is because the predecessor who
sat in your seat
actually directly asked us to bring that back and said that
how would it what
value of city time is being lost to the foundation so here
I am it attaches to
the seat go ahead do you okay that works so the the you see
the next the post ED
that city total fundraise and the ROI trend line shows that
from 2014 was the
start of Molly Tampke is our executive director through
2017 the funds raised
as well as the return on investment I will go I'm not one
to when it looks at
we're looking at data to try to hide blemishes but you will
see in 2014 there
was a negative ROI of 79% that can directly be attributed
to the fact that
you're hiring a fundraiser who is trying to gain traction
and get going and then
start gaining you know organize how we're gonna fundraise
how we as a
organization or start operating and then for there you can
see that it makes up
for it after that could you go back to the slide where it
showed the orange go
back one more right there okay so I'm looking at your
numbers here so 11 is
2017 yeah I'm sorry those those numbers when I pulled okay
so 10 is tennis tennis
16 9 is for 9 is 15 and 8 is 14 and I'll actually show you
a total summary of
this in a minute but if you want to see year by year
technically year one is
2007 okay alright customer breaks on the I guess you could
go back to go back to
where you were in the year like 2014 so at some point I don
't think it was 61,000
I think it was half that at 35,000 we adjusted for that
okay which year 2014
20 it wasn't until 2016 that it was adjusted correct Molly
correct okay so at
2015 in 2015 at that 98% return on investment it was Eureka
and it was
35,000 okay and that's when the most money was raised at
that correct yes okay
thank you the last thing I will do is is because there were
whenever you're
looking at it from a statistical standpoint if you have out
liers you should
you should at least try your data with the outlier taking
out so 2015 I'll
count as an outlier because we had a big capital project
and within the 31 year
history of didn't parks foundation within the last 18 years
we've had two
large capital projects actually we'll talk about both in a
minute but that was
waterworks parking that was Eureka - and so I took Eureka -
out just to show you
that the non outlier if we were to remove that year where
we had a lot of
fundraising because we had a huge capital campaign that
people can get
behind here are the years around it but here are the years
where we're not
pushing for that capital campaign and here still is the
trend line so you can
see the funds raised as well as the return on investments
okay questions
about that all right now the ROI versus the weighted ROI so
just so you see how
we calculated this it's taking of course regular return on
investment is ending
value minus your original investment divided by original
investment that
equals ROI weighted ROI like I said this is Tim Smith
mathematics so you pick and
choose if you want to trust it or not but there is no the
closest thing I can
look at in the financial and the financial industry is what
's called
internal rate of return and so what I could do is I could
take out previous
final values of fundraising prior to the executive director
being hired and I
could subtract that from what we had what we had prior and
so those previous
final values was about $12,000 a year was our average and
so what we were
giving to money that we were giving to city projects taking
that from the final
value we had after the executive director and giving an ROI
for that so
that this lets you see what that weighted ROI is you do see
the ROI is
diminished for every single year of course because you're
taking out money
that was raised so the 2015 for example it was 98% once it
's weighted it takes
out about 3% rate of return you can see it in 2014 where we
had bad year going
there it added to it so add to it quite a bit okay any
questions about weighted
ROI customer Melser I want to call it incremental ROI but
so cumulatively your
plot you're positive cumulative your positive that's why
this trend line
exists there yeah trend trend is necessary make you cumul
atively yeah and
actually I'll show you here's the here's the positive here
's the overall so we
can see it just so it's nice and bite-size for everybody so
in the seven
years prior to the executive director we fundraised for
specific city projects we
fundraised $90,000 90 90 thousand ninety thousand eight
hundred and sixty nine
to be exact that average annual was 12,000 981 once we had
an executive
director hired so the four years after that we raised a
little over a million
dollars between in kind donations volunteer hours an actual
straight hard
cash an annual average about two hundred fifty five
thousand dollars a year and
that ROI once annualized is 35% once weighted is 15% now we
'll say for a
mathematical financial person like me this is a small data
set and so you're
gonna see big swings between the ROI and the weighted ROI
but these are numbers
on you okay if you could go back a couple slides that show
the because I
need to make sure I understand need some clarification on
something the one that
I had you go back to before the costs and the revenue this
is very the next
one back one but I'm very simple so the blue line that
represents not just hard
cost but soft cost or is that actual cash no the blue line
represents like I
said it represents us not paying for the Civic Center room
we were giving that
for free and volunteer hours volunteer hours volunteer
hours from from the part
staff I guess said before all these all these expenses that
are listed here is
what it's including okay but it's not volunteer time for
the people who are
volunteering for the parks foundation no no no the blue
line okay all right yes
go ahead yeah I think a number that might help everyone go
back to the
formula stop please thank you what you're calling weighted
ROI can you
just tell us underweighted ROI just the numerator what's
the total dollars so
it would be the incremental dollars minus the original
investment just how
many dollars cumulatively were raised above all those costs
including the
the allocations how much how much are we how much an
expenditure instead of
expressing it as a percent right you late sure in this time
city laid out I
don't know hundred thousand dollars including allocations
for in X so what's
the net is how many cumulative sure incremental dollars
above I don't have
I don't have that total number for all these fans I do it's
just over my
computer it's not on this presentation okay that'd be an
easy number to
understand I can pull it if you want me to give you give me
a minute I go pull
it okay it's gonna be good go back to the graph that I like
to go back to
that Chris is still stuck on that graph no but it were like
five or six around
for long years but what you're at maybe I don't understand
what you're at what
you're saying is how much add up those numbers and then
subtract out the you
know the total raised minus the total expenses that's the
number you're
wanting is that right okay so you got 800 you got to 2
million you got about
1.1 million and whatever else you got there so that's what
that's that's all
yeah that's the big bag of money that was delivered over
and above the okay
yep correct yeah that's the that 1.02 million is what was
delivered in value
correct yeah and that's and you know to you know your
credit for conservatism
that's over and above even allocations of staff time no
this is included is that's
all right that's this is in this no no I'm sorry this is
the costs correct so
the excess over yes the costs you know to credit from a
point of view of
conservatism is even you know taking into account alloc
ations of staff time
correct no you're fine I'm sorry thank you miss you got
some in that's our
appreciate and I know that Brian whenever he found out I
was doing 24
slots he was a little mad but sorry yeah we're getting we
're getting there just
to just to let you know I think I think the points being
made okay the points
being made here the we did I did an analysis of Eureka 2
versus with the DPF
versus without us I did make some very liberal assumptions
especially
especially here what I was looking at was if we were to
have a total amount of
funds that were raised from the parks foundation between
volunteer hours and
kind donations and cash donations I'm sorry that line on
this is cash and
in kind should be deleted just to cash donations I
apologize that's a typo there
total about six hundred ninety three thousand dollars for
the Eureka 2
project and then with the equipment expense the poor put
the poor employee
and the equipment that was purchased those brought from the
equity BKD
airports the city man hours that were calculated from the B
KD report and it's
the temp season staff seasonal staff that was hired by the
city altogether
that that project altogether was about seven hundred ninety
six thousand
dollars cost okay in in relations of us take just the
equipment I went through
and found our general ledger okay I think we've got I mean
no no no I'm not
telling you so I'm just saying with the Eureka 2 project we
've already said
that's an outlier so the analysis on that sort of is
isolated in a sense you're
you're trying to say that when you look at those three
years excluding that one
or those three years excluding that one that given the cost
that the city pays
either in cash or all these other things that we derive a
benefit greater than
that to this X percentage of these dollars and that and
that's what that's
basically your point in the presentation is you are
receiving greater rate of
return based upon your investment when you take out the
2014 which was the
first year you take out the Eureka 2 which is an isolated
project I mean we
might have another one come up in another ten years but
that's not what
y'all typically that's not what you typically that's not
the typical the
typical year so but so sorry and I'm gonna skip I did some
work on that and
this doesn't work like comparing the capital projects
between water works and
Eureka 2 I'm gonna skip that too I'm just gonna move right
if you guys want to
talk to me about it feel free I'll sit over there and have
a conversation with
you I will go into just briefly I think I think ROI
calculations I think the
recommendation that we would make from a did parks
foundation is that that ROI
should be measured on a per project basis with a
traditional ROI calculation
this whole weighted weighted not weighted ROI is one
confusing two is
gonna eventually be inaccurate for 10 15 20 years down the
road in this
relationship and we're still using a weighted ROI based off
of numbers that
we had for a five-year span or seven-year span before we
hired an
executive director that's it's it's archaic and so we would
we would ask to
to look at it on a per project basis with a traditional ROI
calculation is
there any conversation that needs to be had or questions
about that and how
we're gonna we're gonna calculate that ROI this man oh yes
go ahead that seems
fair to me I think that's a very good argument I was gonna
ask could we I know
you've had to slip a skip over some slides but can we all
have a copy of
this presentation of course yeah I'm not saying you got a
necessarily skip over
a thing but I think the whole point was oh no no I
understand yeah no no that
makes sense since since Eureka's an outlier in terms of for
the sake of time
I I just wanted to have not only those slides but all of
but all of these okay
just yep thanks yep you guys aren't rushing me Brian's got
a hook back
there he just keeps putting behind them he's trying to okay
any other questions
for Tim I've got a couple more I'm sorry okay just to go
over a fun annual
fundraising plan we do believe and I'll just get right to
the meat of this but
we are gonna be working with with Gary packing on on doing
getting the
fundraising started for the new dog park we do have money
that's still allocated
to Eureka - that is the way that our board sees it in the
way that we feel is
that that money cannot be used for reimbursement for city
cost and expense
on the equipment rather that we accepted those donations
from our donors to be
used for improvement to Eureka - and so we're going to use
that money and we're
going to find ways to go out there and and build whether it
's it's it's new equipment
do any type of maintenance that needs to be done out there
any type of fixes and
so we're gonna we're gonna have a very hard conversation
about how we can take
this $35,000 and make it go to work for what it was raised
for instead of
sitting in our bank account we also did raise about $70,000
for the accessible
playground that was supposed to be built at McKenna Park
that never came to
fruition and so we do need to have conversations with one
our donor base
and to a city staff to give a direction of what we should
do with that money we
would like to keep it used for McKenna Park and so we have
that money on hand
so those are kind of our initial primary projects Molly T
ampke our executive
director in the interim while being unpaid and being a
phenomenal sport of
toughening it out and doing a lot of work for an unpaid un
paid position for
last seven months has has been working in a secured $100,
000 IOOF cemetery
donation to help pay for the the new fence and so she has
received part part
of that money half of it and we're gonna be closing up the
other half so for if
you want to talk about ROI infinity is a pretty good one we
're not paying
somebody to raise 100,000 for him yes sir is that hundred
thousand dollar for
the faint part of the fence that we're constructing now the
wrought-iron fence
I'm gonna let Molly answer that because just huh oh yeah
yeah yeah I just want
to understand if it's if it's a reimbursement if it's wait
I mean I think
the cost for the IOOF was three hundred something thousand
dollars to the city
and go ahead the hundred thousand dollars isn't related to
the fence that's
going in right now along with the columns and all in the ar
ches the
hundred thousand dollars is related to a capital
improvement plan we did over an
eight-year plan for this both cemeteries and it covers
additional fencing that
has not been improved repairs to the storage building and I
OOF
additional headstones roads a little bit of everything on
that plan there's more
than one area that it's focusing on if I may while he's
there I just saved him a
few steps Gary so I just want you to be heard so you so
your fresh eyes to this
relationship you know so I just want to know just open-
ended question your
thoughts kind of experience before and in your previous
positions your
experience working with Tim I'm sorry you had to suffer
through that but but
just kind of your thoughts on on this working relationship
path forward just
want to give you an opportunity to be you know to kind of
share whatever you
have to say not every community has a parks foundation that
's out raising money
for their organization in the past it's usually done by
most most departments by
committee where staffs out there trying to figure out how
to pay for athletic
shirts and getting sponsors on shirts or paying for a
special event a July 4th
type of enter so on so forth in Arlington where I came from
we actually
hired a firm to go out and do fundraising for us and
sponsorships and
they got a percentage of their proceeds we didn't pay a
stipend or anything like
that so and that was that was successful so it's fortunate
I think we're
fortunate to have an organization that that has that
direction obviously there's
some some structure that needs to be improved which can
happen but it's not
all departments have park foundations okay thank you so
again the hundred
thousand is for a sort of a strategic plan or a master plan
we have for I
think is it Oakwood and yeah we put a cemetery plan
together for both
cemeteries and it's you know ranges between 60 70 thousand
dollars a year
and that money is going towards some of those initiatives
so is that so will it
be parsed out on a yearly basis or do they just give you
the full hundred and
that covers a two years worth of the plan or how does that
have you all
figured that out we we're working on that third party
agreement now with the
city attorney's office okay to line out exactly what's
gonna happen but it could
cover two years or it could cover you know three years if
if the city
contributed somebody towards it you know that type of okay
good
councilmember breaks is that for refurbishing headstones
and things like
that yeah there was there was money in there for resetting
headstones because
we saw some work to do there and then an annual like 12,000
15 thousand dollars a
year that we could keep up with that process any other
questions yes
councilmember I'm sorry I'm sorry I was a question for Tim
so would you say you
know representing the Parks Foundation do you feel
satisfied with the new MOU
yeah it's a councilman arm towards that I've been I've been
really lucky to work
to work closely with Brian during this process and feel
like that that we
worked really well together and have definitely come to an
agreeable MOU that
definitely there's there's more structure than what we were
used to I was on the
board prior to this whole process and there's a lot of
volunteers we've had
since the early 2000s who've been there and it's gonna be
more structure more
checks and balances than they were used to because a lot of
it was handshake
agreement it's how we're gonna do it and you know I think
us as an entire board
if I could speak for them feel like that the structures are
not not overly
overly burdensome they're not something that is gonna gonna
stress us out as
volunteers and we feel like it's something we can
definitely work with
the city staff and it's certainly needed because as much as
protecting the city
it's protecting us and so we do we do agree with the MOU as
it sits right now
yep thanks yes so just one last question and first thank
you again for your time
just kind of independent of this process to kind of
understand better one new
question came up what how does it work if a donor says I
want to donate to to
your director I think she's doing a fabulous job and I want
the my donation
to go to her would that just be Trent because I just need
to I need to
understand how that's what because because then can she get
up to whatever
that position or the assistant position can those numbers
increase or does the
organization say can't do that you got to pick a project to
donate to how do we
how do we manage sure sure so we we mean just like every
other nonprofit or
foundation would have any 501 c3 we would have a spot for a
general fund
that can be used for whatever discretionary use and expense
we want it
to be I just don't know how much experience folks in the
room have with
fundraising but there's not a whole lot of donors who walk
up and say I want my
money to just go to pay for somebody rather than say I want
my money to be
something of use that I can see done in the community you
're it could happen I'm
not gonna sit here and say that it can't but we do have a
general fund that's
there and that we have board board approved we have to vote
on expenses out
of that general fund we do have somebody that's given to
that every single year
as you guys will be given in quarterly reports but it's not
it's not a not a
large amount of money no does answer your question yes sir
and and so thank
you for that and then for me mr. city manager I just would
like that when we
get those reports I'd like that kind of capture just just
if there's a one-time
anomaly giant number I just want to know before you know
the question comes back
to us why you know if this is approved $70,000 tax dollars
are going to this and
this giant other check went there I mean I'm not saying it
happens but if it does
I want to be in front of it you know just kind of a because
I think I think
I think there's value in that I think there's absolutely
value in a key person
and just kind of hey there may be someone that just says
hey I appreciate what you
do and it's well deserved I'm certain I just want to be
educated on it not that
I'm against it just want to know before you know comes to
me through other
champs and this does turn into something council has was
bring us that we do have
it to wear in the MOU I don't know if Brian online in his
presentation Gary
will be sitting as an ex officio member on our board you'll
be there for every
board meeting every board meeting our treasurer provides a
Treasurer's report
that we vote on and I've encouraged Gary he actually was
late to the last one
because he was working with Brian on the MOU let's strike
one Gary but if but you
know I even gave him the Treasurer's report said here you
go putting your
files if anybody needs to see it here it is here's that
here's the books you have
access to it so that is something we do I think we can
certainly clarify the MOU
though that that it's it's noted in an annual report if
dollars are donated for
specific purpose where they went so to your point if it's
to a capital
equivalent of a park in a specific project it's fine if
somebody were to
donate for a salary or something like that you know as well
and I think that's
a simple way of structuring the donation report
any other questions for Tim yeah okay the just so you guys
know because we are
requesting for future funding of her of her of her pay but
we are we are
requesting for the currently budgeted amount that is in
fiscal year 17 18 to
be released so just so you guys know how this traditionally
has worked I don't
know if I put it in here let me ask you though I asked you
that question and are
you asking for seventy five thousand or sixty one thousand
sixty one five the
release for the executive directors pay correct the but the
recent release of
those funds to be done because those are currently budgeted
but they they have
not been released traditionally what happens is they're
released along with
congruently with our calendar year fiscal year and so
during the
investigation of course that which happened between October
and February
doesn't that money was never released and until the mo us
signed the city
staff felt like it would be best if we waited till an
approved mo you by you
guys was done before they released that money and so we are
requesting with this
mo you to have not only that those funds to be released but
also to have future
funding as well and if you guys want to just for sake of
time here's everything
Molly's been doing but you want to ask more questions about
it I certainly can
I'll go back to that this sure Kim
Councilmember Romter yes yeah so I just want to make a
comment with wondering if
if you could speak to this and I appreciate so much the
work you put into
you know coming up with this whole argument for a return on
on investment
and the focus here for obvious reasons is on the return on
investment in terms
of dollars and cents right but we there is so much more
that we're getting in
return on investment when we you know when we support our
our parks and so
I was wondering kind of if you just wanted to speak to you
I mean I know we
all know council knows what parks foundation does maybe if
you could just
speak a little bit to what our parks would look like you
know when you show
those figures about here's the money that the city puts in
for the intangibles
essentially yeah the intent or actually some of them are
our tangible
but where there's not a nest where the quantifiable you
know dollars and cents
on it but you talked about the amount of money that the
city would be putting in
on its own or getting back on its own without the parks
foundation if you
could talk about you know how much the city what our parks
would look like and
in programs would look like without the parks foundation
the the park the parks
foundation was originally created 31 years ago to be for
the benefit of
paying for scholarships for summer programs for underpriv
ileged children who
couldn't afford it that's what we got our start as it morph
ed into more than
that over the 31 years and so that alone is one piece and
into into to answer your
question with brevity I would point to just one project and
that'd be Eureka 2
I think that's probably a great example of what we are able
to provide to the
community is that we get to turn around and reach back out
to the community and
introduce projects and opportunities for them to be able to
go put nails and
boards at a place that they play at and be able to have a
community build like
Eureka 2 was where you have kids and young adults and you
have college kids
and you have older adults who played on Eureka 1 and and
did the the first
community build on Eureka 1 back in the 90s and now they're
coming back out and
they're helping do the community build on Eureka 2 that's
the intangible
difference that we can make by providing those
opportunities for our citizens in
the city of Denton so sure okay so I may be the only one
who feels this way and
you might tell me all why this is all wrong but it seems
like the activities
are not really in question they're awesome and the you know
effort in the
community is beautiful and what it does to the parks is
great and it's great
that so many people want to contribute above and beyond
what we levying taxes
to parks the questions arise because of this strange
structure of having you
know positions that are paid for that are not accountable
through the city and
funds that get spent for the city but sometimes not you
know that's where the
confusion can come it's not just Parks Foundation we've got
you know a number
of relationships like this where where parts of the
community really want to
support above and beyond our tax levies libraries first
responders you know and
I think it's great to live in a community where people want
to do that I
just want to throw out for your Rotten Tomatoes the premise
of having
something called the Denton Foundation or if you like the
Denton Excellence
Foundation and it has a director and that's a city employee
and money can be
raised and it's it's all transparent the ethics rules apply
it has all the
benefits of being part of the city the citizen
participation well you know we're
we're awesome at having groups of citizens participate all
these unpaid
boards and commissions and advisory committees you know and
I I throw out
for your consideration that structure where then there's no
question about gee
how do we count account for space that's provided and a
person that does a job
you know we do that every day so submitted for your
consideration
sorry responding to what counselor Meltzer said and then
talking about the
giving direction early on the part about the yeah the
giving direction so I like
I like the sound of that idea as far as what we're kind of
talking about today I
like how the new MOU addresses those precisely those issues
about
transparency and then corrects or seems you know seems to
correct oversights
that occurred in the past and I'm pleased that you know for
me it's
critical to know that the Parks Foundation is pleased that
so that we're
going to be the City Parks Foundation working together so
for now while we've
got this partnership I I really like what I see and I'm
sorry it that it that it
took so long I don't mean to say that people weren't
working fast I should say
I'm sorry that it takes so long you know that that but work
takes a long time so
but it looks really good and and I'm I'm very pleased and
so and I'm going to be
recommending the the option three plus with the back pay
because I am a firm
believer in paying people for their labor if labor was
exerted and it clearly
was then I want to make sure people are are paid for it so
for me that's just
kind of an ethical you know labor issue and and I want to
say you know as far as
the return on investment and the investigation now I
obviously wasn't on
council at the at the time but I was following and I was
reading and I read
you know at the time of the investigation when you know
when it came
out I read the report and clearly there were new rules in
place under new
management that the Parks Foundation had not been also the
Parks Department was
not aware of now they're aware and also working together
with the city and I
love seeing that relationship so I see this is extremely
positive so your
direction is option number my option number three plus back
pay right plus
plus back pay there are some other things that that I would
say to defend
that decision but I'll wait to see if if everybody else
agrees then I don't need
to defend it so I'll wait to see okay any other comments
direction oh I'm
sorry yeah we need to let Aaron speak a little bit or do
you want me to bring
this this is the first time I've heard about a request for
back pay I was
aware of the Sony 5000 I'd like to if if the council could
hold off on the back
pay until we can do some legal research regarding that and
I'm thinking back
about the you know we didn't have an agreement in place we
just had a budget
amount I know there was a cease and desist that was sent
out that was
subsequently lifted I just want to make sure that this
council is in a good
position to be able to provide the back pay so I whenever
this comes here we can
get you that answer okay yeah so you there needs to be some
kind of
foundation for that some kind of agreement or some type of
policy or rule
or you just want to research that legal that's correct it
may end up being
proportional as I understand it and you can correct me
Aaron but between the
time the cease and desist was put in place when it was
lifted so there may
be okay all right to deal with the Texas gift laws that's
correct all right so I
want to make sure I understand this is the first that you
heard about the
retroactive request yes I knew about the request or so but
the retroactive is the
first you saw it was in this meeting today yes okay all
right well that's
sort of a anyway okay well I can give direction I don't
have a problem moving
forward with the funding for the 75,000 based upon the city
attorney's opinion
I'll wait on that but if it comes back that we can do that
I don't have an
issue with that at whatever level based upon proportion
ality or something that
seems to be appropriate I'm real okay with that and I think
the agreement is
is good moving forward we're gonna probably have some
tweaks we need to do
maybe but it sounds like we're in a place to where we have
continued renewed
relationship to move forward in a way that will avoid some
of the you know
legacy kind of things that happen in any relationship you
know you get 30 years
you know things just so I get it so I'm okay with option 3
with the back pay
however it's decided if it's decided that that's available
legally so that's
my direction yes I'm okay with the one-year agreement and I
would also like
for it to say sixty one five instead of seventy five
thousand because that's not
really what it is the the executive director salary is
sixty one five I
think and and I'm completely okay with that I think there
was the request if I
recall correctly with sixty one five for the executive
director and then perspectively
another fifteen thousand for administrative support that
correct yes
okay so that's the question okay well I'm in favor of the
executive director
salary which is sixty one five so you you wouldn't support
the additional
fifteen thousand for the assistant which is okay I just
what yeah because I'm not
even really sure what what they do and if that was included
in the return on
investment was all of that included okay okay yes the the
system was included in
the return on investments and that was that was part of the
original that was
part of the agreement that was that was done for this
fiscal year of 1718 okay
I'm sorry can't remember how to comment no I'm I'm good
with option three I think
you know we can take a take a look at it I think the the
new leadership staff new
parks department I think it's it's earned the the
opportunity to give us
new data new look you know and kind of explore that further
right yeah I'm happy
with you know with funding it but I'd like to know if my
colleagues would
object to staff vetting the concept of a for some time down
the road of a
centralized Denton Foundation Councilmember Ryan I'm in
favor of option
three I'm assuming that what was in the report eight who's
kind of a high level
overview of exhibit two correct and so we'll get a more
detailed exhibit twos
it comes forward to us and I do request that the city
attorney investigate the
current year and bring that back to us yes just one one
qualified Brian you
have my notes on that standard language I just want to ask
that when it comes
back that be considered you know on some of the documents
there were a few
provisions that you looked at so we'll go back and look at
that and try to work
with the city attorney's office and get that in the final
agreement thank you as
a council member Ryan was mentioning there would be an
exhibit for the annual
plan and then we would have the rules and procedures that
were approved by the
park board so we'll excuse me about the foundation so we'll
put all those in
there thank you yes ma'am breaks yeah and going back to the
the administrative
assistant when we saw the list we just saw the things that
Molly had been doing
right correct okay and so if if I could just get a list of
what the assistant
does and the job responsibilities that would be great that
's all I'd like to
know I can give you I can give you that for the request for
the future pay we're
not asking for the the back pay on the assistant because
after January we let
our assistant go because we realized that that we or she
changed jobs she
moved or she resigned that there we go that's the that's
the word I'm looking
for she so that was that's we're not asking for the
assistant because we
didn't have an assistant this year we've only had Molly
this year so that's
that's where that that number comes from and so I'm sorry
for the
presentation being off and not being exact with what it's
being 75,000 for
the executive director and for the assistant in the future
I can give you
I can give you a list of what their duties are well thanks
for clarifying
that the back pay is not for the assistant because I had
known that you
didn't knew that she wasn't there any longer so it didn't
quite make sense to
me but I appreciate it thank you and can I just as Council
man Ryan brought up for
an investigation into the legality of the back pay can I
just inquire if we
would get results from that that inquiry prior to us
bringing it back to City
Council again we will attorney okay great all right and I
'll just wait for
Brian to let me know what's gonna happen thank you all
right any questions
comments you have your direction yes sir thank you for your
time we'll try to
bring that back as quickly as we can okay thanks thank you
thank you thank you
all right we're gonna move on to our next agenda item and
we've got about two
and a half hours to get through these next agenda items
including a closed
session so I just say that to my colleagues for for brevity
in the next
agenda items agenda item e which is received porthole
discussion received
departmental presentations which departmental presentations
for the FY
2018-19 proposed budget good afternoon mayor members of
council I'm Nancy toll
I'm the budget manager and we're going to continue on with
our department
presentations for today we have parks and Rec public
affairs City Manager's
Office community development and materials management and
up first will
be Gary with parks and rec
good afternoon mayor City Council Gary pack and director of
parks and
recreation today I want to spend some time talking to you
about some
accomplishments we we did over the past year in some vision
that we're looking
forward to next year as we work through the budget process
my last three months
with the organ three plus months with the organization has
been a lot of
learning and getting up to speed on what's going on as well
as planning for
the future some of our key focus areas that we're working
on right now is
assessing the organization and evaluating our current
resources that
we're providing to the community looking at reorganiz
ational opportunities we've
conducted some reorganization already which I'll get to in
a few slides in the
future here but continue evaluating what we've done in
regards to some
restructuring and then rebuilding internal and external
trust and
communication throughout the organization and through the
community
last year we went through and created a strategic plan for
the department
there's four main focus areas for the strategic plan manage
our assets
efficient efficiently and effectively implement
comprehensive community
strategies achieve and maintain the standard of excellence
in the park
system and pursue organizational excellence through staff
development
community outreach through those four initiatives we've
created a number of
objectives that will help achieve those and they include
such as a capital
maintenance plan cost of service model enhancing
communication marketing
strategies redevelopment of our 915 916 fund ordinance our
IPM program our
CAPRA accreditation process our cultural service and
developing our staff some of
our goals that we've accomplished and things that we're
working on obviously I
just mentioned reorganization in the strategic plan we
hired pros consulting
to do an analysis on our aquatics facility which we're
working through
starting this fall to get those items implemented we
dedicated our first
spray ground which was really a crowd-sourced initiative
with the
community there's a large swell of of interest in that
project and it showed
in our attendance of our dedication as well as our
continued use of that
facility sports tourism has been a big initiative for us we
've hosted 16
tournaments generated approximately 12 million dollars in
community impact and
that's not just to Denton but that's a regional figure and
then for future
goals this year we're really paying a lot of attention and
put a lot of time
into enhancement of our projects and getting those things
off the shelf and
on the ground they include the ALH Center our dog park
which Tim had
mentioned earlier we're going to be coming to you in August
with plans for
that our industrial park which we're in June here we have a
public meeting on
Thursday for the redevelopment of that parcel our tennis
center which you'll
see in August as well a concept plan there velas under
construction a few
restroom facilities are being rebuilt playground repl
acements and much much
more our master plan will also be a major initiative
starting in January for
the department as that sets the vision for the next ten
years that'll include
everything from looking where our parks are located and
where they need to be
located for future growth in the community as well as
setting operational
standards evaluating community needs and identifying those
capital improvements
that will meet those needs as well as replacement for
playgrounds cemetery
enhancements parking lots those types of things our work
management system we
hope to implement next year will allow us the platform
specifically for work
orders for our park maintenance as well as our aquatics and
that would also
track all the assets that we have within our inventory from
a sprinkler head
to a play structure across a service model will allow us to
figure out
exactly what our programs cost the city whether it's
replacing a tree repairs to
playgrounds or offering a camp for kids and then marketing
a marketing plan not
only for the Civic Center but for the whole organization so
we can set a
vision of how we're going to move forward with marketing
all the assets
and all the stories that we provide to the community and
all the stories that
are generated from what we provide to the community some
cost containment
strategies mowing it's actually on your agenda today we did
some detailed work
in regards to creating better maps and square footages so
when we went out to
bid there was a more accurate numbers that actually
resulted in a lower bid
than what we're paying for which is that doesn't always
happen where you get
things cheaper that allowed us to reallocate that money to
actually
include some additional park space that we could include
into the contract for
mowing so that gave us a lot of flexibility there to reall
ocate that
staff who would used to do the mowing back to other
projects internal design
you've seen it on a few projects whether it's the Mew
Street the medallions on I
35 or industrial park we have an internal staff that member
that's doing
a great job Glenn McLean on helping us design concepts for
our projects as well
as he'll become a certified landscape architect here in the
next few months
and he'll be able to stamp those so we can actually use
that for construction
drawings and go out on the street with that that'll save us
a lot of money from
a savings standpoint for instance the dog park our proposal
for that to be
outsourced was $80,000 that's an immediate savings by us
doing it
internally plus we can react quicker and change designs at
council or staff's need
I would like to this is actually linking in a comment that
councilmember Hutzbeth
made earlier I would like staff to consider the possibility
of reducing
those costs on lawn maintenance even more or even if not
reducing them at
least kind of filling it a double purpose by having you
know by by working
with the I'm forgetting what it's called employed to
whatever we're gonna call
the new employee to empower plant you know having people
who are experiencing
homelessness people with criminal records who have hard
times getting work
elsewhere you know and we pay them pay them for their for
their labor but that
would do double duty and could lower costs as well and and
and I would also
add that I would like to see factored in something which I
didn't see here in the
budget and that is a way to lower the cost for admission
for our water works
park because I hear from a lot of people mostly moms you
know that those costs
are high I understand why they're high but if there's
something we can do to
offset those costs to make it more affordable for for
families who don't
have the money up front to buy the package deal okay some
of the cost
containment strategies will be working on this coming year
we actually already
started working on them is reviewing our organization
determine the resources
that we have and what we need as well as the capital that
we have and that we
need in that includes we've started to build a playground
replacement plan so
that outsource outlines the next third 20 years actually in
regards to when we
need to replace a piece of equipment what that anticipated
cost is same thing
with the cemetery and eventually we'll be doing that with
all the assets within
the organization and then one major initiative that we've
already started
working on is is our capra accreditation and that is a
parks and rec industry
accreditation process that we've embarked on we haven't
officially
applied yet we're intended to do that this winter with a
visitation as early
as next August and we go in front of the accreditation
board next September
during the annual Congress and we could be accredited by
the close of next
fiscal year for the organization there's a little over a
hundred
organizations in the country 150 or so that are accredited
and it would be a
great honor for us to achieve that as well as it gives us
some some structure
it makes sure is that we have best practices in place and
that we're
keeping up with those practices on a regular basis some
process improvements
as I mentioned earlier their aquatic study was completed
this year that had a
number of recommendations in it including the reinstatement
of the
Aquatics Committee which we had our first meeting in June
we're meeting
every month to make sure that we're moving forward on that
we're going to
start off with looking at the agreement as well as staffing
allocation our time
study analysis for staff to make sure we have people in the
right place from a
budgetary standpoint improving marketing our policy
improvements enhancing
technology and then implementing some business strategies
with that as well
if you could just send us who is on that Aquatics Committee
just at a date
that be interested in knowing thank you okay we implemented
our new recreation
software appointed sales system last year that's allowing
us a little easier
than class was to conduct online registration so we're into
the 2000s
taking online registration so that's very helpful that is
one of our
performance measurements that will be tracking is online
registration because
that's less people we have to deal with on the phone or at
the counter by people
taking care of it online so allows us to reallocate our
staff time we're
conducting a pilot study and shifting and looking at how we
can shift some of
our services that we provide specifically fitness is where
we're
starting at instead of providing everything from a center-
based facility
we're looking to more of a program based direction so we'll
have one person
that's our fitness guru that's making sure our fitness
programs across the
entire city are similar and at a higher standard as opposed
to a programmer at
each facility offering fitness programs so that's a pilot
program we're doing
this year as a way to enhance our marketing since we have
people spread out
all over the city and they're in place when their programs
are taking taking
active on a Saturday we may not have marketing staff or we
only have one
full-time marketing staff that can't can't be everywhere so
they can actually
you're being trained to take pictures of what's going on
and post it on Facebook
so we can have more people out on the street taking
pictures and posting for
our social media and then also creating a customer service
training program in
this heavy focus on that as one of the city's core values
so yeah so the
question about the online because you can register for
online for the programs
but is that also going to be for reservations of pavilions
and things
because as I understand it there's been a little bit of
overlap and some issues
with getting those double booked or maybe even triple
booked sometimes so if
that's done online with that eliminate that would it go in
and just
automatically block that time for a pavilion or is that
just for the
programs I'm just wondering what we can take reservations
for facilities online
okay some some facilities have a little bit more
complications to them so that
that may have to be handled in person but we do have the
ability for online
registration okay thank you from a performance measure
measurement process
we put some new measurements together this year rec center
attendance
actually the number of people that actually walk through
the door whether
they're there for a program or they're there for a special
event or they're
there for a rental we're still providing service to those
people so we're
actually putting counters at our doors so we can track
people that are actually
coming through the door percentage of programs meeting
participation
requirements making sure that we are not offering programs
just to offer programs
I mean there are times when we throw things out there to
try it it's
something new it's trendy it's off-the-wall type of thing
and we're
open to trying anything but we also don't want to keep
trying if it's not
working sometimes the day of the week the time the season
all impact when
things are offered but we look at that make sure that we're
hitting our minimum
capacity and making sure that we're not technically losing
money if we want to
from a cost of service standpoint that's a measurable that
we're looking at and
will continue to monitor our social media impressions in
regards to our
marketing and our outreach making sure that people are
aware of what we do and
we're able to tell the story that what we do for the
community so they
understand all the value that their parks and Recreation
Department provides
to them and then Capra number seven has achieved 92% of our
Capra best practice
standards that's the minimum that you need to do to get
accredited so we're
going straight to the top for the first year with the
expectation is we're going
to get accredited and then increasing percentage of online
transactions and
again that's a time saver for us if we can get more people
to register at one
o'clock in the morning because they're up and they're
getting ready their kids
for the summer camp that's great we can provide service 24
hours a day at that
point in time and then our cost of service model that's
something that we
hope to get completed during the course of next year as
well so what's different
here is the increase of the budget from 17 18 to 18 19 of 3
million dollars what
we've done this year and you'll see it in a couple of the
pages and next slides
we've worked with finance to collapse some of our HB use
and HBU is our home
business unit and so for instance a number of our rec
centers all of our rec
centers had a general fund side and a rec fund side so what
we're doing is
we're combining those work basically collapsing all the
general fund budgets
into the rec fund budgets so now there's only one budget
instead of two separate
budgets that money that was supporting those those HB use
in the general fund
is the tune of about three million dollars that will be a
lump sum
transfer into the rec fund as a general fund transfer so
there's no increase the
only increase that that there is is just for salaries and
benefits what it would
have been if it was still in the general fund but this is
less business units for
us to deal with and it's a little bit easier to see all the
revenues expenses
in one spot councilman breaks but there's not a decrease in
the the
maintenance or the amount of money that we're able to put
into our our
facilities no okay no it's just the collapse of the
counting thing okay it's
not calling thing yeah so the intention would be every year
that would increase
with the salaries and benefits or appropriations that
council deems
necessary I have a question about this right here where say
I believe didn't
boys baseball for instance pays $21,000 or did last year to
the city for the use
of their facilities where where does that income go into
what would that be
that money it was actually sent to the Park Foundation and
then that would be
turned around for field enhancements the city would work
with the founder the
associations to identify what improvements they wanted
whether it was
fencing or you know redoing the infield type of thing and
then that would happen
that's one of the items that field enhancement fund that
was that's in the
agreement that's going to be coming back to us it's kind of
been sitting there
once we get that we'll change the contracts that money will
come back to
the city and then we'll work with the associations to
identify what needs they
want and we'll reinvest that back into the parks okay okay
thank you you're
welcome
so the recreation fund revenues as you can see here there's
a three million
dollar increase that is basically that general fund
transfer coming over to the
rec fund I know I know no I know we're not we're in a hurry
but I just wanted
to make notice there that the North Lakes rec center yeah
so that is a
really high revenue for that rec center and I just wanted
to call that out
because it's a great facility thank you okay and then so
similar here you'll see
from a baseline for our expenses comparable three million
dollar
increase to support those expenses from a gas well
standpoint we are actually
all three of the all four of these funds we are using for
capital projects so the
gas well doesn't generate a ton of revenue so we have fifty
thousand
dollars allocated there that's that's penciled in for field
enhancement and
that or potential potentially the dog park because we're a
little bit short on
funding there to make sure we can complete that project and
then the
McKenna trust fund we have eighty thousand dollars in that
account as Tim
had mentioned for the Parks Foundation that is an all-inc
lusive playground that
they were working on that we would earmark this towards
that project we got
a question from councilmember opportunity then council
member can you
explain what the gas well fund is and how that works so
these are gas wells on
private property that go underneath park property that we
get a percentage of
royalties from and how it's so what and what percentage of
that that I'd have to
get back to you I'm not aware of that I don't know Tony
might know Tony pointed
direct finance councilmember all of these are part of a
pooling agreement so
it's a 40 acre kind of track so depends on the size of that
park it's usually
probably around 10% of the total royalties potentially
maybe a little bit
less than that that comes to the city that's the city's
piece so again the
operator keeps the majority of that are the royalties that
come from or the the
other royalties and then they distribute the remaining to
to all the owners of
the actual properties okay so this is okay so the city has
the mineral rights
or the private owner owner we own the mineral rights but we
by contract have
given those some of the percentage of those to the operator
so those are
shared mineral interests okay yeah I would I would like to
have a work
session in the future just learning more about this and and
deciding if we want
to change the policy on that and what the percentage is
could I I would suggest
someone get with her also offline just to some of the basic
oil and gas leases
and all and then we can at least when we have the work
session oh yeah oh
absolutely absolutely yes yeah actually on the same line
item so so what's the
hundred thousand expenses and are those expenses against
that revenue I mean
because it doesn't sound like it right generally with these
with these deals
you just get a check you know because from the look you
know on the surface it
looks like it's a money-losing operation right but am I am
I misunderstanding
what you're showing us right so this hundred thousand
dollars there was so we
eventually had a balance of a hundred thousand with another
estimated fifty
one thousand dollars with spending a hundred thousand
dollars this year and
then what those spending hundred thousand dollars for what
on the royalties that
are coming in to spending in order what does it cost us to
get the royalties
nothing yeah I think what he's asking is we're spending he
's asking that
hundred thousand we're taking it out of that to spend on
some type of improvement
for either that specific park or worse we're spending it on
something with
projects yes yes so that's okay okay okay let's see Park
land dedication and
park development fees there's you know roughly five and a
half million dollars
in there as of September 30th 2017 and we are working to
put those resources
into the community to pay for playgrounds pay for ALH pay
for the dog
park pay for the industrial park additional revenue for a
Carl Young
restroom and a number of other projects that are on the
horizon mr. de Manning I
think we can provide an ISR to kind of show how these funds
are being used what
probably would have helped is you know a projected fund
balance as of 930 18 or
something like that because I think we're looking at it is
this it's really
not tracking the movement of the fund balance through and I
think that's
confusing councilmember so if we can make that improvement
and then just also
talk about where these dollars are being spent with these
respective areas I
think it'll make a lot more sense but we can restructure
this so it's easier to
follow sure at some future point maybe as part of our
strategic planning or
whatever you know will you be coming back to us with your
goals for parkland
acquisition and development of different types like we're
talking about offline
yeah I mentioned earlier we'll be going through our master
plan process and one
of those is to look where we have our current parks in
relation to our
population and where our future population will be and
where we need to
put future parkland and what our standard is going to be if
that standard
is we want parkland one mile from every single resident
then we can plot that
out and identify where those parks strategically roughly
need to be and
then we can identify how this will be used obviously this
is dictated on
future development so as that development happens we can
start looking
and seeing where those parks need to be and how many acres
and what assets we
want to put in those parks based on all the assets we have
throughout the
community thank you looking forward from an organizational
standpoint you know
there's there's roughly 30 positions up here and
approximately 30% of those
people are new to the organization new to their position or
even new to the
industry so we've had a lot of change in the organization
over the past year it
provides some challenge that a lot of people are new and
they're just
learning the debt and way of how things work but at the
other time it's it's new
ideas and it's fresh ideas that are available to the
organization so it's
it's a blessing in disguise at some point in time including
me I mean
obviously I've been here for a little over three months and
I've learned a lot
and look forward to what we have to offer and what we're
going to be doing
over the next few years so it's very exciting we have a
hard a hard bunch of
employees that are working hard to make a difference in the
community that love
what they do and they've chose this profession for a reason
and it's
exciting to work with them so that's that's the
organization in a nutshell
with kind of our managers at our facilities our area
managers and then
our senior core leadership and then from a position
allocation very similar to
the budget as we made those general fund collapse we moved
positions as well so
you see a decrease of roughly 30 29.5 positions in the
general fund and you
see an increase of 29.5 FTEs in the rec fund as well
questions comments I have just one I had a couple of
constituents talk to me
about the first of all they really enjoy the splash bar I
mean I think that's
just been a very great success and like anything else when
you have such a good
success they want more of sure so yeah as we move forward
with our strategic
plan if we could figure out you know and I've heard
comments about you know
different location different size you know make it a little
bit larger because
but just throw that out there just as part of the that'll
be that'll that
probably be one of your 915 allocation 915 16 allocation
analysis that I'll be
getting to you guys because we've earmarked some money for
a potential
location we haven't vetted that out yet but we're
anticipating that need great
thank you appreciate that councilmember Briggs I just want
to give a shout out
to our parks and our park staff you guys are doing a really
great job and provide
a really just a really good value to our community and so I
appreciate that thank
you very much yes staff member husband yeah so along those
lines I just want
to say with the splash park it was interesting to me I've
been the
different ones lately and so ours I think is is you never
really think about
splash parks slash features but the features and ours are
very kid-friendly
and I appreciate that and the rotating aspect of it and so
I think there's a
lot of good things to duplicate from what we've done and
just kind of watching
the habits and kind of watch how it's utilized and then I
don't know if it's
now or later but I do appreciate the the temporary restroom
that's out there I
think that is going to be pretty dynamic I think as is
regardless of what
direction we go I mean I think that's a really good good
test case and I think
it's it's well placed well done thank you thank you
anybody else appreciate it thank you very much you bet
back again
all right I'm gonna try to go through this quickly so stop
me with any
questions I am Sarah Kichler I'm the director of public
affairs I'm gonna be
presenting the city manager's office and City Council
budget and so on the slide
is accomplished accomplishments listed for 17 and 18 just
want to highlight a
couple the city manager's office did initiate month reviews
of capital
programs with all the departments that have projects and
this is really to
understand where they're at in timeline and hold them
accountable as well as
review those budgets the other one I wanted to highlight is
that when we have
provided assistance in various management studies that have
taken place
over the organization as we constantly challenge ourselves
how do we become
more efficient more effective and provide better service to
our residents
so looking forward to 18 and 19 here's some of our key
goals that are listed
out again we're gonna be providing assistance to the
departments there's a
number of large things coming up for the next year
including the many capital
projects that we have going on as well as the debt and
development code rewrite
we'll also be coordinating and starting a 2020 census
complete count committee in
preparation for the census that will take place in April of
2020 so budget
emphasis and cost containment and the city manager's office
provides
leadership and management over day-to-day operations some
of our key
emphasis here is to be responsive to City Council and the
citizens implement
policy direction we received from Council and the various
boards and
commissions as well as leading organizational assessments
and then
seeking outside resources and funding where we can to
accelerate projects and
this is a budget chart with some of the highlights just
want to note a couple
things in personnel services we did do a reorganization so
some of that money did
move from the city manager's office budget to public
affairs and that'll be
the next budget presentation so you will see that movement
out to public affairs
as well as procurement and compliance there's two positions
that were moved
from the city manager's office budget to materials
management and Cassie will be
giving that budget presentation later so you'll see that
movement as well in
materials and supplies the difference between the 17 and 18
budget and 18 and
19 baseline the hundred and fifty thousand was moved from
the city
manager's office to public affairs that's for our resident
newsletter the
bi-monthly newsletter that goes out and so really it's more
just the movement of
things to the different budgets any questions on this
budget chart okay
position summary again in that that top line the city
manager's office the
baseline five positions have moved out three for public
affairs and two for
procurement compliance going to material management that
city manager's office
baseline also does include a position and a half for the
summer Mary's summer
youth jobs program the mayor has as well so that is
included in the city
manager's office budget and then this is the City Council
budget chart shown here
so that first line item on personnel services that is for
the stipends of a
monthly amount of a thousand dollars for the mayor and
seven hundred and fifty
dollars for City Council members it's not an exact figure
because it also
includes FICA contributions as well in that number in the
miscellaneous account
number there that includes the City Council contingency so
each City Council
member received $1,600 for contingency funds and then
operations is largely
made up of travel to the different conferences that City
Council members
attend where are the under what category miscellaneous or
operations do that food
for all the for a council meetings where I believe that is
through
miscellaneous and it's us part of it is also in the city
manager's office budget
account as well for some of the boards and Commission yeah
so I would like to
see staff staff report it at some point on specifically you
know there's food
costs for council meetings and if there's anything we could
do to bring those
costs down just to primarily to show the public that we're
that that's something
that we're interested in you know bring those costs down
while still you know
keeping council fed so we can do do well and you know
looking into kind of other
possibilities I mean I would be fine if that would save the
city enough money to
to to help with something that would an area in which we're
really lacking I
could definitely bring food from home I can't bring coffee
I feel like I need
the coffee but I could bring food from home we can provide
some information
and one and a credit report thank you yeah I can't disagree
more we had we've
had two businesses one downtown one next to UNT that have
closed we buy all local
food from all restaurants that need it we vacillate between
the two and then not
to say and then it's also hey I may say hey I really like
that I'm gonna go with
that or tell someone else and so I mean to speak to plan to
not spend money
locally on restaurants when we have restaurants closing
just makes me want
to scream we'll just provide the information about what the
budget is in
an upcoming I'm not saying not to I'm just saying you can
delete mine all right and that was the end of it so if you
have any other
questions any other questions comments all right thank you
as public affairs up
next public affairs okay
video guys here's your problem so I'll go over the public
now presentation okay okay all right I'm sorry so this is a
relatively new
department it was formed in December of 2017 we handle a
couple different
functions I just want to go over we handle all
communications for the city
we consolidated that it used to be spread out into the
departments it's now
in one office centralized that and that also includes our D
TV and reprographics
we do have an in-house print shop and then we also handle
all of our
intergovernmental communication or relations so that's
federal state
regional and all the other agencies that we work with we
work a lot on special
projects interdepartmental and also with external agencies
and then the last is
that we oversee community development division and their
budget presentation
will be coming up next so some accomplishments for 17 and
18 are listed
on the slide here just want to highlight a couple we did
launch the bimonthly
newsletter resident update we received very positive
feedback on that
communication piece from our residents so we're gonna look
to continue to
provide that and potentially expand it where we need to
have longer issues to
explain maybe some capital projects that are going on in
the community we also
published the city's first annual report and this was a 40
page booklet that
really just described everything that we're providing to
our residents and how
we're trying to serve them better continuously and that was
provided
during the state of the city event which was our second
annual state of the city
event for council to be able to share with the public what
is being
accomplished what is being worked on and what's planned we
also launched a
citizen service request system and a mobile app last month
we've already had
about 300 requests come through that app and we're seeing
great success there and
are planning to report those results to the committee on
citizen engagement in
August and then continue to look to enhance that app for a
convenient
option for our residents so goals for 18 and 19 one of our
big goals will be to
work on improving communications for capital projects we
are working with
tech services to create an interactive map where residents
could go online
click on a project learn about that project and where what
is its status
what's the funding amount who can they contact to get more
information so we're
hopeful to have that later this summer and then continue to
expand it out into
the future and next year we're also working to improve the
navigation and
functionality of the city's website we just did a survey
widget on the website
that gave us some great feedback as well as a heat map of
what's being clicked on
the most we're gonna take that data and really learn how we
can redesign for the
high-click navigation things so that's easier for residents
to find what they're
looking for and then last I want to highlight on here we do
have a state
legislative session coming up next spring so we're gonna be
developing a
program for City Council consideration and that would be
considered in the fall
so we can prepare for that session going into the spring so
budget emphasis and
what we did as a team is we really tried to create focus
areas of what are we
gonna accomplish in the next year what do we want to be
focused on so that's
improving resident and business satisfaction we want to
tell our story
better we want to improve the unity of communications make
sure that's coming
across as one team one city what are we providing to our
residents want to
provide outstanding customer service and then focused on
collecting and using
that data to our advantage so here's some cost containment
strategies listed
as I mentioned we did consolidate into one centralized
office over the last
year which has helped has helped tremendously in terms of
being able to
do more to expand the services that we're providing and the
communications
that we are providing that we hadn't been able to do in the
past we also use
a lot of volunteers and interns in DTV DTV to be able to
produce videos in
programs that inform the public of programs and services
that are available
so process improvements for 17 and 18 one of the big
accomplishments was
getting in place a process whereby that we ensure that
every construction
project that is happening a letter is mailed to the
resident that it's on
their street and they're impacted by it what's the
estimated time frame can they
park on the street can they not park on the street what are
the details how do
they get more information prior to this year we didn't have
that consistent
process to make sure that at least the directed impacted
properties knew what
construction project and what was going on so that was a
big process improvement
that we had and then looking forward into 18 and 19 as I
mentioned we're
really going to look upon building upon that citizen
service request system and
getting the reports that we can in terms of responsiveness
and escalation and
understanding that data and these are some of the
performance measures that
are included in our strategic plan under the key focus area
one for
organizational excellence and so one of them is the
percentage of citizens
rating the quality of the website as good or excellent we
will be doing a
citizen survey later this summer in the fall so we'll be
able to get that
updated figure of what that rating percentage is from our
residents
customer breaks and then I appreciate you following up with
the website I know
that there's still some issues and that I've heard from
citizens and end with
departments in the city so you've mentioned the citizens
but I'm wondering
are you also following up with the departments to see what
they need how our
website could could be better yes we are we do quarterly
meetings with the
departments on the website right now and we are focusing
more on the departments
that are high-click so for example police department parks
and rec pay my
bill there's are always our top clicked on websites so we
're focusing with them
first to enhance the content that they have there but also
provide it in a
format that's more easily digestible for residents and I
just want to comment on
the website somebody a citizen did make a comment that it's
hard to find
individual people if you don't necessarily know the
department they're
in so I don't know how that would because we have so many
employees and if
somebody's specifically looking for someone that's kind of
hard to to find
them so I'm just kind of throwing that out there sure and
maybe that's some more
education we can do we do have a staff directory that you
can click on through
the departments but I'm not sure if it's searchable so I'll
follow up on that one
thank you councilmember Melzer yeah I would just like to
ask if you know you
think it's possible that we could aim higher than 65% you
know 80% good or
excellent what are successful well-liked websites rating
you know I've been in
other industries where say a new product you want it to be
80% or else it won't
stay on the shelf if it's premium priced you want 90% or
more it just seems like
you know we're not asking for a lot of enthusiasm from our
citizens no I think
that's a very fair comment I think this is just for where
yet where we are right
now what is the next step in the next year of where we hope
to get to but
certainly would like to raise that higher
and so this is the organization chart we have myself at the
top and then Jessica
Rogers is our deputy director of public affairs and she
oversees our
communications team and then community development division
Barbara Ross will
be up here next use our community development manager and
then we also
have Charlie Rosendahl who's a management analyst who helps
us on a
lot of projects and so this is a position summary breakdown
as I mentioned
in the last budget presentation from the city manager's
office this is transfer
in a personnel and then this is also a transfer in from the
library and solid
waste from that centralization that we had of the
communications office and
then budget highlights you'll see that the funding of those
positions
transferred in here from 1718 budget to the 1819 baseline
and the second line of
materials and supply that was that transfer of a hundred
and fifty
thousand from the city manager's office for the bi-monthly
resident newsletter
into this budget account and I think those are the major
highlights as well
as in the operations line item here we did have our
legislative contracts in a
separate miscellaneous finance account we thought to be
more transparent they
should be transferred into this budget account as well any
questions questions
okay I just want to quickly go over for cable TV the peg
funds and so this
stands for public education and government fund so pursuant
to Texas
utility code all cable providers are required to collect
this peg fee from
every cable subscriber each month there's three cable
providers in Denton
Charter Frontier and Grande and our current through current
ordinance is 1%
of the gross revenue of the video services provided as our
peg fee so for
18 and 19 this is the major expenditure expenditures we
have planned from the
peg fund a hundred and ninety thousand for production and
maintenance
equipment this is to upgrade our cameras upgrades to the
control room that are
necessary encoders for streaming and some other miscell
aneous equipment we
also provide peg channel grants so it's ten thousand to
each agency and that's to
UNT public access DSD and TWU and then we allow for a
contingency of a hundred
thousand in case something were to happen to our equipment
that we're able
to quickly replace it and make sure that we still can
produce recordings of the
meetings so this is the budget chart for the peg fund we're
at the beginning
balance of about 1.2 you see the subscriber fees we've held
flat with the
change of some more online streaming we've we don't expect
that to increase
and we've held it flat for the revenues coming in for 18
and 19 and then this
goes through the planned expenditures I was just discussing
for the total of
330,000 any questions on the peg fun any questions
okay any questions overall on our public affairs budget
comments questions I do
have one comment it's a little off topic I just still under
still posting
nevermind nevermind I just it's just bad when them it's
just bad when the the
staff of some of those groups are in very good shape and
they seem to really
make me look bad on certain days of the day
anything we can do to help you mayor yes
thank you mayor and members of the council actually I could
be the most
brief of anyone because I think I could just take you
directly to our chart of
the financial you know the increases in funding which is
about if it's about
19,000 for community development so but your call I'll go
ahead and just hit a
few highlights here this showing the number of people that
were assisted you
have also heard about the activities to assist the homeless
earlier today and of
course community development is very involved in those
activities our goals
for 1819 are to expand programs and services if possible
and most
importantly to seek out other funding if possible we you
know we received a small
increase or what I consider a small increase in both the
community
development block grant program and the home investment
partnership program this
year which was which was great but if you look back over
the years since the
late 90s both of those programs funding has been decreasing
pretty substantially
so we hope to try to find some additional funds to support
our programs
and as we said work with the emergency solutions grant and
our partners our
agency partners to decrease the number of homeless in the
community our mission
is tied very closely to the US Department of Housing and
Urban
Development's mission which is to provide decent housing in
a suitable
living environment for persons of low and moderate income
and we will be well
we have a every five years we have a consolidated plan and
to develop the
plan what I think is most important is that we do outreach
to our low-income
communities we talk with the residents there about what the
needs in the
community are they give us input and of course that is
incorporated into the
activities that are funded through the city using the
consolidated plan as a
guide 2020 will be the year we will be developing a new
consolidated plan for
the next five years right now we're still working under the
2015-19
consolidated plan and our annual action plans
so earlier we saw I think there's just two organizations
within our community
that help provide funding to those who need decent housing
or a suitable living
environment and that's is it giving hope and interfaith and
so do do we give
money to them to do to do our mission or do we specifically
have money to help
with that mission well and they primarily are working with
with people
who are homeless or potentially homeless the the city's
housing programs are
designed to ensure that people can remain in their housing
particularly if
you own a home maybe you're retired Social Security is
paying all the bills
and you have a lot of issues with your home the city's home
improvement program
can come in and assist you there we also have a minor
repair program that can
assist people and we also work with the Denton affordable
housing corporation
which is our only community housing organization that is
eligible for the
it's called a chodo they're eligible for funding under the
home program so we
work with our programs and the Denton affordable housing
corporation to
actually renovate and construct if possible if we get
enough funding to
construct housing to to help those that are in need and
that just for
clarification that Denton housing authority is something
separately different
than the affordable housing so yeah yeah just for
clarification purposes for
those listening they are a separate entity how do you how
do you get the
word out in the community about the the repair program
forgetting what it's
called but the repair program home repair we have newslet
ters we actually in
the past we actually went and put door hangers on on doork
nobs a lot of it is
people in the community talking with one another but we
also put information up in
the recreation centers and things like that and when we
meet with the residents
when we're working on an annual action plan or a
consolidated plan we give them
information on the programs that are available so thank you
and just to
follow up actually reiterating something that I had made
earlier about kind of
getting the word out I would encourage just because I know
that not enough
people you probably agree know about know about these
services of course we
only have so much money to spend on it but I would love for
more people to be
finding out about it so I would advise looking into that
the city look into
advertising on television and and also like I said before
sending on on another
topic sending information home with kids in school so they
can go to their
parents and say and I know you know that you know kids will
bring back they bring
so much material that sometimes it all gets lost but maybe
if there would be a
presentation at each of our schools and I know it's to the
kids but not the
parents but kids you know kids remember could even be like
a career day thing
here's what we do in the city and community development and
they could see
oh wow that could help my family my mom you know you know
we've had it air
conditioner not not working etc that's good idea I will
mention too that it of
course is on the city's website and the information is
available to anyone who
wants to take a look at it yeah we are trying to ramp up
efforts to share those
programs with our residents more widely it's going to be in
the August September
newsletter that goes out to all residents and then as well
as we're
working with DTV to shoot some short videos kind of fun
before and after try
to gain more interest in in those programs as well thanks
and when you do
those put new things on DTV it would be great to get for
council to get or at
least me you know to get a note about oh here's a new spot
we have on DTV about
such-and-such that's great yep we can definitely include
those in the Friday
report our cost containment strategies we we do have
homeowners that we've
assisted and they're paying a small amount back to the city
as part of the
project and we do work with them or we're working with them
so that they can
pay their invoice online something that's a little bit
easier we've
collaborated with other departments so that they don't have
to hire anyone to
do social services our as you know Danny Shaw she can
assist with the plus one
program in the utilities department and the fair share
program in the police
department so we tend to work with them and manage those
programs so additional
staff is not necessary our process improvements we're
always looking for
ways to make our application processes more well easier for
the people that are
coming in for assistance as well as for ourselves I might
just mention too that
we the community development advisory committee and Human
Services Advisory
Committee that we work with we also look at different ways
to make that process
easier as well as more successful in terms of them being
able to choose which
programs and projects and agencies are to be funded are the
financial
requirements set by city ordinance or federal requirements
the financial
requirements in terms of to be able to participate in our
programs that that we
offer yes it's federal regulations that we have to follow
in order to serve or
we serve the low and moderate income community and they
provide us the
regulations that explain to us what that means the income
income levels thank you
yes these are some of our performance or these are our
performance measures you
might look at that top one and go wait a minute you know
they haven't served
anywhere near 96 households but I will mention that what
you may be aware of
that we're working with Fair Oaks the senior housing
facility and they have 41
units they have had to rebid we've had to they tried to bid
it out earlier and
we had some issues so they're rebidding that so that work
should start in the
next few weeks and that would be an additional 41
households that are
assisted as well as we will be still working with the minor
repair program
and the home improvement program so it'll probably be up in
the mid 80s
something like that thanks just real basic question is the
last column like
two quarters of data so if I want to know how you're
trending you know if I
were to just project them I ought to double those or what
percent of the year
is this is through June 18th yeah no I see that and how
much of a year is that
for you I don't know when your starting point is that's two
quarters our program
year starts August 1st okay with the federal yes with the
federal funds
you're deep into quarter two or three by now right correct
we're we're actually
in quarter four but I will say this as far as our program
year with the federal
money starts August 1st however we don't always get what
the agencies
October 1st is when those contracts become valid and then
we also as far as
our housing programs we come to counsel with those program
guidelines and ask
for approval in the August September time frame so even
though the funds are
available in August generally we start in September with
the new funding my
question was way stupider than that I mean I really just
want to sort of have
an idea that like as far as trend it'd be kind of a third
again yeah I think with
I think what she said was though you've got she's got one
project that's really
gonna skew these numbers because it's one associations is
working for that
could have effect up to 40 some units 41 so it's not and
and bidding projects out
especially with nonprofits is sometimes a difficult task
but as far as any of the
other performance measures the number of person serves by
federally funded
public facilities and in infrastructure projects that's
reported annually this
year we will have Fred Morda nursery school playground
there will be a number
related to that and then the parks parks projects there
will be a number related
to that as well Councilman breaks so on the on the top one
for the the households
is there a specific monetary number that goes in with okay
so we've helped 29
households so far how much money that that has been or we
have spent to do
that we can get you the amount that has been spent but
because some of it would
be the home improvement program where we could spend a
significant amount of
money actually rebuilding a structure a housing unit and
then it could also be
minor repair programs which right now are five thousand and
less that's
something that we're looking to come to counsel with as
well as possibly an
increase in the amount that can be spent on a minor repair
project because five
thousand these days is not it's not working very well so my
question would
just be is there a place where if somebody wanted to know
how much is
allocated or has been spent that the public could go to
find that
information oh yes that that information is very much
available I'm gonna
introduce Louisa Garcia she's works with our budgets and
she also works with the
Department of Housing and Urban Development in drawing
federal funds
back as quickly as we can after they're spent so yes that
that is available
yeah let me ask you question first thanks so can you help
me understand why
these are the targets that sort of peculiar you know
peculiarly specific are
we trying to achieve a certain percent of a need that's out
there or is it or
is it just sort of based on a run rate like we're trying to
achieve something
equal to a prior year or a prior year plus a certain
percent why are these the
targets it's based on the action plan which is developed on
an annual basis
and approved by council with the the activities that will
be funded and the
projected amount a number of households that would be
served or individuals that
would be served is there a general principle that applies
to creating the
action plan as far as what are you aspiring to achieve in
the action plan
you know I'm still kind of trying to feel my way to what
are we how do we
decide what we're trying to achieve well it's in the action
plan how do we decide
what to put in there again it's decided because we reach
out to the community
and request information on you know ideas on how they'd
like the funds spent
and then we put out a request for applications from
different organizations
who are interested in funding for various activities and
then the Community
Development Advisory Committee and Human Services Advisory
Committee make
decisions on what they they believe should be funded and
they have the
information from the public sorry we'll provide a breakdown
of that 96 households
by program so that you're able to see what that's really
made up of I think
that will help will provide that in an upcoming Friday
report it's across the
board not just the first item you know it's just I mean
what I'm taking from
ms. Ross's comments is that it's a cube these are
cumulative responses from
organizations in the city about what they can accomplish
correct we'll do a
little informal staff report on to describe these metrics a
little bit more
appreciate it with them Barbara I just want you to know I
worth witness
firsthand mayor Watts in DC and his he was so tenacious
that's what I believe
netted the extra money is just his his hard work in DC he
was he was he was on
it and it proved I can't wait to see what he can do this
year I mean it's
phenomenal he's on a roll we appreciate that thank you how
much or what
percentage of staff time would you say is spent applying
for grants and writing
grants you could ask what percentage of staff time yeah
just roughly I I would
say if you're looking at daily it would probably be like
two to three percent
very very low because I mean you know there are other
activities that everyone
has to take has to handle but that would be something that
would be done you know
if a grant or a program was available to request a grant
that would take maybe
two weeks you know blocked off to to work on that to get it
ready to submit
so okay yeah so in terms so say for a year or for and again
I'm not asking for
specifics but would you say you spent about 50% less than
50% of your time on
that no no okay less okay good okay good because what I was
going to what I was
going to suggest is if because I know that so much time
depends I mean so much
resources depend on for this particular department depend
on grant money from
outside and receiving that grant money and I was going to
suggest so I'll just
suggest this for the future that if if this department ever
finds itself
strapped you know pressed for time because I realize you
have you know very
few paid full-time staff that we look into having interns
being able to help
with with with grant writing if that ever becomes a need
just to most
effectively use staff time but it sounds like that's not a
not at this concern
now so I think we have sufficient staff if you know
something comes up that
which does not occur very often but if something comes up
that looks like it
might be possible that the city would want to accept a
grant or go after a
grant and then accept it then I think we have sufficient
staff to do that well
that's that's wonderful to hear because it's something
something I've been
worried about I know that many of our nonprofits have that
problem just to
mention again no major changes in our general fund budget
we did receive our
the there's 15,000 of it is the increase in human services
funding that was
adopted and accepted by council and then we received that
increase of 233,000
479 in CDBG and home funds and that allowed 16,000 555
additional dollars
that were able to go to human services because of that
increase so about 16,000
was able to be in included in the human services budget
this is the budget
highlights that show you again shows you there's a about a
19 well $20,000
increase in the budget and for personal services a large
portion of the increase
is human services contributions as you can say see the 322,
500 so it's it's
pretty small increases in the budget and a significant
percentage goes to human
services contributions any questions about the questions
comments yes a quick
question about CDBG funds when is the last time when CDBG
funds have been used
to pay for roads to pay for roads not for a long long time
well streets not not
for a while that's true that you know we have spent funds
on street improvements
sidewalks the park improvements and but it has been a while
since we've done any
street okay because I would just put in there as this is
just my personal take
that I don't like the idea of CDBG funds being used for
roads and sidewalks
repairs for low-income communities where for simply because
for all other
communities in the city you know that comes from general
general fund bond
money whatever I would like to see roads and sidewalk
repairs in our low-income
communities come from the same funding sources that all
other road and sidewalk
repairs come from which would free up that CDBG money to be
used for the
purposes for which it's intended thanks all right
position summary back in 2015 16 we did move one of our six
employees from the
CDBG and home funds into the general fund and it has
remained that way since
three staff members are paid from the general fund and here
are the the
highlighted are the three that are paid from the general
fund any questions any
further questions comments seeing none thank you very much
thank you
don't need a breaker how many more the buzzer presentation
to one more
I'm sorry you're ready yep I'm Kathy Ogden director of
procurement compliance
here to present the materials management budget for FY 19
so materials
management is an internal service fund made up of the
distribution center also
known as the warehouse and purchasing and as Sarah
mentioned earlier our two
FTEs for compliance will be transferring into the fund in
the proposed budget so
our our budget focus this year is really shifting from
manual processes which is
the way we've always done things in purchasing and
distribution center to
more automated processes to increase efficiencies and
ensure quality controls
some of our responsibilities are listed the distribution
center primarily assists
the warehouse I'm sorry the utilities with inventory
management of goods and
then purchasing is involved in all stages of procurement
including planning
ordering managing contracts and disposal some few a few
workload measures for you
that we are that we track total sales you can see for the
current year there's
a slight decrease this is really based on the project the C
IP project adjustments
that happened in DME this year because we order their their
parts for them and
stock them in the warehouse that decreased our sales and
then sale orders
show the level of workload load for the warehouse
operations as well as PO lines
is really an inventory replenishment workload measure
purchasing categories
obviously the contract management the total number of
contracts management
includes the monitoring the spend the dates and the renew
als or extensions of
those contracts and then PO lines process or issued makes
we we ensure that all
policies and procedures are followed when a department
enters a requisition
and then solicitations include all include all formal bids
so your request
for proposals and also request for qualifications which is
really the
largest amount of time that purchasing as far as what
purchasing does on a
day-to-day basis and then p-card transactions are managed
and monitored by
purchasing for compliance with policies and procedures as
well some of our goals
and accomplishments accomplishments for the current year we
did reorganize to
include the DME logistics staff we basically eliminating a
duplication of
services they were doing the same thing at DME that we were
doing at the
warehouse so we combined our our efforts and we're able to
streamline the
processes we're in where we are in the process of
implementing a new electronic
bidding software that will allow us to reduce the amount of
staff time we're
spending on compiling solicitation documents and then our
goals for the
upcoming year to implement commodity codes in our financial
software so in
JD Edwards to identify expenditure trends and help us in
planning future
and upcoming solicitations and then we will be revamping
the p-card program to
include additional auditing and reporting functions and
then as you've
heard me say before we are working on updating our
procurement manual to bring
back to you for consideration really to make it easier for
the end user to
understand and then update to reflect the current policies
and procedures cost
containment strategies in order to better meet our customer
needs we've been
really trying to improve our coordination with city manager
's office
and also city attorney's office specifically in the area of
solicitation
so we are working with legal on updating our current
contract templates and
solicitation documents to ensure and standardization and
better we just
produce a better quality product and then due to the high
turnover and
purchasing last year projects were assigned to buyers as
needed and since
we've been able to fill all the vacant positions this year
we have reassigned
the buyers to to specific departments to allow for an
increased coordination
between their customers and to help the buyers gain
expertise in these specific
areas we're also we also did a review of the product mix in
the distribution
center and we're able to eliminate some some products that
were not adding value
and we're really duplicating services and we're duplicating
goods that were
already on contracts for process improvements we're really
centering
around increasing our effective communication with
customers so we've
implemented disclosure requirement when employees are
serving on evaluation
teams to ensure that they understand their roles and
responsibilities we are
like I mentioned earlier improving our coordination with
legal we are meeting
now before a solicitation is advertised to make sure that
the legal requirements
are satisfied as well as the contract terms are discussed
and then purchasing
historically we've been very reactionary in what we measure
it's based on what
the department's bring us we have never really measured
what how how long how
long we are spending on an item when we're touching it in
the process
because it does go through several different stages and so
what we're
working on in the future is the the workflow tracking and
then also the
reporting of those so things like setting up vendors how
long it's taking
us to turn that around and then conversion of requisitions
to POS so we
will be implementing some tracking and reporting for those
so we can bring you
next year some specific goals and targets for those for
those processes
we're also forming user groups some of the the the feedback
that we're getting
from departments is when we change processes we don't
always think about
the end user so we're trying to think of a focus group for
our end users to get
to get the their their feedback before we implement the new
process to make
sure we're thinking through all of the all of the different
facets of that change
and communicating it before we implement that process so we
've we've revised our
allocation methodology to kind of simplify and we're also
using our
reserves but since we are an internal service fund you'll
see in the upcoming
slide how we're bringing down the fund balance you'll also
see that the fleet
auction proceeds are being reduced because they're no
longer collected
through purchasing they're being collected through fleet
the distribution
center sales as I said that we're actually reducing the
sales revenue
projections for the upcoming year based on the changing
adjustments and other
departments projects primarily DME since that's our largest
customer and then a
total overall increase of FTEs from the current year to the
proposed year they're
not new positions like Sarah said two are being transferred
from CMO and then
three have been transferred from from DME and then we've
also included the
rental payment for the relocation to Mayhill that and you
will see that in
the upcoming slide so this is our revenues overall
projection slightly
increased from prior years this basically from the cost of
service right
here this number that's our allocation so what we're
receiving from other
departments and then this is our sales projections that I
talked about we
adjust that annually based on what we see IP the other
project or other
department CIPs and then also we're using our reserves
since we are an
internal service fund and don't really need a fund balance
we're trying to
draw that down expenses personal services you can see the
the increase due
to the five FTEs that were transferred in the inventory is
what we purchase on
inventory of goods and then the increase in the operations
line is for the
outsourcing of the insurance certificate management
function right now purchasing
does that function but we're wanting to outsource to ensure
compliance and
increase the reporting capabilities and I want to point out
there is a mistake
on this slide this 21 should be 18 so that would give you
the five FTE
increase we did take one position from the warehouse or the
distribution center
and move it over to purchasing for an admin assistant three
do when we merged
with DME we felt like we had additional capacity that could
be better served in
purchasing so we moved that position over and then just
real quick is our
organizational charts and if you have any questions um
questions comments you
can always tell what council knows very little about and
material management is
probably it's one I still working on so I'm glad that there
's people like you
and your staff who have that all under control so thank you
thank you so much
for that presentation any comments questions thank you
thank you very much
okay we've got supplementals I believe is that within this
same agenda item no
it's oh it's a different one oh okay so we're going to
agenda item F now let's
take about a five minute break thanks good afternoon
welcome back to this
meeting of the Denton City Council it is 456 we're moving
through our work
session agenda items we're on a work session agenda item 3f
receive report
hold discussion give staff direction regarding the
preliminary FY 2018-19
budget including supplemental and capital improvement
funding requests
mayor city council Tony point to direct to finance I it's
been a long day for
you just really quickly here are the kind of the objectives
for today you
know certainly one of the things that we wanted to talk to
you about is the
supplemental request so I I will with your permission skip
to that you know I
will mention that the preliminary forecast really hasn't
changed is still
very preliminary we anticipate receiving the final assessed
values on the 25th
and so once we get those assessed values certainly much of
the slides that we
provided to you will be updated certainly those that are
related to the
effective tax rate but I'll be happy to go through any of
the forecast
assumptions the forecast itself or the effective tax recal
culation if that's
your pleasure if not I'd like to just go ahead and skip to
to the
supplementals I will mention to you that we will come back
to you on August 2nd
as part of the budget workshop I have a more in-depth
discussion with you about
the budget and so if you have questions you can certainly
shoot those to me and
get those prepared for you I also want to mention to you
that on August 2nd we
also will have an action item an individual consideration
on I'm on the
agenda to set max tax rates and so based on you know
hopefully based on your
direction today we'll have an idea what that max tax rate
so that'll really kind
of set the ceiling for us when we go to publish the rates
and set and set
hearings for for the tax rate again it'll just simply be a
ceiling that that
by state law we have to to establish it could also be the
calculated effective
rate or the effective rate that we've presented to you
which is the 61 cents
again more on that on August 2nd so I want to go ahead and
skip to the list of
supplementals again we've established this preliminary
budget based on the
effective tax rates just housekeeping measure I apologize
for interrupting
because I didn't know that that dinners out there so we're
gonna probably break
about 530 just to grab it because you know this might be a
robust discussion
and just wanted to let everybody sort of understand what
the game plan is sorry
about that Tony that's good so what we want to do today is
to have a discussion
with you regarding the supplemental request that staff has
submitted to the
finance department that we've added to the city manager's
office some of these
supplemental requests were currently recommending to fund
out of the current
year from from projected savings additional revenues that
were
projecting in the 1718 fiscal year the ones that you have
here in front of you
are those that were currently considering and just a
reminder we the
council had already authorized a number of one-time
expenditures related to
some minor traffic improvements as well as the Vela project
that were funded out
of the current year so the so these funding requests is
hundred ninety
three thousand is on top of those amounts that the council
had previously
authorized and we've already amended the budget and many of
those projects are
already underway there's a number of staff people here from
the various
departments they have submitted these individual
supplemental requests they'll
if you have any specific questions regarding any of these
that were
recommending for the 1718 budget the 1819 budget or those
that currently have
aren't being proposed in discussions with the city
management team will be
happy to answer those questions for you so for the 1718 as
I mentioned we're
currently proposing about a hundred ninety three thousand
dollars worth of
supplemental request to be funded out of the current year
for 1819 there is a net
total of three point three million dollars that's being
recommended to be
included in the 1819 budget again based on your direction
today and then finally
the number of what we're currently considering unfunded
supplementals that
have been requested the net cost of those is about two
point seven million
dollars again those have not been included in the
preliminary forecast
about provided for you again based pending your direction
today on these
supplementals we'll certainly adjust those as needed for
the August 2nd
thank you Tony can can you give us some some sense of
relationship between these
lists and maybe already did between these lists and say the
budgets we've
seen so far with the expectation that it would be within
the effective rate in
other words could all of this be done including the budgets
we've seen within
the effective rate or which of the last three slides well
which the last two
slides would require us going over correct and let me let
me just skip back
really quick here to the to the forecast and so the 1.7
million and the 1.5 million
basically makes up those supplemental requests for 1819 as
you can see about
1.5 million of those are considered one time and those are
really the ones that
are associated with an actual drawdown in fund balances so
we are proposing in
staying with that effective tax rate to draw down the
general fund fund balance
the fund of those one-time expenses you know that's
historically been our
strategy for the last number of years I think it bodes well
when we have
conversations with the rating agencies that some of these
that the planned
drawdowns are actually for one time and not recurring
expenses and so I so that's
kind of the context of where those supplementals are in in
this forecast
so just to paraphrase me to make sure I'm getting it so we
'd still be within
the context of an effective tax rate we'd be drawing on
savings reserves
sir I do have a question back on that slide on that slide
there yes sir yeah
okay and I think I sent you a question on 17 to 18 current
estimate to base
expenditures preliminary budget base expenditures is an
increase of about
almost seven a little over seven million dollars when I
look at that forecast
that's so help me understand what that increase is about
and I don't have all
the details for you mayor I can kind of cover kind of high
level certainly
within that base budget increase is our 3% merit also we
have our step increases
for our civil service employees we also have increases a 3%
increase budgeted
for health insurance also within that budget that base
budget our increases to
our economic some of our economic development agreements we
have a couple
of those that are kick-starting this year one of those
being you know the
Buc-E's there's also additional money for razor rights
development the O'Reilly
agreement also kick-starts this coming year so okay so what
I'm hearing you say
is those are in the base expenditures but those revenues
that those are based
upon are in either sales tax probably not property tax or
other revenue
included in one of those revenues up there yeah maybe just
offline just send
out something says oh here's the breakdown because that
that's helpful
that that makes sense because none of the other ones had
that kind of increase
but it's due to some of those programs coming on okay that
's correct thank you
I appreciate that thank you very much so so again you know
a mayor's the council
we're here the departments are here at your pleasure if you
have any specific
questions regarding any of these supplemental requests if
there's some
Charlie some direction we'll be seeking your direction
today if we can to get
your thoughts about supplementals to be included in this
proposed budget
councilmember breaks yeah so I have a few general questions
one is just the all
the supplemental requests funded and unfunded that we are
seeing are the ones
that are all that you got is that correct that's correct
okay so and then
so my first question is about row maintenance because I
know that there's
an item on our agenda tonight about maintenance and then
there's the row
maintenance here and then there is tree trimming here and
then I also know that
hot funds are being spent downtown for that kind of thing
so just generally I
would like a list of all of the different departments that
do maintenance
right away yeah for right away and and just kind of a just
one number because
it seems like I'm seeing it everywhere all the time like
just for different
things and and I can't wrap my head around what the cost is
for everything
so like I'm I'm okay with it it with with what is here on
that for now but I
would just generally like to see what all we're spending
and and on what my
next question is about the park designer because we heard
mr. Packins say earlier
that we are doing a lot of the designs in-house and he
specifically named one
person that is doing it so I'm wondering is that the is
that what this is or is
this something different if he could that is correct that
that's a current
staff member that we had on staff that is now would be then
promoted into this
kind of disposition and will be an in-house designer I
think the
advantage is that or the thought process is that that
person will be available
not just to the parks department but potentially to some of
the other you
know internal departments you know for any type of design
that might be so it's
my understanding he is currently an employee so and I'm
sure already working
making a certain amount so would his position be hired and
then this would be
a new position or would that one dissolve and so it wouldn
't actually be
completely 103 this would be a new position and so so when
that person moves
into this position then his position in the maintenance
parks maintenance crew
would be refilled okay all right so it isn't completely
added and Gary's here
he can he can elaborate more if you'd like well no I mean I
know that we saved
quite a bit of money by doing in-house and I'd like to see
you know more of
that done I just wanted to make sure that we weren't gonna
add another person
on top of the person that you mentioned earlier but if it's
the same one who is
getting his degree or certification then that makes sense
to promote him yeah so
the position that he's in now would become vacant and we
would refill that
and this would be a new position that that person would be
eligible okay so
that that's good I just have a few more can I mayor I'm
sorry I just have a few
more all right so on police personnel there's four and that
is good we need
more than four but my question is will any of those are
those specifically
going to the animal shelter because I have heard constantly
that it's
short-staffed so is there any way to know if anybody that's
hired or is going
to that area I think the thought process here council
members originally this
request was for patrol officers I think with some of the
some of the you know
potential leadership changes that are happening the police
department we want
to kind of you know be able to talk with a new chief the
new leadership about
where do these four positions really fall is it within
patrol are there other
needs within the police department where these four
positions would be better
suited and so again you know that's the strategy with these
four positions are
necessarily identified as patrol officers currently it's
just gonna be
whatever the chief when you two comes in we'll be solic
iting his feedback and all
that on to Tony's explanation that we do have staff taking
a look at the staffing
out there right now we've been going through exit
interviews that sort of
thing trying to understand exactly what's happening and
what kind of
staffing requirements are out there so should that become a
problem down the
road we'll address it okay and into that on the police
because I see the things
that are not funded that were requested as a sex assault
investigator and a
victim advocate and I'm wondering is there can somebody
tell me why those
were not funded and if there's someone currently doing it
now and if there's
cases backed up and how does that fit into our everything
you see on the
currently unfunded I could make a very strong argument to
fund both of those
positions were relying upon grants and my understanding is
that at least one of
those has been funded Chris you want to help us out so you
will likely see that
change with us move asking to move those over but I do I
know that one of them's
gotten funded at least
hello I'm Chris summit with the police department I'm a
lieutenant the sexual
assault investigator that's funded by the IACP grant that
we were awarded so
we have funding through two years the grant award was
contingent that we would
assume funding beyond the life of the grant the only thing
that's required is
we have to add a position now so that we're not in a suppl
anting situation so
but we're in process with that grant we're invoicing we
should start
receiving reimbursements anytime now on the victim advocate
that's a grant that
we applied for a cog we will not find out we scored well on
the initial process I
think we're number five of the new projects that went
through but we won't
find out I think until August if we were awarded that grant
so okay so it's so
those are in line to get grants and funded and so can I
just ask that if
those don't come through that you guys let counsel know we
will do that the sex
assault investigator will be funded it'll be recommended
for funding since
we've got the grant secured if the other one comes through
we'll let you know
we're also trying we're trying to identify workloads with
all this as well
and I think that was the other issue is you'd ask a
question about are they
behind on their workload that sort of thing we're still
waiting to try to
collect that data give you a better answer there but right
now at least the
sexual assault investigator will be recommended for funding
now and removed
off this list and we have that position to see ID she's
been at work doing that
role since January the end of January so thank you so much
yep okay yes there's
something like 50 items here and it's you know obviously we
could spend days
and it's hard to judge them all from two and three word
descriptions I wonder if
it would be possible to just group them into must needs and
wants and maybe
that's already done by the way it's sorted but for instance
well first of
all let me define what I mean by those you know must is
something where we
really can't operate presently without making that
expenditure a need is
something where we've got a gap you know versus how we want
to operate you know
want is you know something more aspirational but the one
that catches my
attention on the not currently funded would be the air
truck which I
understand to be a light and light and air truck for fire
where if we're going
to increasingly denser housing you know where you've got
the possibility of just
larger blazes and and response time you would be
compromised or just just being
able to keep firefighters on the scene would be compromised
having to run back
and get air you know to get air canisters them to take in
and that
strikes me as much more of a need you know so that that's
why I asked for you
know is that sorting been done in that way well the the
sorting was done we can
certainly break these down into almost all these are needs
and a couple of
them are service enhancements and I guess I would just
basically say that I
can make an argument for all those big needs I wouldn't say
that there's any
musts on there right now or else we would have funded it
the discussion with
fire was a fairly simple one we were trying to budget to
the effective rate
the strategy this year was to try to fund three more
firefighters to get a
jump on station 8 we've we've got the we've got the EMS
operating out of the
facility out of Medical Center so we're gonna we're gonna
be a believe chief 6
short so it'd be six short and the idea is with the with
three additional
firefighters it would be their cost of large would be
offset by about a hundred
and fifty thousand dollars in overtime savings as well as
there's a one-time
recommendation in there in the bond package to fund the
design of station 8
as well so that was the strategy to me that is the need is
getting more
presence out on the street rather than a truck that they've
been able to operate
without and also needed a little bit more research so that
was the idea with
fire you know and when you when you budget to the effective
rate these are
the decisions you make totally respect the fiscal
discipline and that's why I
started by asking director point a is this all achievable
within the effective
rate so now I'm a little bit unclear my understanding was
this is all within the
fact cover both in the evening but dipping into savings I
'll clarify that
a little bit the recommended 2017-18 supplementals and the
recommended
funded supplementals are all within the effective rate the
supplementals that
are unfunded would require an addition to the supplemental
rate I'm trying to
be effective rate yeah and I apologize councilmember if I
misspoke with that
that's exactly correct got a question oh I'm sorry well go
ahead just go ahead
no sure so is there anything within the you know I get I
guess this you know
you've clearly said these are your recommendations right
but you know is
there any room for discussion in your mind between the
funded and the unfunded
list you know in terms of if you if you if you looked at
must needs and wants
within the funded list is it conceivable that you'd swap
some items in and out
because I share your view we ought to try to hit the
effective rate if we can
I'm very comfortable with the recommendations we made what
I will
tell you is Tony and Brian and I have had conversations
that you know there's
always some additional dollars that come in we close out
the year just because
Tony's so conservative and you know so my guess is that
some of these one time
needs especially the master plans as we're thinking about
you know a couple
years out and possibly starting to put some new propos
itions together once we
clean out the bond packages need to get done as well as we
will likely recommend
some other things the air truck would be a good example
that definitely program
replacements but we need to know what we're working with
last year we closed
out the books we had about three million dollar savings
actually was some
injection of revenues and some savings that were unaccount
ed for so we
recommended the council that we fund some small one-time
street projects once
we close out the fiscal year my guess is we're gonna be in
that situation again
we're gonna bring this list right back to you saying here's
a few more things
that we're gonna recommend funding for but I didn't I
really felt it was more
prudent right now given the fact that we've got bond
programs that need to be
shored up that sort of thing to really save any additional
discussion for how
to use additional capacity above and beyond the effective
rate to leverage
our road program and do some other things and I think that
is really the
policy discussion is do you want to head that direction or
fund some of these
items but I feel very confident with where we are some of
these items I'm
still don't feel like the the business case has been made
strong enough there
and it's not that it's not a need we need better data so we
're treating
everybody the same and all the requests the same but I feel
comfortable at the
end of day that we've got a good plan for you
that's my robber yeah I had a few questions about a few
different items
starting with the under public affairs the new resident
packet well actually
just kind of more of a comment than a question but if
whoever is is
representing public affairs might want to speak to this I
like the idea of
having a new resident packet I take it that this is
something that we don't
currently offer and so I just have a few suggestions number
one that there be
kind of Spanish language materials in there
hi council member Oscar Rogers deputy director of public
affairs so I'm happy
to take any notes okay and request for that and I will say
that on that
particular item so we do have a contingency if it is not
funded our plan
would be to pursue that item next year actually in an
online format that cost
that you see associated up there is for printing and
mailing so we would be able
to still produce an online component a digital packet and
then we could simply
produce that in English and Spanish as well yeah well and I
like the idea I
mean as much as I love the idea of saving paper doing
everything on the
internet a lot of people aren't you know the internet it's
there if you go and
look for it paper absolutely so I do see the advantage of
paper so there's that
you know Spanish whatever Spanish language we can get into
this paper
materials because it ends up being if it's not understood
by the people it's
targeting then that's a big waste of you know waste of
papers so even though be
more paper to have or maybe maybe not even you know if we
could be efficient
about how much how much writing we have in there also I
would like to see
information about the community development home
improvement grants put
in there when I say information you know maybe even just a
lot a lot in terms of
resources because that's something that not enough people
know about and getting
new residents right when they come in that would be really
good number three
and these are not in any particular order of priority just
as they occur to
me I think it's really important that we have tenants
rights information and that
the tenants just be aware of what their rights are is you
know it's not something
that we have to do as a city but I think it's would be
something that would be a
really great service that we could provide what rights they
have and also
and then finally to let them know about the rental
inspections service that we
provide through this city I think it's still Donnie Denny
who does it in code
enforcement but that's another you know program that we
have that really is
helpful for residents that not enough people know about so
if we're gonna fund
that may as well see what we can what we can get in there
and use that as a tool
to to let people know about some of our underutilized
programs so anyway but
thank you I don't know if you had anything to add to that
but those were
my suggestions no we were simply in the planning phase and
like I said
regardless of whether this was funded or not we did plan to
pursue this and we
did have the contingency that we do already have funded in
our regular
operating budget those online platforms that we can produce
it in a digital
capacity and then we can also look at as we get into the
next fiscal year if we
can reallocate funds from project to project if a cost
comes in under on one
that we could have perhaps reallocate funding to this thank
you did have some
contingencies thank you very much and second question for
the library
representative or Jennifer okay thanks
Jennifer Becker director of libraries thank you so much
first of all I don't
want you to be scared I'm an English professor so I live in
libraries anyway
so I'm simply asking this question because I can about this
item because I
can anticipate people saying what is that about and I want
to have an answer
for them right so and I assume because I know that the vet
ting that things go
through just to get up here that there's a good reason to
have that on there I
just wanted to put you at ease for so the lounge the North
Branch lounge chairs
you know I anticipate I can imagine somebody what you
approve 16,000
$500 for for a lounge chair so so what do I tell them so it
's um for to replace
ten lounge chairs they were original to the building when
it opened in 2003 we
have almost 2,000 people come in through that library
monthly and there's a lot
of activity up and down on those chairs so when we purchase
furniture it's
actually cheaper for us to purchase that commercial grade
furniture as opposed to
something that you might just order online and that way it
's going to last
another 15 years hopefully so that's why they're where that
cost is coming from
okay so that's for the 10 commercial grade lounge chairs
that are gonna what
would you what would you guess is to the lifetime so our
hope is for 12 to 15
years yeah okay thank you very much thanks so much yeah
wait yes go ahead
while you're up 35,000 dollars library master plan can you
give me more than
three words so um 10 so we the library had a master plan it
's over 20 years now
years old now most master plans are anywhere from 10 to 20
years and it's a
long-range planning document specifically focused on growth
on
development in the community where does the library need
facilities in that
growth and where do they foresee what the library needs
might be we are
currently experiencing and we believe that we're ready for
an additional
branch so we're looking for information about when do we
need that branch where
should it be and things like that so we're looking at a
consultant to come in
and do a master plan for us that would again be a 20-year
master plan that
helped guide us to the future for the library thanks go
ahead council member
Briggs library questions so I'm I did have another police
one and I forgot to
ask it has been funded it's the SRO response equipment and
I'm wondering
what that is because that is for the SROs or the DISD
officers that's correct
and camera for his name is something one of the staff
members from the police
department come and answer that so it happens Tony it's
okay happens to me all
the time
lieutenant may some of us respect you thank you sir can I
get a list nice
David Mays police department what that what that kid is it
provides the SROs
currently they're only armed with a pistol like a typical
police officer
because of the fact that you've got school children that
are you know in a
situation where the only person is there that could
actually to respond and help
them is the SRO they're being provided with a rifle and a
biometric safe that
way we're not having to wait on officers to respond to the
scene you
actually have to engage and confronting type of an armed
aggressor that has a
rifle oh so it's like for safety for a school shooter type
scenario yes ma'am
okay all right so it's not to use on the children no man
okay I just want to make
sure we weren't adding like if I explained it that way I
really did a
poor job well no no I mean you know like I just meant I
wanted to make sure we
weren't adding more like artillery to to make it feel more
uncomfortable for
okay no ma'am and this is a rifle that will be taken back
and forth by the
officer as they come and go from their assignment okay that
makes sense thank
you yes and then I've got a question yes sir also about the
SRO yes is how much
does the ISD contribute to the cost for that equipment in
this particular for
the schools right in this particular case I believe we're
funding the entire
amount yeah we just really negotiated the deal with the ISD
and they are
essentially paying one half the salary of all the SROs now
it used to be one
half of half of them and the deal that we basically struck
is you know we'll
provide the equipment for these in the police cars they
provide their workspace
and that sort of thing so that's how we're doing it there
we're sharing
personnel costs but in terms of all the other equipment and
in the space we're
on our own on both entities okay thank you because I know I
'll just kind of
throw this out there I know from talking to officers you
know that there's
that there is concern about that you know making sure that
the ISD is paying
their their share and that and that it's not draining the
police force but I'm so
I'm glad to see the these other these extra positions also
in there and
support them for the for the police so anyway thank you for
for explaining how
that balance was worked out because I think it's important
that there be a
balance yeah they increase their contribution about a
quarter million
dollars a share that's excellent
thank you thank you lieutenant David Mays it may it may be
but mostly it's our
city manager so on the ones that are unfunded have we
looked at other funds
that we have like the the red light trap red light camera
fund for any of the
police or traffic have we looked to see if any of the funds
that we have can
absolutely we there's a number of these other one-time
requests such as traffic
traffic signal replacements there's two more in there this
year about 750 or
eight hundred thousand dollars which we took directly out
of the red light
camera fund so yeah anytime we get have an opportunity to
to look at for safety
enhancements or intersection improvements in those other
funds that's
exactly where we're going and Tony do you do you is there a
slide that shows I do
not have that slide will have it's only for the for the
proposed budget
discussion but but it is two signals that were that we will
be proposing to
draw down from that traffic safety fund in addition to that
there's also a speed
study as well that we're gonna recommend to come out of
that and so
freedom is here if if you have any questions on those
specific but we'll
certainly have that discussion with you on August 2nd let's
go ahead take a real
quick break grab our dinner and come back and I've got a
question yeah sir
yeah
on the funded supplemental recommendations for 1819 mayor
yes sir
we're looking at permitting slash planning software yes of
half a million
dollars so if anybody's been around here very long they've
known that one of my
biggest pet peeves is we've spending a lot of money on
software for planning
over the years which hasn't been effective I mean I just I
just don't
think it has so just in very briefly share with me why this
is different than
when we bought software in the past that didn't meet our
needs I mean I pull
permits I do track it I do all these kind of things and it
is just it is
cumbersome cumbersome cumbersome thank you those are my
words exactly well I
and I will say that this is these are dollars that were
already allocated
previously but with that being said track it the software
solution is
probably the version that we have we're not able to
necessarily update without
going through an RFP process and replacing the software
basically so
that there's a there's a major upgrade in order to get past
where we're at
we're operating under a system and I don't I don't want to
speak for IT but
we're using if you want to talk about the XP part of this
right as far as the
server that we're using isn't necessarily where we need to
be either
so we're looking at going to a software as a service so it
'd be a cloud
hosted solution it wouldn't be on our server it would be
usable for our
employees as well as the citizens from any device anywhere
anytime as a as a
potential to enhance service delivery we are using track it
project docs and
each racket so we have three software solutions that we're
using which I think
probably cost us over a million dollars when we purchased
them if not more and
we're going to update them that could very well be in its
and it's been years
so is this a soft is this a software upgrade or slash
software hardware kind
of in other words this is this gonna help example you go to
submit a permit
you've got to submit your your you're gonna upload your
plans one page at a
time now that may have nothing to do with the software it
may just be our
process or our procedure so is this going to how is this
going to help what
you're saying is cumbersome cumbersome cumbersome and this
is a single this
will be a single software solution that that ultimately
designers will be able
to submit directly so it wouldn't necessarily mean that the
developer
would have to do it so if we're working the design
professionals they can
submit in a variety of formats which it'll upload it and
then we're able to
look at the data in the format that we need will be will be
able to do markups
on the soft on the drawings that we receive and blue beam
most likely it's
just looking holistically at what we do across numerous
departments so it's more
than just planning building inspection we're also looking
at including capital
it would be water wastewater administration-wide correct
correct and
so is this either replacing supplanting augmenting our
current planning software
or is it meant to again replace some of those processes or
no it is to replace
everything that we have so oh it's to replace project docs
eat racket and
track correct and so we'll have some type of web-based
training video to help
people understand how they very intuitive the solutions
that are
available today are much more intuitive their dashboard
driven their app driven
simple easy transparent and we can get to the data
fantastic and the bottom
line with it is the city manager will have a dashboard he's
able to look at
the metrics citywide on on all aspects and then as it gets
to each department
then they have their own dashboard down to the level of the
inspector so one
final question on this because I remember a few years ago I
asked okay can
you generate a report that shows when a project first came
in where it sat what
city department for how many days when it came back to the
applicant how long
how long did take to come back in and so forth and so on
that had to be done
manually I didn't know that still does okay this won't
solve that this will
absolutely absolutely it actually it'll actually do prompts
so the software
solutions that we're looking at will prompt the employee
and notify the
manager of that program area that somebody is not meeting
the timeline
that they're required to get fantastic thank you very much
yes appreciate that
any other questions on the supplemental yes council member
Ryan thank you mayor
I agree with I agree with our city manager that the
planning of the master
thoroughfare plan mobility and the parks are very important
as we look to future
bond packages and on the traffic side of that as we're
dealing with cog and trying
to get funding from them if we don't have our ducks in a
row we're not going
to get the money so it's those to me are the money that
Tony doesn't realize
we're going to get this year maybe we can slide it in on
that that will
definitely be our that will be at the top of the list of
our recommendations is
getting those studies funded so we can go out with
confidence and communicate
to the public what we need done somebody helped me
understand real briefly
difference between a thoroughfare plan and a mobility plan
and if it's long
I'll get you offline in fact I'm gonna switch that I'll get
with I'll get with
you offline he's brief do what okay Todd as the city
engineer the master
thoroughfare plan basically lays out all the major roadways
and small roadways
throughout the city the mobility plan is the comprehensive
plan of all modes of
transportation including pedestrian by school okay all
right thank you any other
questions on the supplemental packages yes councilmember Br
iggs I have a
question about a supplemental package from way way back and
I don't know that
it's ever been used and I'm wondering when Kathleen was
here she we approved a
historic national money for some sort of historic plan or
something and I don't
know that anything has ever come of it does anybody know
what's it was a large
amount of money and it was budgeted and I don't know that
it's ever been used
but I haven't ever seen anything come up about it again and
I don't know what the
definition of a large sum of money is I can say that we do
have some funds that
were that were allocated and that we intend to use this
year for for a
consultant to come in and put together a historic
preservation plan okay but but
we're that was three years ago and that could very well be
and I don't know who
that was okay my understanding is that that money was to be
used as a match for
grants and that the grant was not received am I correct
correct so that
was the explanation provided to me if it's the same one we
're talking you're
talking about okay okay thank you okay any other questions
so is this where you
want direction just tentatively on just this portion do you
want to get through
the rest of presentation and have a conference I think I
think if the
council is comfortable give this direction now that'd be
great I do want
to just just briefly kind of sit set at the stage for the
next discussion and to
address a councilmember Melser's question so if the council
desired to
fund all of these unfunded requests 2.7 million I just want
to remind you that the
one cent increase on the tax rates about a million dollars
so that would be about
two point you know seven cent increase on on the tax rate
our proposal which
will discuss in a little bit with you which is what we've
discussed with you
over the last several meetings is that we want to recommend
to you to
consideration to focus on getting some of the capital
projects done and so the
recommendation to go above that effective rate will be over
on on the
debt side and so so certainly you know we'll have some more
discussions here a
few minutes but if the council is wanting to give us
direction regarding
these supplementals we can certainly you know go with that
council members
just as kind of a rule of the road I don't I don't care for
minimizing the
taxpayer effect by calling it just two cents right yes sir
how much is it on
the typical bill let's say on a $250,000 house or something
like that correct
about
about $50 a year so it's a $50 so it's a tax increase if it
's a tax increase I
guess I would say I'm comfortable with how this looks after
hearing it pressure
tested you know by my colleagues and hearing your the city
manager's comments
I think I'm more interested in waiting to see your sandbag
materialize at the
end of the year than I am and you know going for a tax rate
increase at this
point every day and I'm I'm good with your recommendations
because those are
all within the effective tax rate at this moment that's
correct so and some
of the ones that we've discussed here as far as the funding
for the sexual
assault victim police officer so I'm good with what what I
'm saying yeah I'm
good as well okay good thank you all all right so now on
the
dead side I kind of want to start this you know this
conversation with you
going back to the 2014 bond election you know we provided
the language here for
you within the information that the committee put together
and the council
ultimately approved in the notifications of both the voter
guide and the bond
program booklet we did notify our citizens that it could
take up to a
three-cent tax rate increase to get those projects
completed I will remind you that at
that time the tax rate was about 68 cents currently our tax
rate is a little
bit over 63 cents and so today we've not been able we've
not had to do that
overall increase we have you know shifted over the last
couple years from
the O&M side or from the operations debt a tax rate side to
the debt side to get
those projects completed again that's all been within the
direction of the
council to refocus on the effective tax rate I did want to
mention to you that
some that again a lot of forecasts has gone into some of
these some of the
numbers that I provided here for you just want to let you
know where the
forecast is you know there's a 10% increase for next year
and values again
we'll get that number we'll be able to refine that within
the next week some of
the interest rate assumptions I will tell you that at least
based on the last
bond sale that we did which back was back in June interest
rates
continue to be very favorable again I'm projecting based on
a four and a half
percent interest rate back in June on 20 year debt we
received a 3.3 so there's
some flexibility there that that certainly I think will
will be able to
take advantage certainly the you know the market is a
changing environment and
so part of our proposal today would be to seek direction
from the council that
if you are interested in funding some of these capital
programs that we move
with issuing those bonds which would be certificates of
obligation this fiscal
year and so so I like to kind of lay that out for you these
are the the
capital projects which what we're considering is phase one
and and I'll
and I'll talk a little bit more about that as it relates to
the effective rate
but basically this would amount to about a one point eight
cent increase to from
the effective rate to be able to fund all of these projects
able to fund the
debt service associated with these I will tell you that the
of these phase one
projects you know the most immediate one which we've had
conversations with you
about and Melissa can certainly talk a little bit more is
the radio system
replacement that is a critical system for the city
certainly for our public
safety of that amount of the six point five million that we
anticipate would be
needed about four point seven would be owned or be the
responsibility of the
general fund one point eight million would be distributed
between electric
water and wastewater so again we would seek to issue six
point five six point
six million dollars in certificates of obligation if the
council gives this
direction because of the immediacy of this project if the
council chooses to
to not do that then likely we would come back to the
council make a
recommendation to enter into a a capital lease arrangement
that capital lease
arrangement release give us the opportunity to take
advantage of some
of their pricing I think that tech services already talked
to you about
will be able to in a subsequent year a refund and and and
debt finance the
remaining portion of that capital lease but again but I
wanted to put that out
there for you these are the phase one projects it would
take about a one one
and one point eight cent increase from the effective rate
to have to be able to
fund all these projects the phase two projects it's a quick
question yes Tony
are these all 20-year debt the only one that's not mayor is
the radio system
that's a 10-year debt okay and Mayhill bridge at DCTA that
's the that ultimate
configuration or alignment of Mayhill Road that we've
talked about and is this
our this is our match portion or something like that based
upon the
additional money that we received that's correct from the
clock you're correct
okay thank you so certainly there's number of staff members
here president
there you have any specific questions about any of these
projects just please
just let us know
I'm sorry may not get thank you sorry thank you Billy there
may not get
completed right now and so that eleven point five million
dollars represents
the number it would take to make those bond packages whole
so you've got two
things happening with those bond packages the first one is
these are the
local streets that in my mind I'm viewing them as being
promised in the
next phase you've got some of the larger road projects that
we just are simply
not going to be able to handle Bonnie Bray's phases five
six and seven that's
we're going to be looking for additional dollars there but
I wanted to put that
out for councils consideration because not only was there
full disclosure that
the tax rate might need to be moved out to fund that bond
package but this is
what's short on the local roads and I think that's that's
just the one thing I
wanted to point out so you understood that I think most of
these other items
we've had workshops on these small transportation items I
know council
members armature and melts were not on the council at the
time but last year I
was asked specifically by councilmember Ryan and to bring
forward a list of
quick win projects and then the council had also given me
some other areas that
they wanted us to look at we got about half of those funded
last year through
one-time revenues that were left over when we closed the
books in 1617 this
represents funding to take care of the other half that we
were not able to fund
so I just wanted to make sure that you understood what
those two were in
particular so the idea with what a quick win was we've got
a number of
intersections in the community that with a small amount of
money Carol and
Sherman I guess to be an example that with a small amount
of money you can
really open up the ability to move traffic through those
those intersections
I know we're working at we've got a number of other
projects that are gonna
be ongoing right now but that fourteen and a half fifteen
million dollars
represents those two mindsets yes yes oh okay so we're
gonna go that's the
armature in there so Todd thank you for that but give us
give us a turn time on
those in your estimation if approved how quickly from how
quickly can they get
done 24 to 36 months Todd didn't turn extremely pale so the
idea with 2014 and
12 packages is they will be cleaned out by 2020 2021 and
that would give us the
ability to deliver fully on those packages in the local
roads and I did
want to just piggyback a little bit on what the same Andrew
communicated on
that eleven point five million and Todd can certainly talk
a little bit more
about it about four point two million of that would be to
complete those street
segments from the 14 bond program about two point seven two
point eight million
of that would go to complete the street segments from the
2012 bond program and
there's initial four and a half million that that the city
engineers refer to as
this connector so there's section segments where there's
pieces of that
that that could be done as well and so again you know Todd
can talk a little
bit more about that if you'd like but about four and a half
million would be
to complete some of that in between those segments sections
of roads
this is a question I'm gonna do with me just having
recently joined the council
this being my second meeting so just to verify have we
missed the deadline to
secure a homestead exemption increase for this year yeah
yes ma'am okay thank
you so it doesn't preclude the council the council wanted
to make an increase
it would then be effective for the 2019 tax year next year
yes so I would like
to propose and I'll probably need some help from my
colleagues on kind of how
to go about doing this you know if I should wait till
concluding items my
sense is that that that would be the right time to do it
but I will just say
because it's part of this discussion it makes me sad that
we don't have that
increased homestead exemption because I see that that that
home that a number of
homeowners are gonna be ending up paying you know they're
gonna hear all this
excitement about the effective tax rate even with this late
increase and then
they're gonna end up because they're just thinking about
their bottom line
and they're gonna be ending up paying more than they did
last year in in taxes
and so I would advocate you know and I'm going to propose a
go ahead yeah just to
propose that for next year and however early we need to get
started on that
on that discussion that would be great I wouldn't want to
be too early but I want
to make sure we don't miss the deadline because it because
it's my understanding
anyway that the effective tax rate together with the homest
ead exemption
could really work together nicely and kind of balance
balance each other out
in a way that both benefits homeowners and non homeowners
well I don't know if
I agree with that last point is we're gonna get it on the
agenda and we'll
look at it as soon as we can but right now we're trying to
deal with the 2018
19 budget so once we get this completed we'll come back and
talk about so as I
mentioned these are the phase one projects the phase two
projects are those
that you have here in front of you again number of staff
people here that can that
can discuss that and I didn't want to go to to this slide
unless you're sorry
I miss councilmember Meltzer sorry about that thanks it's
what express a point of
view you know my first work session here that's the first
time I saw proposals
related to the new City Hall annex project and I know there
may be a lot of
sort of shared conviction on this project you know among
others who've
been here longer but you know that was kind of my first
reaction now I've had
some opportunity to think about it and and I'm opposed I'd
just like to take a
moment to say why knocked on a lot of doors I'm sure you
know others of you
have as well I never heard one citizen say that they had an
issue with the fact
that city services are in different places so I you know
the the need is not
compellingly expressed to me you know whereas streets you
know you can't knock
on three doors without hearing about that the trend is
toward more of our citizen
interactions to be online less in person it doesn't meet
the the stated objective
of putting everything in one place because at the same time
we're building
out the service center you know so we're kind of not even
really doing that even
if that were an objective the compelling thing just from a
budget stewardship
point of view is we do have that four hundred thousand
dollar a year rental
expense on the DATCO building but we're looking at four
million dollars a year
in debt service to fix a four hundred thousand dollar a
year problem so then
councilmember how soon we forget Gregory you know said well
that you know that
rents gonna go up but even if it quadrupled we'd still be
better off you
know than having a four million dollar a year expense I
wonder if we have
explored the opportunity or the possibility of buying the D
ATCO
building and that you know just from my having been in it
it appears to have
room for expansion too because it's got that two-story at
rium so there's an
opportunity for more floor space I just think that would be
more prudent I say
millions for streets not a penny for a palace that's a good
sound bite okay so
let's talk about so obviously phase two you're opposed to I
mean I'm not gonna I
think phase two you were saying in your presentation that
these are sort of
phase one is the first priority I'm okay with phase one I
think phase two I agree
that fifty five million dollars if we're gonna do that
probably needs to go to a
bond package that's that's not a big deal so the increase
if I was correct you
said it's 1.8 cents if we did that as you proposed on phase
one funded all
that 1.8 cents which a third of that or a fourth of that
was approved by the
voters to potentially have a rate increase on some of the
bond programs
but we've also done a lot of that without any tax increase
in the rate
that's correct now because of assessed values and tax rates
stayed in the same
yes they pay so the 1.8 cents on a two hundred fifty
thousand dollar home it
equates to forty five dollars in a year in additional taxes
is what I calculated
there right quickly that's correct and since they're all 20
year debt you start
getting three point seven five percent interest I think we
're very lucky that
that hasn't gone up yet because I think all other rates
mortgage rates have gone
up CD rates have gone up which means other interest rates
are going up so if
you're gonna do something if you're gonna incur debt for
projects that are
I don't know what needs or musts that aren't musts but are
things that we
really need then it's a good time for it but so I'm okay
with that I mean I
certainly I think you've done a great job of trying to
balance all the
supplemental requests really getting in what is a real need
of the city and then
combined with the phase one capital improvement programs it
shows that we're
making a commitment in the most fiscally responsible way in
my opinion to do it
so I appreciate that and marriage want to make sure the
council understands to
so if the council gives us direction to proceed with with
issuing this debt that
we would come back to you likely on August 7th we'll still
have to publish a
notice of intent we'll have to wait 31 days before we can
come back to you to
approve formally approve a bond ordinance for us to sell
these bonds the
reason part of the reason why we're asking for direction if
the council
wants to go ahead and move forward these projects the issue
that debt now is it
will help simplify how we calculate the effective tax rate
because when you set
the debt rate it's going to be based on what you have
outstanding next year and
so so rather than then having to raise the O&M rate and and
look at shifting
the rate next year that's that's the reason for our
proposal just to be able
to simplify that calculation going forward so okay yes so
question about
about taxes and kind of what citizens can expect so do you
anticipate or would
you say it's correct that that that homeowners should be be
prepared for an
increase in their city property taxes or in in in what they
're paying for their
property this year yes it would it would be an increase
from the effective rate
yes I'd be about $44 more from the effective rate okay
thank you and if I
just want to make sure I understand so and if we had if we
had a homestead
exemption in place that would be lowered so so an increase
of $5,000 to the
homestead exemption is about a savings of about $30 so so
again so roughly
$12,000 increase to the homestead exemption would
theoretically for this
particular homeowner reduce that increase to roughly what
they paid last
year again we're talking average homeowner to average home
owner sure you
know that average homeowner to 1414 thousand last year is
gonna see you know
again a theoretical homeowner here would see a 9% increase
in their value again so
that's that's an average homeowners that's that's what we
're talking about
here okay thank you and so what so what in terms of looking
forward would you
say that a $10,000 can you're talking about the homestead
yeah I'm just trying
to think about are you talking about for the next year
budget well yes okay plus
thinking about what citizens can anticipate this year well
I think he
just I think he just said that citizens get and you got to
understand that some
people's values might have dropped and if their value
stayed the same if
people's value stayed the same we're still even with the
one dot one point
eight cents if I'm looking correctly we're still dropping
the tax rate from
what it was this year this last year that's correct that's
the difference
between the six three and the six two so if you're if you
're if your assessed
value stayed the same or went up slightly you may not be
paying any
additional taxes it just depends when you look at the
average that's what you
have to I mean that's just the number we have because we
don't know everybody's
individual tax but if you if your value stayed the same and
you had the
effective rate and we didn't even add the one point eight
well you're you're
you're still going down you're not gonna pay as much taxes
as you did this last
year so I really want to I mean we've got about 20 minutes
before you have a
meeting so I really want to concentrate we're gonna have
plenty of time to talk
about the impact for the next year homestead exemption so
really want to
keep us on track to get the direction you need so that if
we need to do some
things fairly expeditiously we can do that to be able to
save some additional
money correct so again mayor just to go back to the phase
one again these would
be all the phase one projects if we were to do these this
does include the design
component for that City Hall it's 800,000 okay so where is
that yeah so
what you're what we're saying is we can remove we could
remove that unless we're
fairly confident we're gonna be doing that in that next
three or four or five
or ten years which I don't I don't know if I see that
happening so but I
appreciate you pointing that out thank you councilmember
Melcer and you
councilmember husband go ahead yeah no I'm processing no so
let me go to the
shorter shorter statement first so if I understand you're
kind of your factors
it's it's the effective rate would be 2.7 cents lower than
the current rate is
that am I reading that right yeah and so then we're bumping
that up to 1.8 here
here's it I don't know that it matters anyone else so the
difference is about
point nine cents am I right so I in a perfect world I'd
like to see us take
that keep it even 1% that difference you know so then that
means we have to eat
more out of the the fund balance I don't know if that
matters anyone else but me
I just think that that's kind of a more simplistic way to
approach it and that's
you know both of us you know it's to me it's splitting the
baby it's not 1.35 is
exactly splitting the baby so we'll get three quarters of a
baby but at the same
time I just that's my preference I don't know if there's
any other traction there
but just to keep it yeah I don't know that I could say it
properly so Tony
you're tracking with me well I think if the council is
wanting to remove 800,000
this project and and the market continues to be favorable
if our values
come in a little higher than we're anticipating that
potentially we could be
less than the one one one point eight cents you know
increase on the debt side to fund that phase one projects
go ahead and then Councilman Briggs but and so there's
other stuff that I'd like to pull out I'd like to see us
get the city hall done timely because I think it is
important and there's a myriad of reasons but we'll go into
those later and
and and I don't and I don't have a catchy rhyme I didn't
plan for it but so
there's that and then on the phase yeah I'm not okay with I
mean phase two I
think we can get to later I like the time frame on the
roads and finishing that
commitment so yeah that would be my suggestion to somehow
level it out too
and I'm happy to pick a few things if you tell me a number
to get to a flat
like so instead of if we're 61 now if we get the 62 I mean
pardon me we're 63 now
we end up at 60 well and so we've ended up at 62 oh seven
three eight at one
cent right and so it's one cent above black if you will so
that would be my
preference and I can I can pick out some stuff if there's
any traction for that
okay customer breaks yeah I'm okay taking out the city hall
designer even
moving it to phase two if we need to my questions about the
radio system did we
talk to UNT and TWU and are they gonna help us pay for that
at all because I
remember the conversation was to talk to them next we've
done lots of we've done
lots of fire stations isn't there a design somewhere that's
already done that
that we can we can use let's do one question at a time
Melissa yeah
Melissa craft from chief technology officer for the radio
systems if because
UNT and TWU also use the the same if if anyone has spoken
with them about shared
cost so we've spoken to them about our intention of
upgrading the radio system
we have a meeting set for later this week and the next week
to have those in
depth discussions okay so there's potential for that to
come down just a
little bit possibly it would probably be more on the
maintenance and the
recurring costs okay okay was my okay thank you okay yeah
your question on the
fire station it's gonna be my understanding is a smaller
station
different design to story so get because of the site
constraints so just fire
chief correct it is a smaller site we're gonna be able to
take some
components out of the current existing stations this number
represents probably
about a 15% on design fees we know that's kind of high but
we definitely
won't come in under on funding right now so this is kind of
preliminary number
to go out for RFQ could we use our new park designer for
that he would not have
the skill set he's he's excellent like open space stuff
though okay thank you I
appreciate it yes sorry question for fire sorry I just want
to make sure so
we've got the fire station eight design in phase one and
construction and engine
in phase two I'm assuming I just just want you to verify so
the reason for that
is because that's the sequence in which right you know
first you have the design
and then correct you're looking at about six to nine month
design time before you
go into construction okay good so that fits with in other
words it wouldn't
make it wouldn't make sense chronologically to push the
second
phase up to phase one because you still need that time your
practice okay great
I just wanted to check thanks and I think that is a good
question and just
a further your point you see it you saw the three fire fire
personnel that we
added we've got six more in order to fully staff that
station so the idea
would be to probably add three more in the next two years
so when it's opened
you're fully staffed excellent excellent thanks can I have
oh sure sure yeah just
to add one thing to that you don't have to stay up there
for that just I'll just
throw this out there but it is about fire but that that as
fire you know hires
new new new staff I would want to be sure that that as in
any department you
know there there's consideration to representation and
diversity you know
women and women and minorities and to the extent to which I
mean I know you
guys are already thinking about this to which you can do
kind of outreach and
target hiring and and let us know what barriers you find
are in the way of
diversifying and how we can help with that thanks so to
address council member
hudspeth's comment if we have 1.8 cents right now if you
take the 800,000 out
it's going to drop it a little bit it may drop it to maybe
1.7 maybe 1.6 I
don't know what the math is but let's just assume somewhere
in that area so if
you drift it drops it to 1.6 and you go to one you're going
to need to take off
is that 30% if you drop six cents from 1.6 or 0.6 it's
about a 30 or 40% 35% so
that means of and that's already taken out the 800,000 that
means on this deal
you'd have to knock off about 10 more million dollars to
get to that penny is
that am I am I playing with that right yeah and and why I
appreciate that I do
and I certainly think that's a I get that for simplicity
when I look at the
0.6 when you take the 0.6 and then apply it to the average
home value you're at
probably 10 bucks or 12 bucks or something like that and 10
or 12 bucks
is 10 or 12 bucks I mean I'm not making a lot of that but
what you get for that
if you do that then I just I think that's that's money well
spent you get an
uptick in a rate of a quarter percent or 10 basis points or
15 basis points or
25 basis points on 10 million dollars that's all gone and
and then some so
that's that's why I'm okay with that I certainly understand
your logic I just
think if we're gonna do it let's just do it and what we'll
do mayor you know
based on your direction today we'll be able to get with our
financial advisor
do some initial numbers runs that'll give us a better feel
for where these
numbers are gonna be and then when we come back to you with
the notice of
intent we can give you kind of where we think we're gonna
land yeah and there
may something pop up in the meantime that we can move some
things around or
we can you never know and the values what what are the
values sitting at right
now we know we're at about the last number we got was back
on the 6th of
July and we were a little bit over 14% it's not coming down
to 10% yeah that'll
be good so that will be we'll know in a couple of days a
couple of days well on
25th yeah okay couple days so this whole discussion
depending on the chain if it
stays in 12% or 11 and a half or 12% not only does this
discussion change but the
effective tax rate discussion changes because if the values
go up your
effective tax rate goes down that's correct all right
fantastic okay any other
comments or questions on this you probably got some more
slides don't you
I do not I just want to make sure no no I just want to make
sure because we're
probably gonna either do a closed session after this after
our public meeting or
but yeah I just want to make sure that that I reiterate the
direction that I'm
hearing is that you're okay with all the phase one projects
except for that City
Hall design yes and we would pull out that 800,000 and if
you could when you
look at the numbers just give us back and just some figures
of if we kept it
at a penny here's what well you could find what that and of
these if you had
to make a choice in others if this council said keep it to
a penny what
would you do right and and in order for us to keep moving
with the notice of
intent we can go ahead again we can set the notice of
intent to issue all these
bonds but then once the council gives direction we can
issue less yeah that's
fair enough yeah because that's just a that's a formality
that you need to do
that to cover your timeframes that's correct okay all right
thank you any
other questions all right mayor before you leave I
definitely want to thank
Tony for all the work absolutely yes outstanding job this
year and all the
requests that came through were were excellent and well
that is well and I
think
Keely and I councilmember Briggs and I may be the if I'm
wrong tell me maybe the
only ones here that have that have had budget presentations
that were not of
this new administration I think everybody else has had a
budget
presentation for you back yeah and I want to tell you it is
light years light
years ahead and it's very thorough I think it allows for
more citizen and
council input in the process with these budget
presentations by staff so I
really do appreciate it because it's very complicated a lot
of people don't
understand it but you've tried to make it as simple as
possible and it's gone
very smoothly so it's not always necessarily been like that
that's not to
be critical of anything in the past it's just I really do
appreciate the time and
effort to to improve the process and I just want to take
just a quick second
mayor just to thank all our finance staff Nancy and all the
staff in the
in the budget office finance department they've been very
integral to putting
all this together and so again live hours a lot of time in
spent but again
thank you for the call they the ones sitting in the
conference room down the
hall to legal that sit in that room they just sort of hud
dle in there and cobwebs
grow on them those can be our accountants yes okay special
breed yes
thank you thank you thank you all very much I appreciate it
how long is the
closed session okay we're gonna skip it we're gonna put it
on the next agenda
item yeah yeah we're gonna move agenda item G to another
agenda well let's
council's pleasure you want to you want to plow through the
the closed session
right quick yeah are you gonna be in the meeting up here
okay so you're accusing yourself okay all right okay all
right we'll go ahead
then and we'll go ahead then and that's good that's right
we'll go ahead and
convene in closed session at 622 p.m. on July 17th 2018 we
will consider the
following items consultation with attorneys under Texas
Government Code
section 551.071 and deliberations regarding real property
under Texas
Government Code section 551.072
good evening everyone welcome to this meeting of the Denton
City Council on
July the 17th 2018 it is 642 if you would stand with me if
you're able to
pledge allegiance to the US and Texas flag
honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the United
States of America, one indivisible.
okay our first proclamation is for the TW gymnastics team
so if everyone would
come down who's here for that please come on down don't be
shy
fantastic great group hey how are you
all right well we are all here to celebrate a proclamation
about the mayor
for TW gymnastics national champions day so yes let's give
them a big hand
introduce themselves and tell us a little about the team
and just the
legacy of success that you guys have enjoyed thank you
Mayor Watts my name is
Shaleese Connors I'm the director of athletics proud to be
a Texas women's
University and proud of this fabulous set of young women
this is just part of
our team and I'll let them introduce themselves and then I
'll let our head
coach talk about our success. Hi my name is Skylar Jones
and I was a senior this
past year and got to be a part of the past two championship
wins. Hi my name is
Abby and like Skylar I was a senior this past year and part
of the last two
championships. My name is Mallory and I was on the past two
championship teams
and I was a senior this past year. Hi I'm Madison I was a
junior this last year
and will be a senior this year. Hi my name is Brandi Lazar
us and I was a
senior this past year and also part of the last two
national championship
teams. Hi I'm Kristen Myers I am an assistant coach and
also a part of the
last two championships. And I am Lisa Bowerman the head
coach and I just want
to say how grateful we are that we have the opportunity to
be here this evening
to receive this honor and really our success is just a
result of an
incredible amount of support. It really is I cannot say
enough about how
supported we feel by the city of Denton by Denton County by
our entire community
and our university community. Shalice and Dr. Mendez-Grant
and Dr. Faiton and
Dr. Edwards and Dr. Utter and so many others from the
university who are here
with us and who are not here with us we receive an
incredible amount of support
and most importantly just to these student athletes and
their teammates who
are not here with us tonight and the rest of my coaching
staff it is truly an
amazing group of individuals who work toward a common goal
and commit themselves
every day to our program and to our university and we are
proud to represent
Denton so thank you.
I'm Karine Faiton and I have the honor of being the
Chancellor and President of
Texas Women's University and to have these amazing women be
at the university
and represent us and I will say in addition to being
amazing gymnasts
obviously winning two championships two years in a row they
also amazing
students they're student athletes most and foremost and
they they have had an
incredible success academically very high GPA which we're
very proud of and
they also very good citizens they're very service oriented
have done a lot of
service in the community so all around they're just
wonderful wonderful human
beings so thank you for that ladies. I'm Monica Mendez-G
rant and I serve as the
Vice President for Student Life at Texas Women's University
. Hello I'm Robin Head
interim Vice President for University Advancement. Hi Alan
Utter I'm the
Provost Vice President for Academic Affairs. I'm Jason Toml
inson I serve as
the Vice President for Finance and Business Administration.
I'm Don Edwards
I'm on the faculty at TWU and I serve as the TWNCA faculty
representative. I'm Pat
Edwards and I'm past president of the TWU Alumni
Association. I'm Bernadette
Coleman and I'm a member of the Board of Regents. Well this
is great I mean think
about it national champions you know you hear that with
other large schools in
our state and around the country but not only once but
twice but more than that
as we're going to hear in the proclamation. So this is a
proclamation
by the mayor of the city of Denton whereas on April the 14
th 2018 the Texas
Women's University gymnastics team won the US gymnastics
collegiate national
championship for the 11th time overall while defending
their 2017 title. What a
feat what a feat. Whereas TWU registered this championships
highest ever score
and shattered the program record with an incredible 196.525
team score Sunday
evening inside Kitty McGee arena in front of their home
fans and a record
setting crowd of 1,273. And whereas 13 TWU All-American
honors were awarded
during team semifinals and whereas TWU gymnasts took to the
podium on Sunday
after the individual event finals to claim gold Skylar
Jones 9.9125 and
silver Mallory Morduck, I apologize for that, 9.8875 is
that out of 10?
Is that okay? Wow that's wow okay well that's about almost
as perfect as you
can get. And on vault silver Skylar Jones 9.825 and on bars
gold Skylar Jones and
Alyssa Kelly with 9.825 and bronze Aaron Alderman 9.8 and
on beam oh that was on
beam sorry and gold Skylar Jones 9.9 on floor and whereas
senior Skylar Jones of
Denton Texas won the USA gymnast gymnastics collegiate
national all-around
title by breaking a 21 year old school record with a mark
of 39.60. And that's
and that's out of 40. Wow. And was the highest finishing
senior gymnast who was
then recognized as the 2018 USA gymnastics outstanding
senior and was
also named the NCAA division two gymnast of the year.
Congratulations
congratulations what a banner year. And whereas members of
the
2018 TWU gymnastics teams are Aaron Alderman, Jenna Cash
more, Morgan Coley,
Madison Dixon, Megan Gentry, Kaitlyn Hawley, Skylar Jones,
Alyssa Kelly, Brandy
Lazarus, Mallory Mordock, Brea Northrup, Hope Parkin, Brig
idette Peterson and
Paige Stoninski I apologize Abigail Versaman, Hunter
Vincent and Taylor
Vincent and leading the back-to-back national champions are
head coach Lisa
Bowerman, assistant coach Stephen Hood and assistant coach
Kristen Myers who
was named the NCAA division two co-assistant coach of the
year. Let's hear
it for the coaches.
Now therefore I Chris Watts mayor of the city of Denton
Texas do hereby declare
and proclaim that July 17th 2018 be known as TWU gymnastics
national
championship day in Denton and encourage all citizens to
celebrate with Texas
Women's University and their amazing pioneers. Thank you
ladies so much.
Well and I have a stepdaughter that did high school
gymnastics and so I would go
and watch her practice and I know that this is a much
higher level so hats off
to you what tremendous commitment and not only to be great
athletes but great
student athletes and citizens of our community. Thank you
so much and thank
everyone at TWU for helping produce and to train such great
students student
athletes. Thank you all so much.
[Pause]
[Pause]
That's quite an achievement so the next proclamation is
citizens
Academy. Denton citizens Academy graduation. So all who are
here who are
with the Denton citizens Academy come on down.
You'll stand up here and get you to introduce yourselves
and then we'll have
Sarah talk about the citizens Academy. Would you be the one
to talk about the
citizens? Okay.
Is this a great this is.
[Pause]
Okay yeah.
All right we're gonna let Sarah here talk a little bit
about the citizens
Academy and then let everyone introduce themselves. Hi I'm
Sarah Keekler I'm the
director of public affairs. This is our second year doing
the Denton citizens
Academy. We're fortunate to have 25 citizens participate in
the program with
us this year and I'm really grateful for your participation
and really honored to
get to know you all. I'm really glad to have such engaged
citizens the questions
that you asked were tough and challenging but it was really
a great
opportunity for city staff and officials to be able to
share what the city is
working on to serve all of you better. So for those of you
who don't know this
program is a interactive you try to make it fun you get to
go out you get to go
to different city facilities tour them meet with staff ask
us all the hard
questions and you'll kind of see we do have a slideshow of
pictures of some of
the things that we were able to participate and show our
participants. So
I'd like to pass it down I would like everyone to introduce
themselves and
then just quickly share one thing you like most about the
program or one
interesting fact that you learned.
I'm Belinda Summers and I think the one thing that I
learned and found out most
interesting was learning the interactions of the city and
what I
should be interested in.
Hi my name is Steve Simpson and the one thing that I
learned the most was or
impressed me was just that I got to visit places lived here
10 years that
I've never been to and I got to talk to experts in each of
the fields and they
answered my questions. Thank you for the opportunity.
I'm Francois Descote from Springbok Academy. I am was
impressed by all the
changes happening in the city and I'm I'm excited by it I
think it's great.
Thank you.
Anita Martina Strickland I honestly have lived in this city
since I was six years
old and didn't know how well it worked. It's very efficient
I can't imagine
being a firefighter or a policeman they run in as I'm
running out so that just
amazed me that we have such good staff able to handle such
tough tough
situations. Thank you.
I'm Natalie and the one most interesting thing that I
learned through the Citizen
Academy is going to all the different facilities that Dent
on has to offer and
the city I am only been a resident for a few years to Texas
so I've never heard
of another place to have this program and I think that more
communities should
offer this to their citizens.
Hi Maria Hendrix. Every Saturday that we met was great. I
learned a lot every
Saturday but I guess the one thing that kind of wow moment
was when we visited
the wastewater management I left with that wow I never
thought about any of
these things before so it was interesting.
Hi I'm Ralph Smith. I think one thing I learned was when
they say to dress
comfortably they really mean it.
Anyway thank you.
Hi I'm Pat Edel. Like Maria I found every Saturday new
things that I would never
have thought of had I not been seeing them in person and I
am very appreciative
to this program and the people who put it on for providing
me that opportunity.
Hi I'm Russ Edel. I've lived here in Denton now for two
years.
I thoroughly enjoyed the program but most important of all
I came away from
the program with a feeling that my hard-earned tax dollars
are being well
spent by the city of Denton and for that I thank this
council. I wish the school
district would run a similar program because I would feel
better about the
money we spend on our education system.
Thank you. My name is Bob Voss and I was probably impressed
most by the
amount of long-range planning it takes to run a city like
this and the
dedication of the people that help run it.
I'm Nancy Voss and I was just proud to know that our city
officials don't look just at
the immediate needs but look into the future.
I'm Heather Wiggins and this was just an incredible
experience. I'm kind of a boomerang Dentonite.
I lived here for 10 years moved away for about 14 and I'm
back and it's super
exciting to see the trajectory the upwards trajectory that
this great city
that I've always loved is on and it's just getting it
better and better.
I'm Eli Azation, Heather's fiance. Just moved here, just
really learned how welcoming the city of
Denton is and just wanted to thank the city for the
opportunity to see how the city is run.
I'm John White. I've been here about two years and you
always go through civic
classes in high school and college but to actually get to
see it working and how
it actually all comes together is just kind of mind-blowing
.
I am Sarah Nick, 20 year resident of Denton and I raised my
kids here and just kind of been doing that.
And now I'm realizing there's a lot of other things that
went on in town and I love the water treatment plant for
sure.
Conservation and how important that is.
Aaron Skinner. Just want to say it's pretty tough to follow
a national champion up here but I think all my classmates
have done a good job.
I was just really impressed with how many people we have
working for the city that are passionate about what they do
.
My name is Randy Skinner and I'm so grateful to the staff
and the city for creating this opportunity.
I echo everything that my classmates said. I will say I
learned that I do not have a future with the fire
department.
So you know learning everything they do and getting to
spray the hose and put on that equipment, it is impressive.
And that is one thing that is so true. Everywhere that we
went our staff is impressive.
And I truly love learning more about what's happening in
development and some of those efficiencies.
So really grateful. Thank you guys for doing this.
My name is Bob Kramer. I've lived here for five years.
I think overall I was just impressed by everybody.
Getting your management staff out on Saturday to visit us
was probably a feat all by itself.
But just the enthusiasm and encouragement of all the people
we met was just outstanding.
I'm just glad to say I'm a resident of Denton, Texas.
Fantastic. Well thank you all so much and thank you so much
for participating.
And as you all have been talking, I've been looking at the
photos.
And one that sort of leaps out at me is it keeps coming
back around.
I don't know who it is but apparently you're demonstrating
a fire extinguisher.
There's some kind of fire station apparently and it starts
out it looks a little small.
And then it looks big and the fire personnel, they're
standing back like this is the person.
It'll come around here. But what a great experience.
And thank you so much for participating.
And thank you so much for your feedback because it's nice
to hear that there's a lot of things going on in this city
that people don't see.
But that really are necessary for the efficient running and
the comfortable and quality of life that we have here in
the city.
So thank you, Sarah, and thank you staff who came out on
their Saturdays to talk with them and to share with them.
Thank you so much because that's a commitment of your time
as well.
So I really do appreciate that. So it's with my pleasure
that I read a proclamation.
We have one for each of you here.
Whereas the Denton Citizens Academy is a volunteer
educational program offered through the different
departments of the city of Denton consisting of five
sessions,
which encompass public safety, development and growth,
utilities and quality of life, providing tours through many
of the departments within these areas.
Did I leave one off? No. Utilities. I did. I thought I didn
't read five. Utilities.
What the utilities. Very important utilities.
Whereas the Denton Citizens Academy objective is to give
citizens an opportunity to acquire a better understanding
of their city government and services through interactive
sessions.
And whereas the program helps provide a better
understanding of how our leaders make decisions and deliver
these services that affect our lives every day.
And whereas the Denton Citizens Academy helped to create a
cadre of informed citizens provided the tools to become
involved in city boards, commissions and committees to help
shape the future of the city of Denton.
And whereas the program obtains feedback and new
perspective from these citizens regarding governmental
programs and services and opens the lines of communication
and transparency.
Now, therefore, I, Chris Watts, mayor of the city of Denton
, Texas, do hereby recognize the 2018 graduating class of 22
citizens from the Denton Citizens Academy and applaud their
commitment to Denton's betterment and all the benefits that
it brings to our community.
So thank you all so much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
Care next agenda item is presentation from members of the
public if we could review roll the review of procedures for
addressing the city council please.
The Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure,
including a code of conduct that applies to citizens, as
well as council members.
These rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and
to preserve decorum.
Here is a brief review of the rules that apply to citizen
reports.
Citizens will have four minutes to give a scheduled citizen
report and four minutes to give an open mic report.
There will be an electronic bell when time has expired.
If the remarks are not concluded by that time, the citizen
will be asked to stop speaking.
If the citizen does not cease and a second request is made,
the mayor will request to have the citizen removed from the
council chamber.
Citizens are asked not to approach the dais.
If a citizen has papers or other materials to hand out to
the council, please let the city secretary know in advance.
For scheduled citizen reports, the council may initiate
discussion or questions following each citizen report.
For non-scheduled open mic citizen reports, the council may
listen to citizens speak.
However, because no notice of the subject of the open mic
report has been provided to the public in advance,
the Texas Open Meetings Act limits any deliberation or
decision by the council to a proposal to place the item on
a future agenda,
a statement of factual policy, or a recitation of existing
policy.
Citizens are asked to direct all remarks and questions to
the council as a whole and not to any individual member.
Please refrain from making abusive, personal, impertinent,
profane, or slanderous remarks.
Anyone who violates this council rule of procedure may be
immediately removed from the council chamber.
Thank you in advance.
Copies of the rules of procedure are available from the
city secretary.
Okay, our first speaker is Mr. Ed Sofe regarding public
health and safety concerns regarding the current gas well
ordinances.
Reverse setback distance.
If you'll state your name and address, your time will begin
.
Good evening. My name is Ed Sofe, 1620 Victoria Drive in
Denton, and I'm representing the Denton Drilling Awareness
Group.
I have a narrative for you.
On December 17th, 2014, the New York State Department of
Health published a report on the possible adverse public
health effects of hydraulic fracturing.
In response to this report, Dr. Howard Zucker, who at that
time was a New York State health commissioner, wrote,
"Until the science provides sufficient information to
determine the level of risk to public health from fracking
and whether the risks can be adequately managed, until then
, the Department of Health recommends that high-volume
hydraulic fracturing should not proceed in New York State."
In 2014, Dr. Zucker acted with precaution.
Insufficient information about fracking's public health
impacts was grounds to ban it, not to allow it.
Better safe than sorry.
And Dr. Zucker was right.
In just the past four years, the weight of evidence
documenting the adverse health impacts of living within
close proximity to gas well operations has not diminished.
It has increased.
In January 2015, a Yale University research team found that
respiratory and dermal symptoms reported by residents in
Pennsylvania increased in frequency the closer one lived to
a gas well.
In July 2016, a Johns Hopkins University study found that
living near fracking operations significantly increases
asthma attacks.
Those who lived the closest to wells had the highest risk
level.
In July 2017, a research team from the University of Texas
Health Science Center School of Public Health found
evidence of a moderate positive association between
residential proximity to gas well activity and increased
odds of preterm birth.
Also, that there was a suggestive association that fetal
death increased with greater proximity to well operations
within the 24-county Barnett Shale region.
And now, in March 2018, research conducted by the Colorado
School of Public Health reinforces and repeats that the
closer that one lives to gas well operations, the greater
the health risk posed by exposure to toxic air pollutants
such as benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, and xylene, all of
which can and do cause cancer, childhood asthma, and
childhood leukemia.
Denton's current reverse setback of 250 feet does not
address the potential harm, pardon me, does not address the
potential human health impacts now associated with the
toxic air emissions of gas well operations.
It is imperative that the reverse setback requirements be
reassessed, and the current gas well ordinance adopted in
2015 must be reviewed to ensure compatibility with the
zoning revisions and updates in the Denton 2030 plan.
We already know the dangers. After experiencing the fr
acking nightmare of the vintage neighborhood, the chaos of
the well explosion and fire in the Westgate neighborhood,
and the well blowout that shut down the airport.
Precaution is even more prudent now than it was in 2014.
Thank you.
Thank you, Councilmember Meltzer has a question I believe.
Actually for the city manager.
When will we have a work session for the public, this is
the public will know on our current understanding of the
public health and safety concerns with respect to distance
from gas wells and possible policy options.
We are scheduled to discuss this with counsel at a lunch
workshop on August 6 I believe.
Councilmember Amator.
Thank you.
That was going to be my question for, for, for staff, I
would like to ask if Mr. So first of all thank you so much
for that harrowing presentation.
I want to know a little bit about what your understanding
is of our last revision to the gas well ordinance and, and
why your sense of, of whether it was improved or made worse
.
I know in my opinion, I want to know your, well, I mean,
the, there were two versions, two drafts of the 2015 and
the final version setbacks were reverse setbacks were
reduced from 500 to 250 feet.
And the general setback was reduced from 1200 to 1000.
Even before then, planning and zoning recommended a smaller
reverse setback and an even smaller general setback of 750
feet.
But fortunately, council at the time came out with the
larger numbers but then when the final draft came out those
two had been dropped.
So you would say that are the last time we revisited this,
we made the gas well ordinance worse.
I think it was a creature of the times really.
And I think those times are passed and lots have has
happened since 2015 and I think we need to revisit the
ordinance for those reasons.
Thanks so much I agree I'm looking forward to August 6.
Thank you. Thanks very much for putting that on.
Thanks. Thank you, Mr. So.
Our next speaker is Christina Weber regarding food for the
soul fighting childhood hunger in Denton or whoever wants
to just state your name and address and your time will
begin.
Hi, I'm Kimberly Saller and this is my husband Bob Saller
and we have a new warehouse space in Denton so we're really
excited to be here.
We fight childhood hunger, going school by school. So we're
here to help Denton fight childhood hunger.
Thank you. Here we are.
The harsh reality is that in the United States, 14 million
kids are going hungry. And we are here to help that problem
what we do since 2009.
You can't well I'm going to go right to here.
SOS local said there's 350,000 North Texas children that
are on the free and reduced lunch program food for the soul
has a backpack program that we provide these students meals
for over the weekend.
We provide to breakfast to lunch to dinner for snacks, and
what we do we're coming to Denton because one of your local
business owners found out about us.
And they said it was a main porter for lanko contacts and
said, you know, we love what you do. How can you help Dent
on, how can you help feed the kids and then, and I said well
we need a warehouse space to start.
So he calls us up and says, we have a warehouse space for
you guys now. Can you come help feed our kids. So I talked
to the DSP today and they said that 40, over 45% of the
students in Denton ISD are on the free and reduced lunch
program.
So these kids that get breakfast and lunch at school could
possibly go 65 hours over the weekend without food.
And that's where we come in and provide the food for over
the weekend.
So we're here to say we're here in Denton. We want you to
know who we are and what we do and how you guys can help
get the word out because some people don't know there's
hunger, and they don't know there's kids hungry in Denton.
We are from Keller, Texas and we started in 2009 in Keller,
and we've branched out to the Dallas ISD Arlington Keller
we're in Denton, and we're just branching out to where the
need is and the people that are receptive to it so we want
you to know we're here to help.
It only cost what you can do to help. We would like other
business owners to get involved, and you know you can bring
and you can help pack out, you can bring your family you
can bring the school.
There's a lot of kids that need volunteer hours in the
school district, and it's a great way to get them because
what we do we have food come in, we pack it out and then we
put it in bins and take the bins to the schools and every
Friday, the kids go home with this bag of food.
It's $5 for a child per weekend $180 for the whole school
year, and some people can do a whole school some
organizations can. It's just a really wonderful time to get
the city of Denton together to help its own community.
This is who we are. Councilmember Hesbeth.
So, where's your, what's the location and donation is it is
it able to be done online. Online yes. And we're having an
open house where you're all invited.
And it's a Saturday from 11 into one is on North, I can't
pronounce Mosh branch road.
And it's awesome we have a purple floor for our colors, and
it's really well organized and I can't wait to see what
happens next year so and how many kids are affected, we
have so many stories about.
Thank you.
Councilmember Amateur.
So that's this Saturday. It's actually in August, okay. Yes
ma'am from 11 to one. Okay, thank you.
So I just wanted to say thanks for what you do. I had the
pleasure of meeting both of you before earlier and talking
with both of you earlier.
And my family and I look forward to volunteering. Thank you
with you so we'll be in touch about that. I was wondering
if you could, if you could tell us a little bit about how
you provide opportunities for children, not just to be the
recipients of this food
but to volunteer and to help provide food for other
children who are not so fortunate.
Thank you. I am Bob, and we, we've been very blessed to be
part of this and we feel that it is a community thing that
's why we wanted to come here and actually meet you face to
face and say, together we can make a difference and we
really take that very personally so it's our families our
families bring their families and friends bring their and
bring their children so you do have an opportunity to come
into this facility and actually help back out.
I'm an engineer by trade so I lay out lines I come up with
a way to be able to actually set the food in place, and
then set a line out for distribution and pack it out. And
we range from all different ages right so they can help
with boxes they can help pack food they can help put things
in place,
and they get to see, they get to see it in action which is
really incredible most of the time people come and say I
had no idea, I had no idea there's hunger and dent and I
had no idea that right here in the United States we could
be struggling with hunger, and then the children get to
come and participate.
And what a great place to start right start that foundation
in the family to be able to understand what this really
means and, and, you know, like Kim said it's 65 hours of
food insecurity from Friday afternoon when you have lunch
to Monday morning where you actually have breakfast,
I fasted for those 65 hours and I got to tell you, Friday
night was wow okay Saturday I was hungry.
And I didn't want to see another commercial about food or
here where you went to eat Sunday I had a headache I was
struggling. Now dial me back to 10 years old, put me in
school.
I'm a child who's a troublemaker I'm a child who doesn't
listen I'm somebody who may or may not be progressing
through the school system. We firmly believe that feeding
these children through the weekend giving them hope, giving
them, you know, a process where they
understand it will actually improve their grades, and we're
starting to see data that starts to show that now the
improvement of the students in the class.
Councilmember Briggs.
So I just wanted to thank you for coming out. I'm glad you
came in.
Thank you for seeing the need in our community and stepping
up to to help.
If you could state your name and address and then the date
where the open house is.
We are food for the soul, and the address is 2321 Mosh
Branch Road in Denton, Texas. It's Saturday, August 25 from
11 to one is our open house so please everybody come out.
Thank you all so much thank you so much for coming and
sharing with us. Thank you.
Moving on to our consent agenda.
Chair would entertain a motion for our consent agenda and I
believe we've got some items that need to be pulled as well
.
Councilmember Ryan. Thank you, Mayor.
approval of the consent agenda except for items G, H, and M
.
G, H, and M.
Okay, Councilmember Briggs.
Second.
We have a motion and a second for approval of the consent
agenda except for items G, H, and M. Let's vote on the
board please.
Motion carries six zero we will now take agenda item
four G as an item for individual consideration consider
adoption of the city of Texas and Texas Home Rule Municipal
Corporation authorizing city manager executed contracts
through by board cooperative purchasing network for the
Milan Park,
and the city of Texas. Thank you.
Okay playground replacement projects, as you had mentioned,
sorry.
We have $890,000 from the 2014 CIP program to cover seven
playgrounds, including these three playground structures.
The project was already completed. We currently have the
funding for the three Milan Fred Moore and Dina.
Playgrounds are prioritized by need and mentioned earlier
this afternoon that playgrounds typically last about 15
years, we are behind schedule. A couple of these were put
in the late 90s.
So they're 20 years old.
This is a rendering of the Milan program Milan Park
playground.
Fred Moore and Dina.
The three program. The program was bundled together to
expedite the process for construction potential cost cost
savings by buying more than one at a time. It's a little t
ikes company brand does have various warranties associated
with different parts of the structure itself.
The bids were obtained through by board. It's Lee Park and
play equipment was the lowest responsive bitter bitter for
a total of $354,000.
Councilmember breaks. What is the age of use for the new
structure and is it compared to the ones that are there
because I said that looked a little bit smaller people. I
mean is it up, are they both up to a certain age.
Yeah, they're two to five and five to 12.
Okay, two different kind of sets. Okay, for each part. Yes.
And what is the material for the ground cover. It's a it's
a wood fiber. Okay, and the green. That's, that's just
grass. Yeah, that's just grass. Okay.
The concrete border. Thanks. You're welcome. Councilmember
Ryan.
Thank you, Mayor, move approval of item G Councilmember Mel
zer second. Let's vote on the board please.
Item 6060 agenda item for H considered option of notice of
the city of didn't Texas Home Rules in a small corporation,
rejecting any and all competitive bids under if the 6733
for the construction of Carl Young splash Park restroom for
the city of it.
This year, we dedicated our first spray ground and adjacent
to that is planned, a restroom a permanent restroom
structure. Currently we are using a portable restroom
trailer out there until this structure would be built.
So currently there's no full time restroom facility there.
Funding is coming from a community development block grant
of $85,000, plus any additional funding above that would
come from park development fees. As I mentioned we have a
mobile restroom and has three stalls in that structure.
So the construction of this facility was 600 and 659 square
feet.
perspective bidders were notified, we received three.
The lowest bid was $340,000 to the tune of 512 square feet.
So staff felt that that cost seems excessive.
And we decided to recommend to you to reject those bits
into reevaluate either we read it at a later date, maybe
one construction costs are a little bit more affordable, or
we look at a prefabricated structure.
So we're going to be looking at that.
Councilmember has been. Yeah, I just want to thank staff
for, again, I've seen the mobile restroom it's great, and I
think it is a great placeholder, until we can find the
right pricing so I appreciate staff's direction and kind of
wisdom to not go down a path for the sake
of not going down a path but to to hold off and make a
better decision, because I think it benefits us now, and in
the future not to to spend wisely.
And so I appreciate that that decision.
Councilmember Amateur.
Do you know when is the last time that new restrooms were
created for any of our parks.
We have a construction with one right now at our Bella
athletic complex. And what are the comparative costs.
That is, I believe, probably almost double what we were
paying.
Double. This cost from comparative. Yeah, so looking at the
bids the mobilization and the site, site construction was
pretty high, so it seemed like they were front loading some
of those costs.
And it may be just too small of a project for some
companies.
I appreciate this. That would have been an interesting
discussion.
I still think my idea is not too bad about having our own
construction company to build some of these projects holy
cow $570 a foot.
Thank you so much for your prudence in this and I think
that I've seen the restroom out there as out there the
other day just with some constituents and they're just
loving this flash park and I think that more than
adequately meets those needs until we can find some
other cost effective so appreciate your diligence in this.
Thank you. Any other questions, comments.
Councilmember Meltzer. I do appreciate the judicious and
effective solution. I move approval of item for each
Councilmember Hudson.
Second.
We have a motion to second let's vote on the board please.
Okay, carry 60 moving on to agenda item for him consider
approval of a resolution amending resolution number are to
17 dash or 49 regarding extension of term for steering
committee to consider and advise the city hall and Council
on renovation operation.
What's what's the presentation on this we talked about this
.
Is it just a real brief presentation.
Very brief. Okay, because it's just given us a date. That's
correct.
My name is Mark Nelson director of transportation, Mayor
members of Council, as stated this very brief presentation
I do not actually have anything to come up on the
electronic board but as presented at the end of June.
The City Hall West committee is at a point where they're
about 7580% through their deliberations, and the existing
resolution will sunset.
Five meetings that up to this point. And so what this
resolution will do is extend that date until October 31
would allow them the committee to do is finalize some some
conversations on proposed uses and designs, as well as have
the opportunity interface
with the general public with a meeting in the August or
September timeframe and then bring back a recommendation to
this body.
Great customer husband.
I move approval so that we can continue these, so he fell
to mention five action packed meetings, and so we'll keep
that going.
Council member Ryan.
Second.
We have motion second let's vote on the board please.
Motion carry 60 Thank you. Thank you, Mark.
Moving on to agenda item five was your items for individual
consideration agenda item five a con conduct the first of
two readings of an ordinance of the city of Denton for
voluntary annexation of approximately 47.466 acres of land,
generally located on the south side of East
Ryan road.
Good evening Richard can only development services
department.
The item in front of you tonight is the first first reading
of the annexation ordinance. If you recall, there were two
public hearings on this item in June, I believe it was the
12th and 16th.
It's approximately 47.6 acres.
Just south on Ryan road.
Single family development this was part of a pre annexation
agreement that was done, I believe in 2016 sort of a little
different than our normal process plat final plat was
approved earlier this year for 137 single family lots.
This is sort of the next stage as part of that, that pre
annexation agreement. Once it is annexed then we will
initiate a rezoning of this property to NR to.
With that I'll go ahead and read the title and ordinance of
the city of Denton Texas voluntarily annexing approximately
47.466 acres of land generally located on the south side of
East Ryan road, east of the intersection of East Ryan road
and Andrew Avenue
by the city of Denton, Denton County, Texas, more
specifically described in exhibit a and illustrated an
exhibit be providing for a correction to the city map to
include annex lands providing for a savings clause and an
effective date.
All right.
Sorry, go ahead. That was it and this would be brought back
for second reading on August 21.
No action is required, I believe that is correct. All right
. Thank you. Thank you.
Okay, moving on to agenda item five be consider appointing
a nominating committee to recommend appointees to serve on
the economic development partnership board.
Good evening, Mayor and council members I'm Caroline booth
director of economic development, and this is going to be a
very short item.
As the mayor said, we're here before you this evening
requesting that you nominate a nominating committee to name
members of the economic development partnership board this
is an annual process that is undertaken.
And the nominating committee is comprised of two members of
the city council and one member of the Denton Chamber of
Commerce. And as you saw in your backup that member has
been named a Lee Ramsey, this year by the Chamber of
Commerce.
So, that committee, after it is named tonight will meet and
discuss with the potential eligible nominees their
willingness to serve on the committee and then present its
slate of nominees on August 21 for a vote of this body.
So, what I am asking you for tonight is to choose to have
your number.
Okay.
Anybody have an interest in being on the nominating
committee.
You need to council members exactly. Yes, sir. So, we need
to. Okay, customer. I'd be willing to serve if no one.
Okay, space is available. Sure, customer breaks.
Does it matter if we're on the board already. No ma'am
there are no parameters around who from the council can
serve, because I, I will volunteer. I'm on the board.
If that's okay.
Council member Mel Sir.
Okay. Well, I will, I'll step aside and.
Yeah, I'm already on the board. Sure.
All right.
Okay. Do we need to take an official action on that Mr.
City Attorney, as far as the, or is it just us choosing.
No, consider appointing. Okay, so we don't need to make a
motion to appoint or anything like that we're just appoint
ing councils appointing council member on and council member
Mel Sir.
That is correct. Council portion of the nominating. Thank
you. Okay, thank you.
All right, Council.
Agenda five see I have to recuse myself so may protein if
you'll take the gavel.
Thank you, Mayor.
Item five see consider adoption of an ordinance, author
izing the city manager execute a consent of assignment and
assumption of obligations between the city of Denton North
Denton pipeline LLC and Eagle Ridge midstream LLC.
Good evening Paul Williamson real estate manager for you
tonight is an ordinance.
Considering this consent of assignment of a pipeline
agreement.
There's two crossings that are under consideration there.
One is on crossing Westgate north the town is also North
Bonnie Bray Street.
Here's the segments in red illustrate the two street cross
ings.
In 2003 the city granted didn't North North didn't pipeline
license agreement across those two locations, and it was
renewed in February 2017.
And they come today, asking for consent of the assignment,
it's part of the terms of the original license agreement.
And so, stand for any questions you might have.
So if you could just help me for a second understand so is
it, do they want to.
Is it for new pipelines or is it just there to existing to
existing and they just want to get permission to maintain
them or actually it's my understanding that North didn't
pipeline is selling their assets to Eagle Ridge midstream,
which is an entity made up a pipeline, another pipeline
company
so it's really just a transfer the assets. These two
license locations are part of their, all their assets.
Okay. All right. And so, it's not going to be any, any new
it's just a transfer of name from one owner to the other.
And by in this agreement though they are allowed to do
maintenance and inspections.
Compel. Yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you.
Councilmember Meltzer.
Isn't it true that this particular pipeline hasn't been ins
pected for four years.
No, it actually has been expected in 2012 was the
inspection of it that we found from the railroad commission
and also the parties. So that's six years ago yeah six
years ago yes okay.
Is there a city attorney I think it was 2014. So the
inspection. That's why I said yeah not in four years. It's
2014. Yes. There you go.
So city attorney is there potentially liability that would
accrue to the city in this. Now the pipelines, all the
pipelines in Texas are regulated under the public utility
code, which is in this case since they are gas pipelines
the railroad commission
has those, it's a state inspection that is done so if there
is any potential liability that that liability is against
the pipeline operator not the state or the city.
That's my breaks.
Wait, to that point, is there a requirement that they are
supposed to inspect. So many years, yeah, I believe for
this particular grades of pipeline I believe it's ever five
years.
Every five years and so commission yes, so they've missed
an inspection.
No, okay, for alleging that they missed an inspection just
spent a long time and if it were liability attached us, and
I'd be concerned.
Councilmember Amateur.
So, it would be the staff of Eagle Ridge responsible for
for doing the maintenance and inspections. Now, is there
any overlap, do you know and it can be staff between North
Denton, between the North Denton pipeline people and Eagle
Ridge people
or just a different, not only a different corporation but
different set of people who will be.
My understanding is that North Denton pipeline is selling
their that segment of the piece that they own to Eagle
Ridge midstream.
And so, my understanding when when something like that
happens it's whatever the terms of their sale agreement is.
Yeah, okay.
Okay.
Thanks.
Councilmember right.
So, generally, I'm okay with it my question is though I
seem to recall some of the issues that we've had with the
gas wells were from were Eagle Ridge operator, is this the
same thing, or is this something different.
It's my understanding that this company is Eagle Ridge mid
stream, which is, is different than from the operating.
Okay, that's good. Thank you.
And I would venture that the original contract has language
in it that says that we will reasonably accept future
assignment.
Yes, yes there are some provisions in the original
agreement and really, basically what we have is just a new
company stepping into the shoes of the old owner.
Okay.
Councilmember has moved.
Motion to approve. Councilmember breaks. I'll second the
motion and a second. Any further discussion.
Let's vote on the board.
And the motion carries four to one.
And if someone can let the mayor I think I hear him coming
down.
Consider adoption of an ordinance approving an economic
development agreement under Chapter three the local
government code to promote economic development.
Good evening again mayor and council members Caroline booth
director of economic development, and I am here this
evening to present an incentive request from us cold
storage, and we do have a representative from the company
on hand this evening.
Adam Francis is the area manager with us cold storage who
is also serving as the general manager for the Denton
facility. So he will be available to answer any questions
that you would prefer to direct to him.
I'll give you some quick background here, us cold storage
is a company that provides refrigerated and frozen food
warehousing and transportation for clients it has 38
facilities in 13 states, and about 2500 employees.
The project here in Denton is a distribution center on a 40
acre site on Jim Crystal Road and I will show you a slide
so you can get a picture of where that is the total
investment for the project is going to be about $34 million
and it will add $28 million in new ad valorem value for the
construction of the complex roles.
The project is slated to have 67 new jobs by year three,
and about 99% of the employees are going to be benefits
eligible.
The project will be a top 25 DME customer based on demand,
and the project will kick off and in fact has kicked off
phase two of the West Park tours improvements which include
water and wastewater and drainage and road improvements.
So you can see an aerial picture of the site, the road. See
, I can't see my mouse there it is. This is Jim Crystal Road
and West Oak Street here. And this is Western Boulevard
here and the site in question is outlined in yellow.
And just so that you can get an idea of what one of us cold
storage is other facilities in the Metroplex looks like
that is a shot of their Dallas facility.
Caroline quick question. Yes sir. When you say it's kicked
off phase of phase two of the West Park tours.
What road improvements if any would be required on those
perimeter roads that you're showing.
There are not going to be any road improvements required by
this project specifically the part that's that it's going
to start are the water wastewater and drainage improvements
and then the next project that comes in along Jim Crystal
is probably going to kick off
the roadway improvements that expansion it's going to
expand to. Well I don't I don't want to say it incorrectly
but I think it's going to be four lane divided and an
engineer might correct me on that but we're not I mean if
we're installing water and sewer.
We're not digging up the current road and having to put it
back is it's going outside of the at least the pavement
area. The segment the segment of Jim Crystal that is west
of the site up to Western that pavement is having to be
removed in order to put in the water and waste
water and it will be replaced. It will be. Oh OK. That was
my question because I think it wouldn't be very prudent for
us to tear the road up go back with this two lane road and
in three or four years go back and have to widen it.
So I'd like some conversation to occur about some of the
efficiencies of taking care of that particular segment with
the final alignment or the final design and just to see
what that cost difference is and because I think we're way
ahead of the schedule based upon the first phase.
And so I just think that would be we are having
conversations about the West Park Terps project plan right
now with all of the relevant departments so you all will be
hearing about that in the near future.
Okay. So you all will be discussing that and bring
something back with us on that. Okay. Yes sir.
Any more questions on this one. Oh, I'm sorry. Council
member Amator.
So I know we have the airport and the gas plant over there
too already.
What what kind of noise comes from a cold cold storage
facility both during the day we've got the traffic coming
in and out.
Is there any I think I don't think there's any significant
amount of noise beyond what we would see with truff truck
traffic which is a very compatible use there are many other
facilities that do the same thing in the area so it's not a
noise producing.
Beyond freezer noise.
I don't think so. Tim.
No. Yeah, yeah, we do you would you like him to come up and
answer the question since he's the expert if the answer if
the answer is no.
He says no.
Thank you. Okay. Councilmember Melter.
Are you just pausing now we're gonna hear more. Are you
going to talk about the special energy requirements for the
site.
And I'm not going to go into details about that.
Let me give you a sense of where I'm going with this.
As I recall from the background materials, some of the
rationale for the, the, the chapter 380 offer is the idea
that they will incur some extra expense related to
maintaining a high level of peak supply, something like
that.
I'm going to be blankly. That's not the rationale for
offering the chapter 380 agreement. That is a reason why we
anticipate that they'll be eligible for the DME economic
growth writer, which I'm mentioning tonight because it's a
part of a total incentive package but it's not what's up
for discussion, because the DME economic growth writer that
's offered to certain utility users.
If they meet the demand threshold, they're eligible to
receive it that's part of the rate structure that's adopted
by council for electric utility rates. So it's an incentive
to use more.
It's an incentive for a certain size of user.
Thank you. What's the, the square footage proposed of the
facility.
The Dallas facility run off. Maybe it's a photo. I don't
see a lot of structures on the roof. It doesn't look like
there's a lot of obstructions, and it's a 250,000 square
feet is a huge flat surface.
And I, I wonder how much of the energy needs might be mitig
ated through use of solar and wind on that huge flat surface
. And if that, you know, that that's really my question if
that's something that could be looked at and just to say a
little more.
I'm generally in favor of offers to companies that have
other reasons to move other than our tax incentive, but if
they were looking to be grid tied and contribute, mitigate
their own use and contribute to our energy supply, you know
, I'd be much more interested.
I have had some conversations about the feasibility of
rooftop solar on this particular project and my
understanding is that because of the cooling system that
they're going to be using.
It's not feasible for this particular facility. He does
tell me that a couple of other US cold storage sites in the
US use solar but it's it's kind of more in a solar farm
setup it's not rooftop, because they have to have
accessibility to the rooftop to be able to work on
and use the cooling system.
So if you would like to have him tell you more about that I
'm sure he'd be glad to come up and discuss that.
Okay, Tim, would you like to come and help us with that
question.
Good evening Mayor City Council, Tim Francis with United
States cold storage for the record.
So, our question about solar rooftop so in our industry.
We're very concerned and we pay attention to what we put on
our rooftops. We have solar out until air California. We
also have a solar farm.
It's attached to our Warsaw facility so this site, being
that we don't have enough land that we can't use like we'd
had in Warsaw as phase one as it stands right now we won't
have solar on the roof.
One of our biggest concerns is just damaging our roof.
And also one of our concerns is putting solar panels up on
the roof is also accessibility to the refrigeration system,
we call the penthouses that are up on top of the units. We
have to have accessibility to those in the event of, you
know, an ammonia release or something.
And it's something that that our companies always
considered you can go to our website we have a web an
entire page on our environmental friendly activities as a
company that we continue to, you know, just just become
more environment friendly company is, is, is this kind of
thing where,
as you learn more about with this particular facility is
going to work that you would be able to reevaluate it or
you know you've evaluated it, it's just never going to work
there, because of the access issues.
Sure, good question.
So, phase one was built. This is the fastest our company
has ever built a facility. And so we still have a phase two
and a phase three so just to add to Caroline's comment so
the 250,000 square feet is actually just phase one.
And that's two additional phases so we're always evaluating
like, you know, solar panels and other environmentally
friendly, like HID lighting will have in the facility will
have potentially ammonia cascade refrigeration system and
some other things to, again, just take our facility
the next level we have a lead certified facility in Coving
ton, Tennessee attached to you know leave her plant.
So, it's, it's a strong initiative within our company.
I'll keep you up here for another minute. So, how, how will
phase two and phase three be different from phase one in
terms of, you know, will they also be basically serving the
same kinds of purposes and it's just more capacity so you
'll have the same issues
with cooling rooftop access etc. So are they doing
performing different functions, potentially different
functions so we have a blast freezing process, which
actually we put pallets of product in a freezer and bring
that temperature down to minus
40 degrees with about a 4050 mile an hour wind that
requires us to modify our refrigeration system to an
ammonia cascade system will have a traditional ammonia
system for phase one but we have the engine room and
everything built basically as a hybrid system.
So, once we are. Once we build phase two and build those
blast cells will be able to just retrofit our current
system into that ammonia cascade system.
And to connect the dots, you know, if you see where I'm
going, you know, are the differences in phase two and phase
three, such that they might enable you to use those, the
additional 250,000 square feet for rooftop solar or rooftop
wind.
Sure. Yes, those are those are things that are engineering,
our engineering team up in New Jersey is up will always
consider, and what's the time frame for phase two and phase
three, it all depends on it's all driven by the market.
We are about 90% full and our facility isn't even built. So
that's, it's a good sign, but it's hard to tell it's hard
to predict the future.
Thank you, sir. Councilmember Amateur.
Question for Caroline about the 67 new jobs is, are they
required to hire from within city of Denton.
That's actually a component of the contract. We encourage
the use of both local contractors and the hiring of local
employees that's a segment of the contract.
So is it is it encouraged or is it required. It's, it's
encouraged. I think, I think it's hard to mandate that.
I'm not sure if I'm wrong, but it's always a component of
our incentive agreements. It has been for years.
I will tell you that Tim and I and my staff have been
working very closely together with their hiring fairs that
they have been doing, they have been coordinating with
local workforce development agencies with the colleges to
really implement that local hiring so I can speak to their
efforts along those lines personally.
Councilmember Hudspeth. Thank you, Tim, if I may borrow you
, please, sir.
First I want to say thank you I'm excited about the project
and I'm excited that you call us cold storage, purchase the
property and then came to us. So, you know, already bought
in, and with the project will bring to that area is going
to be dynamic.
And then I think, I guess, I guess my question would be, if
you can kind of explain your service right because as I
understand it, your energy is paramount to you, you want to
be as efficient as possible because of your cooling systems
, because that's a cost of service for your industry
and the drive profits etc. I mean I think your company has
to be hyper sensitive to that to that cost. Absolutely.
First of all I want to, you know, thank the city staff.
It's been great to work with Caroline and Scott. As I
mentioned earlier our project is.
It's the fastest our companies ever built a project in the
entire United States. It wouldn't have been possible
without without Charles help in terms of you know electric
and power and being become being more efficient.
You know I don't want to throw out exact numbers of what we
spend in Dallas but it's a it's a six figure a month
electric bill. So anything we can do to maintain our
facility and utilize the least amount of electricity, the
better.
We, we maintain our facility at our dock is 34 degrees, 80%
of our facility will be minus five.
And the other 20% will be 34 degrees so on a day like today
where it's 106 I think when I was driving over here.
Obviously you can, you know, imagine the amount of energy
it takes to keep that facility cold.
Thank you. Thank you very much. And if I may, Mr. I don't
know how this works Mr. City Manager but I would think
before whenever phase two and three get here.
Before we ask an applicant to process numbers rework plans.
We have applicants through those gyrations it's just far
too often we'll have an applicant come back and they say
here's where we started here and we end up but we went
through, you know, three different iterations of this to
get back to this point so I don't know how that looks
procedurally.
I don't know if there's anyone solar as of just me asking
if there if there's an opportunity for that I just, I'm
hesitant to put people through the paces, only to find out
it was, it was an exercise.
Thank you. First, I just I want to thank, thank Carolyn and
our economic development department for really raising the
bar on the way these kinds of deals are made, and I see
that and appreciated so much.
And I'm going to be voting no on this, but I do recognize
and appreciate the effort that went into this, and the
improvements that have been made and the reason I'm going
to be be voting no is because of the big carbon footprint
of a, you know, for the six figure month.
So I realize that that goes to DME that's our revenue for
us, and so I'm not saying no it doesn't get to come here I
'm just saying I myself, I don't feel comfortable incentiv
izing it.
And I think that's a great way to welcome to build here
because of that big carbon footprint right next to the gas
plant and also because of the DME discount that they get
with those commercial rates which in my view discourages
the transition. And, you know, at the same time while our
residential users are paying a higher rates for being more
energy efficient. So anyway, that's the reason why I'm
voting no but I want you to know and also want to thank the
company and say I welcome you here,
and it's, I just myself don't feel comfortable incentiv
izing this, but thank you very much. I want to make sure I
understand what we're talking about here at this agenda
item.
I just just have a quick question before us as an agenda
item to approve or not approve maximum $70,000 sales tax
rebate incentive. Yes, sir, and I can finish the
presentation.
I have a request to speak so I'm going to get through those
. I just want to make sure I understand what we're here for
and that is, yes, a maximum of $70,000 which should, if
they talked it out 70,000 goes to them 70,000 comes to the
city because they would be encouraged to spend
those to order those materials within this, the city to in
order to maximize their. So if they don't, if they if this
fails, which is okay well whatever happens, if they don't
get the incentive, then we don't really give them any
encouragement to purchase those
materials in the city either is that correct from local
vendors and contractors and things such as that right this.
This is revenue, we're giving back 50% of the revenue for
local sales and use tax from the project.
If they source it here which takes effort on their part in
order to source it here, we would get to keep half of what
they source here capped at $70,000.
All right. Thank you.
Councilmember Briggs. Yeah, just to that because I serve on
the Economic Development Board and I voted no on that board
but when it came to council, council looked at what the
board had talked about and changed what they agreed upon a
little bit so I was just
wondering if you could. Okay, there it is.
Go over that for us a little bit please the changes that
were made. Okay, so I'm going to go back to this slide for
just a second so that I can show you what the current
conditions are.
This is a what we call Greenfield site, as you saw in the
picture there's nothing there.
The current valuation of the land is slightly over $7,000
it has an agricultural exemption. The city gets $45 $45
worth of annual tax revenue from the land at this point in
time.
Below that you will see the projects ad valorem valuation
and revenue estimate, and it's broken down by the estimated
new valuation of $28.6 million, estimated gross annual city
tax revenue of $182,000.
And that goes into the TERS fund $65,000. And then net to
the general fund annually from the project is $117,000.
Okay.
So that's, that's kind of the basic assumptions that we're
making here to go through the prior action in response to
your request.
So, the city of Denton, and asked for the maximum available
incentive under the incentive policy at that time.
And so that broke down as a 35% tax abatement for six years
.
Also, we could offer them under their request, the maximum
of 100% of the construction sales and use tax that they
source here in Denton which we were estimating to be $140,
000.
And then that DME economic growth rider, which again is
something that is available to certain customers if they
meet demand thresholds, and it's part of the rate structure
that's adopted by council.
So, the maximum request was slightly over $656,000.
Staff analyze the project analyze the request.
And I want to emphasize that those staff did not recommend
ad valorem or construction sales and use tax rebates to
this project. We think it's a good project for denton, but
we have to look at these projects holistically, and the
driver for our recommendation was that it's within an area
that's already incentivized
by the city of Denton, and that was the primary reason for
our driver plus we knew they were going to be eligible to
receive the DME economic growth rider at $300,000.
So then you can see the staff recommendation. The EDP board
heard our presentation heard the recommendation, and they
chose to recommend something different, which is their prer
ogative 25% for five years as an ad valorem tax abatement.
$560,000 for construction sales and use tax and the
economic development growth writer excuse me the DME growth
writer.
And that would have equated to an incentive of $569,000.
When I came to council on March 5 to present the project
and present all of the information. The council had a good
discussion about it, acknowledge that it's a good project
and felt comfortable with directing staff to move forward
with a 50% rebate of the construction sales
and use tax that's sourced here.
One time payment. After we verify all of the expenditures,
and that one time payment would be capped at $70,000. Plus,
again, if they're eligible for the DME writer they would
receive that as well and that would be a total incentive of
$370,000.
So again what we're talking about today is solely the
chapter 380 construction sales and use tax rebate 50% of
what they source here, capped at $70,000 it's a one time
payment.
And as the mayor pointed out the city would keep an equal
amount in the construction sales and use tax revenue which
otherwise would not have been sourced here.
And as you can see, the agreement does have stipulations
for local hiring for minimum added taxable value, the
minimum number of jobs created, they have to submit an
annual certificate of compliance and there are conditions.
If those conditions are not met, then the agreement would
be terminated.
Before I recognize just a question of clarification on this
because the agreement, the sales tax issue will be taken
care of pretty much after construction that will all get
leveled out.
But if they don't comply, is there is it a clawback
provision recapture. Okay.
Councilmember Hudson.
Yeah, that I mean thank you for going through that that
that's a great refresher and I'll tell you I said it when
we were talking about the homestead exemption, I'll
reiterate it now because I want a very clear record when
going forward.
This council is going to consider and continue to ask for
rebates for the residents of Denton the citizens, we have
got to, which is terrible English, start to lift the burden
for our residents of 60% right now 60%.
This is a commercial project on a piece of property that is
given us $45. They're hypersensitive to the community
because that I mean to the environment because that's a
huge cost in their business and for them to be profitable
they've got to manage that they're
they're hiring local, we're trying to incentivize them to
buy local. That means the other businesses here locally
that sell those materials like 84 lumber right behind them,
or Peter built that has trucks that use that they have they
have to utilize those
tools so it's all self contained. It all benefits our
citizens, and it goes from $45 to millions. And so I'm, I'm
missing the downside of it, and I'm missing. And it's a
frustrating point for me that we can't begin to shift to
take the burden off the home owners,
we can't, you can't leave it 60/40 without commercial
development, you just cannot. So, if we're going to sit
here and say, and again, local, I'm a big fan of local,
local products, local hired.
But, so very frustrating to hear. Again, I just want to
thank them for being here, and I hope they know that there
's, and I want those that are out there that are looking for
help on their homes to understand, we've got to, again
terrible English,
we can't begin to allow businesses to come here to be in a
business park. And when you talk about noise there's a
train that goes through the middle of our town.
And we're worried about a truck on.
What is that that's outside of 35 W I mean, it just is
confusing to me, but my, my, that my question that I don't
have a question, I was just thinking out loud trying to
make sure I understand it right I think I'm, I'm thinking
good.
Okay, incentive is intended to change behavior and I, I don
't think this is a question, I don't think what's on the
table is whether or not they'll come here.
Right, and whether or not they'll pay taxes and debt and,
as I'm understanding from the presentation. Now, right, I
mean they're, they're going to come here. Is that not
correct.
That is correct there they're here and they're building
already.
Okay, so it's not a question of, you know, whether we're
going to have this commercial entity contributing to the
tax base and potentially taking some burden off residences.
So this is to incent them to spend their construction, some
future component to their construction costs locally what,
what are, can you quantify the benefits, economic benefits
to dentin of just the part that's being incentivized by
this incentive.
In other words, we're not debating the total merits of us
cold storage which, by the way, I think are great. I think
it's a right kind of business for dentin.
I think the fact that, that these are benefits eligible
jobs is great. I think the location is, is, is perfect. So,
you know, I'm not questioning any of that.
So, I just want to understand the $70,000 is to incentivize
particular behavior with some economic benefits.
Do you have some, you know, any kind of modeling or
estimation of the return on that.
Well, if they're incentivized to source their sales tax
here. We have the ability to capture something that we
weren't going to get otherwise, because if we don't
incentivize them by giving back a portion of it.
It's easier for them to just not do that. And so we stand
to capture nothing.
Order of magnitude okay it's nothing versus hundreds of
thousands of dollars, tens of dollars. Well, we're estim
ating that we will capture $140,000 of construction sales
and use tax that would be eligible that and half of that is
$70,000 that we would get back to them and we would keep
half.
However, they could source more than that here.
And they would still only get $70,000 of it back.
So our model tells us their project even or better.
It's great timing.
100% rate of return.
They spend 50,000. They spend $100,000. We get 50 of it.
If they spend it in didn't they don't spend it in then we
get zero. So if they spend 50, we get 50 if they spend 100
so that's how I look at it to 100% rate of return, if they
spend it in then.
Seeing no more request to speak Councilmember Hudson.
I move approval.
Councilmember Ryan second, vote on the board please.
Motion carries five to one.
Moving on to agenda item.
Is that he.
Yes, agenda item, five e consider nominations for
appointments to the city board of ethics.
Mayor and Council Brian Langley Deputy City Manager want to
talk to you briefly about the board of ethics nomination
process.
Just in terms of background as you know you approve the
ethics ordinance in May of this year, it requires a formal
board be appointed nominated appointed by the city council.
That would be seven regular members and three alternate
members they'll have two year staggered terms.
As mentioned in the ethics ordinance there's a preference
for certain professions that have been articulated here, a
minimum of three members who are attorneys or retired jur
ists are required.
I'll be before you on June 19 June 22 and then today to ask
for nominations, I'll show you some of the ones that we
received at this point.
Following this item will actually ask you to point the
board and to create the board of ethics.
And the board will begin service on September 1 is the goal
.
So here are the nine different members that we have that
have been nominated, and I believe I may have the wrong
presentation excuse me there's one additional.
My apologies.
There was one additional member, Ben Clark, the council
member husband had nominated, I believe that your desk, you
do have that information so that's reflected on the slides
or these are the 10 that have been nominated.
Again, this is another opportunity for you to nominate
additional members, and the next I don't I'll be asking you
to make those appointments.
Stand for any questions that you may have got a question
for Councilmember armator care, aengstrom.
I'm not sure if you had a professional experience was there
was there not anything on that application or know why that
's blank I'll have to go back and look at her application.
I just noticed that.
Okay.
Yeah, so we, we did not have that. Okay, that's fine and
maybe we can.
We can certainly get it by the time this vote we can maybe
reconsider it next week or something like that so we're
adding to that.
I'm going to ask Ben Clark, which is a nomination of
Councilmember husband.
And I believe he's. Mr Clark is a realtor is that correct.
Councilmember husband. Yes sir. Okay.
Yeah. Okay.
And I have just a couple of questions I think, and they may
be for legal.
This procedurally, not this vote but this process.
And somebody says, and someone from the city appears before
the Board of Ethics would, is there anything in our code or
is there anything that would require that individual to rec
use themselves because of that, that potential conflict of
interest, not as we typically use it.
And if not, I think that's something we need to maybe think
about. So, that's my first question. And if you can't
answer that right now that will get a white paper on it's
possible.
I mean if the ethics complaint is somehow tied to the
actual adverse action act and the lawsuit.
Yes, there definitely would be a conflict there. Okay, but
otherwise you'll have to research it. Yes. Okay.
Councilmember husband, Mayor if I. Oh, sorry, go ahead. I
apologize if I could just mention the rules of procedure we
're in the process of working through that Alan Borquez is
working through that.
Okay, I'll bring that to that could be part of that they'll
look at that they'll make some recommendations that can
certainly be a topic, and when we bring that back the
council will have to adopt those rules of procedure so we
can certainly address it as part of that process.
Okay, cast member.
Quick question. My understanding is the experience between
the seven and the three the three alternates, it would be
all of that's going to be the same correct they'll go to
the same meetings, same training and then we'll, we'll they
be pulled as needed, because my, my question becomes
they'll work out the details but my question is someone I
appointed.
I don't know that that would be right for them to sit
during a question that would come up about me. And so, the
two people there are kind of often so I just, I, I envision
the entire group kind of functioning the same and then kind
of being selected but I wanted to just kind of see what
your
thoughts were is that what you anticipate.
We would envision that you know all 10. In this particular
case would come to all the meetings, only seven would be
there to deliberate on matters and vote, if something were
to come up, but they would all receive the same training.
The ordinance doesn't really specify how an alternate would
be chosen. And again I think that's something in the rules
of procedure that we would, we should address of if there
were a potential conflict of interest issue, or someone who
couldn't serve for some reason.
We would choose the alternate and how would that be made
and that's a little unclear but again I think that's
something that will address in the rules of procedure.
Great point. Thanks.
Okay.
Councilmember Armentor I heard you had a chance to review
an application or have you.
Oh yes I just did and she left her profession blank.
On their application. Okay.
So, is it possible to maybe, and I don't know, maybe.
I don't know what the reason for that is it's not.
I'm not trying to say she should or shouldn't have filled
it in but maybe just to get some clarifying information on
that.
So what we'll do is we'll maybe we can go through with this
current slate and put that one for the next agenda meeting
where we can get some updated information is that is that
okay.
That sounds good. Just while we were talking I just okay,
shut off an email to her. But yeah, I think it's important
that people be able to see.
Right. Okay.
All right.
So what we'll do then is we're looking at the slate is the,
the one through eight on our list and the nominee for
number nine we're going to get some later information for
Miss is it is it in terms of that.
And then we'll consider that at a later time but we're
including Mr Clark, whose profession is realtor is
nominated by Councilmember Huspeth for that third and final
alternate position is that my understanding if anybody
believes differently.
Let me know.
Okay, Councilmember Huspeth.
I move approval of, as you've outlined it one on this list
one through.
Am I. Yeah, one through eight and then. Yeah, I was looking
. Do I don't know actually. Well, yes, can I just make a
clarification. This is for the nominations.
So we'll have to call the next item which is for the
appointment. Okay, I apologize. No, I'm sorry. I didn't.
Gosh, I didn't know we even.
All right, I missed it. I apologize. Okay. All right, so
Councilmember Amateur.
So this is the this is the the motion for the nominations.
These are just the nominations, if there are any additional
nominations from the council they can be done at this time.
And assuming none, then we can go to the next item and I'll
walk you through the appointment process to create the
board.
Okay, so is your motion to put forward the slate of
nominees as presented with the one through eight, and then
number your number 10. Yes, sir. Okay. And that's your
second.
All right. If there's no further discussion, let's vote on
the board please.
Motion carries six zero. I will call now agenda five F
consider approval of a resolution appointing nomination of
members to the Board of Ethics created in the code of
ethics.
Go to board and it says, okay, Mayor and Council just
briefly again this is for the appointments to the Board of
Ethics.
We've had several discussions on this as you know, making
different nominations and just just the item before that
had other nominations of the nine candidates that you have.
I also do want to make a point that this action would
actually dissolve the council ethics committee as well.
That was a committee that existed prior to the board so as
you form the board that would dissolve that committee
because that would be replaced by these functions.
Again here is, I keep using the wrong chart so I'll bring
that other one back up.
So these are the, the nine, as we talked about Kara Ing
strom, that would be something that can be brought forward
at a future time, if the council wants to do that. But
these would be the nominations that have been offered.
So, any questions that I do have a question. So, once the
board gets constituted.
Would that, and would these be addressed in the creation of
the rules of procedure being, if somehow one of the board
members of the Board of Ethics ran into some trouble that
didn't necessarily trigger an ethics complaint under the
city's ordinances, but something else.
We can all talk about different examples but
in other words, I can't remember in our, and I don't
remember in our ordinance, if there's a provision for
removal.
And if not then we need to just make sure we address that
at some point.
Not to say that any of those that we've just talked about
would.
It's just we want to make sure that we are as comprehensive
as possible. Yes, Mr. City Attorney, and there is both in
the charter and in article for I believe of the chapter two
that actually deals with the removal of boards and
commission members, it's for cause and after a hearing.
If you could maybe submit, if you could just give us a
primer on just a refresher on what that is and if it's
applying to everyone across the board, just so that we'll
know that these are the rules and if we wanted anything
different for this specific board, because of the nature of
this board, we could at least have that discussion and if
not that's okay to.
Councilmember Meltzer.
Okay, so we have a motion for agenda item five F. Let's
vote on the board please.
Do you have a presentation now?
All right, mayor to traditionally in a motion for
reconsideration the person who's calling is the one who
then states the reasons why they're bringing it forward and
then if there's a motion made in the second thing we would
proceed forward, could you just briefly describe the rules
on who are able to make the motion on a motion to
reconsider.
That would be helpful.
As written in your AIS, a motion for reconsideration allows
the city set council to reconsider any previously adopted
action not late in the next succeeding official meeting of
the council.
In this case that's tonight.
Such a motion can only be made by a member who voted with
the prevailing side so one of the four that voted in favor
of the motion to elect John Ryan would have to make the
motion.
The such this motion can be seconded by any council member
whether you want the prevailing side or not.
And then if the motion is made in second and then the
motion will then be had, it is a debatable motion.
So after we call that discussion so and then once that is
closed, then you vote on the motion. If it passes then the
election is undone. If it does not pass, then the results
from the election on June 26, Stan.
Okay, and it's my understanding from practice and possibly
rules that mayor.
We don't make motions nor seconds from what my
understanding is.
Yeah, the mayor does doesn't make motions or seconds.
That has been the practice of this council, but upon
further research and consultation with a registered
parliamentarian, a national registered parliamentarian a in
a small board such as this that are under 12 members.
The presiding officer is entitled the same rights and
privileges of all of every other council member. In
addition, charter also reinforces that that privilege and
right.
And so, while it has not been the practice, technically the
presiding officer can make a motion.
Okay.
All right, well, and I'll discuss my thoughts on that as
well. My rationale is very simple. Upon further deliber
ation, and it's in its.
Not withstanding any emails I received or any parliamentary
kind of missteps.
It's just, it's more with my values of honoring the process
, it's not about any of the people. I will say that I'm
going to adhere to the practice, simply because I don't
know, I mean for the same reason I'm asking for the motion
to reconsider, and that is to be true to the process I don
't want all of a sudden change the rules that I was not
aware of in midstream on the day that that is taken.
So I'm going to be true to that process as well. And so
that that's my rationale for doing it. I just I just think
it's important for the entire council to be here.
When that when that vote takes place. So, that's my
rationale and my comment on that.
So then I guess it's a matter of, is there, what I'm
hearing you say then given just my comments just made that
of the ones sitting here.
It's the ones who were on the prevailing side outside of
myself that would have to make that motion and anybody can
second it.
That is correct.
All right. Okay. Is it up for discussion right now, even
can we discuss we can discuss it now, even without emotion
or second is that not correct.
Not until emotion is made. We can't we can't discuss the
discussion usually occurs after emotion and second been
made another.
So, if you want to be technical to Robert's Rules of Order,
that is the process if if you want to also use what we have
done in past practice, you have actually had debate before
the motion has been made.
Okay, well, I'm going to if I'm going to abide by past
practice in whether I decide to make emotion or second with
and I'm also going to suggest and encourage and move
forward as if we're going to abide by the practice.
Because if we don't abide by that practice today, if all of
a sudden we say we're not going to have discussion because
there's not emotion or second thing from this day forward,
we will never be debating emotion.
An issue an agenda item unless there's been emotion. Does
it have to be a second to discuss it or just emotion.
That's a motion and second. Yeah. So that's how I see it.
So if we want to choose a different path and we want to
talk about different practices, according to Robert's Rules
of Order, we can do that in a time when it's not so
impactful either way.
So I'm going to open the floor up for discussion unless I
hear any objection.
Don't hear any objection.
Somebody may be jet to ask request to speak.
Councilmember Meltzer.
First, I appreciate the mayor's concern for proper
procedure and I respect that.
I'll just share my own thoughts that first of all, I've
already expressed that.
Currently Mayor Portem, Ryan is expecting to be highly
capable and I've congratulated him and I would do so.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm happy to support the idea that they're going to be able
to do that.
I'm going to be trying to find, withdrawing that for now,
if the others want to answer Councilman Meltzer's question,
because you just posed that question.
You had a question for me?
Yes.
I just wanted to make sure that I understood correctly.
You were saying that you plan not to make the motion to
reconsider,
out of respect for past practice, what has been practiced
in the past.
Did I understand that correctly?
That's correct, especially learning right now at this real-
time moment,
that that may not have been -- we all might have been
operating under
an incorrect perception of that rule, or the strength of
that rule.
So to be true to my value in even asking for the motion to
reconsider,
and to also allow discussion prior to a motion in a second,
which is honoring past practice that we've done ever since
I've been on Council,
that's why I'm not going to all of a sudden change,
literally in the blink of an eye on a rule change that I
was not aware of,
and leave it up to the colleagues who were part of that
affirmative vote
to make that decision.
Okay, thanks.
I have a follow-up question for Mr. Lael.
So am I correct in understanding -- and maybe the answer is
no --
is I understood it, putting this item G on the agenda,
motion to reconsider the election of Mayor Pro Tem, et
cetera,
as I understood it, that was the way to signal to the
public under TOMA
that this motion was going to be -- motion to reconsider
was going to be made,
that this was an announcement.
That's what I understood.
And by the way, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that
this means that
the mayor is bound -- I don't believe anybody should be
bound to --
unless the law or the rules say so,
but I just wanted to reiterate -- or to have a chance for
you to confirm
or explain why that is not the case,
because that had been my understanding when it was
explained by the parliamentarian.
Or maybe it was explained by you in the memo about why it
needed to be posted in this way.
The memo didn't address the exact reason why it was posted
in this way.
This was just the practice that -- well,
we have not had many motions to reconsider past council
actions.
The last one was last May, and before that was 2016,
and before that was 2012.
And so this has been the format that we've used in the
caption.
It does not mean that anyone, any member on the council is
bound to make that motion.
We could consider changing it to the wording in the future
if the council desires that,
but the AIS, as it spells out, it just basically --
that the item was asked to be on the agenda by the mayor.
And then there's the paragraph that I read earlier,
the sentences preceding where I started reading,
where I talked about that this is one method for a member
on the prevailing side to make a motion.
So that's what we're doing.
Nobody is bound to make a motion.
It is up to one of the members on the prevailing side at
the last meeting to make that motion.
Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you for explaining, and that helps for future
reference. Thanks.
Councilmember Hussbett.
Thank you, Mayor.
Yeah, I just want to make sure I'm tracking correctly, Mr.
Attorney, Ms. City Attorney.
The history is that the night of the 1st -- we can take it
all the way back.
When I first was seated in 2017,
we voted for Mayor Pro Tem without the seventh party being
sat.
Then this year, I made that same motion.
That motion was postponed to a date certain by Councilman M
eldrum.
Everyone knew the date that it was coming.
Everyone knows an election.
Everyone knows when the date when the vote is going to be
there.
There's no flexibility in that.
We all knew, here's the date.
I just want to make sure I'm right with that.
That's my point to you, to make sure my history, my recoll
ection is correct.
Yes, based on what occurred on that night on May 20th, or
the day on May 20th,
in the subsequent investigation, yes, you are correct.
Okay.
Then to the six-week notice, now I'm just opining.
So the six-week notice, we're going to have this vote.
Everyone knows the date.
My reply to Councilmember Meltzer is I don't know that we
're trying to change anything.
And if you look at it, if we reflect back, then the
question becomes what was truncated?
And what was truncated was discussion.
The vote portion was structurally sound, if you will.
The unsound part was the conversation leading up to that.
And so I disagree with your setting of the table, of the
circumstances,
and I'm glad for this opportunity for the discussion.
But as far as to draw a straight line between those two
scenarios, I don't do that,
because it is unique in that everyone knew the date.
There's unequivocally six-week notice undeniable.
Everyone knew the date.
And so that's where -- when we're going to vote, everyone
knew six weeks in advance,
we're going to vote on this date.
And so we voted on that date.
And so whatever consternation comes from not being able to
have that discussion that night,
I absolutely am sensitive to that.
And I'm grateful for Mayor Watt's leadership to allow this
conversation.
But outside those confines, I think it's not being true and
accurate to reflect upon what happened.
So -- and that's just my opinion.
I've been wrong before, but I think all those are -- that
statement in and of itself is factual,
and that's where I want to try to stay right on the lines.
>> Councilmember Briggs.
>> Okay.
So I feel like I appreciate your motion to reconsider,
Mayor.
I do.
I was absent that meeting, and I appreciate the vote to
postpone on my behalf.
My obligation to the National League of Cities was made
several months prior.
I didn't -- couldn't foresee the runoff.
I had an obligation to be there on behalf of the city as my
role as city councilor.
It wasn't because I'm irresponsible at calendar planning.
So I just wanted to respond to that, the comments that were
made.
So that's just what I wanted to say.
Thank you.
>> Before -- I'm going to take care of a housekeeping
matter.
We got a blue card from Jennifer Lane.
And Ms. Lane, part of the rules which we've stayed pretty
true to is when an item for
individual consideration, the cards typically have to be in
either before the item is called
or shortly thereafter as people are coming, especially if
there's a lot of people.
We've been talking about this for -- we've been talking
about this for several minutes now.
So I'm inclined to just read -- you support the motion for
reconsideration is what your
card says.
Motion for reconsideration, 1526 Willowwood Street.
So I'm going to leave it up to my council members to --
because I don't want to set a
precedent of people coming in in the middle of a debate,
especially with one -- ma'am,
I haven't recognized you yet.
So I'm having a hard time figuring out how I can do that
and stay true to the process
that we have in that regard.
So I just wanted to -- okay.
I'm going to allow it this time.
But I'm going to -- I don't like to say I'm going on the
record because we're always on
the record.
This is an important discussion.
It was truncated last time, I believe.
So I'm going to allow it, but this is not going to be a
precedent that I'm setting where
we're having in the middle of a debate and people can come
in and put in a blue card
and then expect to get up and speak to sort of try to
counteract or get into some kind
of advocacy for the issue when it wasn't done at the
beginning.
So I'm going to allow you to speak.
How many minutes is it, Jane?
Three?
All right.
State your name and address and your time will begin.
Jennifer Lane, 1526 Willowwood Street.
Thank you very, very much for allowing me to speak.
I didn't initially wish to speak because I believed that
the agenda item was a statement
of reconsideration -- motion to reconsider by yourself.
Because I believed that I didn't think I needed to speak, I
made my feelings about this clear
in a variety of ways, including to several council members
and including yourself.
Having believed that you put this on the agenda as your
motion to reconsider, I'm asking you
to do that, to live up to that, that I would not have asked
to speak if I had not thought
that I had been fooled.
I want you to be my mayor.
Okay.
I appreciate that.
I've made my decision known.
In no way was this -- I'm not sure how this agenda -- have
you concluded your remarks?
I don't know.
Well, I'm going to -- you still have some time, so if you
have some other things to say, you're
certainly welcome to do that.
Please ask the presiding officer who saw that this wasn't
handled particularly well.
Please do make a motion to reconsider and allow it to be
seconded and allow that discussion
to take place no matter how it falls.
There are lots of reasons to do it.
I wouldn't have time to enumerate them in three minutes,
but I think you guys could have
a really good discussion about it if you do it.
So I'm asking you, Chris Watts, to please make the motion
to reconsider and allow it
to be seconded and allow the process to unfold as it should
have on June 26th.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Councilmember Meltzer.
I don't actually remember for a fact, and we can get this
fact, whether my own motion
was to postpone to a date certain or an event certain.
We can check the record.
But clearly the intention was to have all councilmembers
seated.
So that's why actually in that meeting I stated as my
reason for moving postponement a second
time.
Consistency was the reason, because that was my original
intention.
So, you know, I take your point that a date is a fact, and,
you know, we all knew what
that date was, but that was the principle.
So I was being consistent with that principle.
Councilmember Hadsman.
Yeah, no, I absolutely respect that, and sure, I think I
will go back and watch the video
and just understand that better and see that you're easily
cleared up.
And I think just to be clear for myself, can someone help
me understand, because it is
an obvious disconnect for me, what is the connection with
the City of Denton and the
National League of Cities?
Is there a connection succinct?
I think the just of what I'm getting at is succinct enough,
but I don't know how to phrase
the question, but I don't see the National League of Cities
and the City of Denton as
one and the same, or I understand it's a resource, it's a
tool.
I just want to understand that relationship.
Well, and I can appreciate that.
I guess I'm going to need some advice from Mr. City
Attorney.
I just don't want to veer too far away from the posted
agenda item, and let me say and
be very clear, there was no, in no way did I have any
understanding, both in practice
or in process or by rule, that to ask for a motion to
reconsider, be put on the agenda,
is not in fact saying that I'm making a commitment to file
a motion or to make that motion.
In practice, you just ask for that and it's on there and
then it's up for discussion and
the rules that you enumerated.
So that's, if there's a misinterpretation of that, I
apologize for that, but that wasn't
of my making.
Council Member Briggs.
Well, I was just going to, since it may be off posting, I
could touch on it in the concluding
items, but there was an ordinance or a resolution that
approved me as a city council person
from city council to be on that board.
So that's the connection and somebody may want to share
that with the rest of council
just for future reference.
All right, Council Member Romer.
Okay, thank you.
I wanted to apologize to Ms. Lane and for what was my
apparent misinterpretation of
this part of the rules and procedure and I just want to,
and also to the mayor, I just
wanted to say that it, and Mr. Layal has highlighted this
part of the rules and procedure.
It says, "In order to comply with TOMA, any council member
who wishes to make such a motion
at a meeting," this is under the subcategory reconsider
ation, "any member who wishes to
make such a motion at a meeting, succeeding the meeting
where the action was taken shall
notify the city manager to place the item for reconsider
ation on the council agenda."
So, and I'm not reading this to make the point that my
interpretation was right and the other
was wrong.
It's up to the city attorney to determine what the meeting
is based on precedent, et
cetera.
I just wanted to make sure that I was explaining that it
wasn't out of nowhere, that it came
from that word about wishes and so that is why I took that,
because of that wording,
that placement on the agenda as kind of an expression of
that wish.
So anyway, but I myself had interpreted it that way and I
think it's a reasonable, it's
reasonable, why one would interpret it that way.
Thank you.
Council Member Briggs.
So I feel like this could go on forever and although that
would be lovely, I'm sure everybody
has a home to get home to.
So there's two people here that can make a motion, neither
has, so I'm wondering if
we can, I mean, how does this end?
Well, we've got one more request to speak and then we can
move from there.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Council Member Meltzer.
Just for what it's worth, I interpreted it the same way.
I thought it meant you were going to make the motion.
Just, you know, as a point of, just to inform you, you know
, what, how it might be misinterpreted.
So, you know, two reasonable people thought that, but I'm
now corrected in my understanding.
Well, and I'm corrected in my understanding that the mayor
can't make motion.
So that's why I would have never thought that putting it on
the agenda would have been something
I could do because I've lived under that.
In fact, I've had prior city attorneys sit here and
basically hold me down because they
said I couldn't make a second or a motion.
So that's, it's all just sort of, it's indicative that we
need to make sure that we understand
our rules and base them, our processes and policies and
base them on rules and not practice.
So we will be certainly examining this and making sure that
we make changes accordingly.
Okay.
I don't see a motion or anybody moving.
It sounds like the discussion has finalized.
So this agenda item fails for lack of motion.
I forgot for us to take a break.
I apologize.
Take about a 10 minute break because we've been going for
about two hours to take a break.
Good evening, everyone.
Welcome back to this meeting of the Denton City Council of
July 17th, 2018.
It is 857.
We're moving on to our public hearing portion of the agenda
.
We'll consider agenda item 6A hold a public hearing
considered option of ordinance of
the City of Denton, Texas regarding assignment of an
initial zoning classification of neighborhood
residential in our six on approximately 73.47 acres.
I will now open the public hearing.
Good evening, Richard Canoni, Development Services
Department.
Similar to the process that I explained in the previous
item that I presented, this property
annexed into the city in January of this year, so now they
automatically get the RD5X, which
is the holding district, and so now they're in front of us
requesting the initial zoning
of neighborhood residential six to the 73.47 acres.
And it's the site outlined in yellow.
As I mentioned, the current zoning RD5X, the proposed
zoning NR6, if you see directly east
or to the right of the orange property that's depicted on
the map, that already has the
zoning of NR4.
That occurred some time ago when the city was annexing
along various rights of way.
It would annex the first five, I think it was the 500 feet
back, and at that point in
time it was assigned an NR4 zoning.
So there is a split zoning ultimately within the entire
parcel that's owned by the applicant.
The land use plan has this area designated as rural areas,
and it kind of gives the intent
of to promote rural uses along with rural very low density
residential and rural commercial
uses.
Within the comprehensive plan there is provisions, however,
extra provisions that allow a zoning
district to be inconsistent with that land use, and there's
a number of factors.
One, it relates to the annexation plan for the city given
that this was recently annexed.
That kind of sets the stage for that.
Item two relates to public facilities and whether or not
they're available and concurrent
with this growth.
And so again, looking at the compatibility component of it,
the site is, there's some
institutional NR3 to the south, NR4 to the east, and then
RD5X to the north.
Mobility, given the size of this site, the TIA was done
prior to the plat being done,
so we wanted to have an idea of what those impacts would be
.
Obviously there were some concerns with transportation.
We expected 3,729 daily trips.
This is expected to generate as part of that TIA.
With that, there were three recommendations to improve
access.
Again, this will be done at time of platting, but we wanted
to at least present it so that
rationale was part of our decision making.
Street A, which will serve as the main entry into the site,
talks about a northbound left
and a southbound right off of Sherman, including a D-cell
lane.
And then there were some additional widening and
improvements of long drive.
Again, all of these would be required anyways as part of
the platting and the perimeter
road improvements.
In addition, there was some signalization at the loop in
Sherman Road that would work
currently operating at an F. I think at total build out
with all the improvements, it would
increase to a C, I believe our adopted level of service is
D.
They would not pay for the entire light, but they would pay
their proportionate share.
Again, this is being done, that will be done at time of
platting.
You're saying the, I don't know if you guys are requested
to speak.
I can't see the, let me just make sure somebody's not ahead
of me.
Okay. Are you saying that the amount of participation is
determined at platting?
In other words, how much monetary contribution is required
at platting?
At platting, that's correct.
And again, as part of our analysis, moderate density
residential neighborhoods are appropriate
along collectors and arterials.
Long Road and Sherman both provide adequate visibility and
access.
The existing land use surrounding the subject site includes
single family, agriculture,
open pastures to the north and east.
The area is located at the edge of an urban area, close to
the loop and undeveloped land.
There is a lot of development pressure within this area.
I know we are looking at a comprehensive, internally the
city is looking at an overall
transportation study specific to that general area.
Again, the development must comply with all ESA tree
preservation, buffer screening,
tree canopy and lighting requirements.
Again, that's reviewed at time of platting.
And then wastewater and water service is also available to
the site, as well as those TIA
improvements mentioned.
There were public notifications sent.
We had one reply that represents 23% of the property and
they were in favor.
There was none in opposition.
No one spoke in opposition at the P&Z.
And the Planning and Zoning Commission did unanimously
recommend approval with the
following stipulation, that a condition be placed, putting
in overlay on the property,
restricting the use to single family detached at a maximum
density of 4.7 units per acre.
With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.
Councilmember Meltzer.
I guess I'm sharing some information by way of asking you
for confirmation.
When I asked about the tree canopy, current tree canopy and
the plans, and the initial
response from staff was they've got to comply with the 35%.
But just to be fully disclosing, at ethics training last
night, I happened to speak with
two members, not a quorum of P&Z, who said that in fact the
plan is not to remove any
trees, and in fact to add some.
And one particular P&Z member said to me that this was the
first project he'd seen
where there was a net increase in trees.
So I'm sharing that information by way of asking you to
confirm that my information
is correct.
And there might be some confusion.
There is an ESA on the property, environmentally sensitive
area, and with that they are not
proposing to touch that ESA.
So in that regard, that is correct, that they will not be
removing any or applying for an
alternative ESA, which would adjust or modify any of the
existing canopy related to the ESA.
There might be some trees throughout the site, given it's
73 acres, that would need to be
removed, but with respect to that ESA, right now it's not
planned that that would be.
I was told both that the ESA would not be touched and that
there was a net increase in trees,
but I guess it would be helpful to know if that's really
true or not.
We can ask the applicant during the public hearing portion.
Councilmember Hudsbeth.
Thank you, Mayor.
Just, and forgive me if I missed it, but are we to the
point where we would be considering
the bus traffic down that road to the north?
Because you have the C.H.
Collins Stadium, and that is the venue for larger football
games, and so I could see
that the return configuration or in and out would have to
consider that, I don't, I think
three, four times a year, but it's still going to be
significant enough that we can't block
people from getting to their homes.
I mean, I could see that being a real email generator.
Correct.
I do know, and I'll let the applicant speak to it, but I do
know they have been in communication
with the school district to try to address some of those
impacts initially.
We're just started the, they submitted their preliminary
plat or resubmitted it, I should
say, and in looking at it, that was a discussion point that
we had with Pre-Tam earlier that
we may need to look different from the TIA, but more of the
operational analysis of how
that will work, given the amount of traffic relating to
game times.
Thank you.
Okay.
Sure.
So, Mr. City Manager, if we could make a note.
So, September 28th, round numbers, Denton High plays Ryan
High School, you know, so a couple
of months out, and that would be a good lab rat to kind of
just go look at, because it
doesn't get much bigger than that, you know, so if we can
get Pre-Tam out on a Friday night,
I'll buy him some popcorn and he can count cars.
That's an ethics violation.
Okay, any more questions?
Do you know, I'm sorry, do you know how, okay, how many
acres, this is 73 acres?
The rezoning is 73 acres, and I believe there's another, I
want to say approximately 11 acres
associated with the property that's already zoned, and are
four.
Okay.
Throw that back up there, if you would.
So, let me go to this one.
Okay.
And so, if you see where the RD5, where the RD5X, just to
the right on the top map, there's
a, from the north and south parcel lines, if you look at
that, there's a brown sort
of--
Can you use your cursor?
Yeah, I'm sorry.
So, this area here--
Okay.
--will be part of that development.
And that's NR4?
That's already NR4.
So--
So, they're requesting NR6.
Part of the issue is there's a large electrical
transmission line through there, as well as
the ESA.
So, they're increasing the debt.
They're asking to go to, well, they're asking for NR6
because it really needed to go to
4.7, but when you stretch it out over the total area, I
think it's 4.3.
So, but for the zoning, it's 4.7, if that makes sense.
Okay.
It does?
I'll save my questions for after the public hearing.
Okay.
Any other questions for staff?
All right.
Thank you, Richard.
And this is a public hearing.
We do have a card, the applicant, so we're going to call on
the applicant first, but
then you don't need a card to speak.
Justin Bono, if you'll come down and state your name and
address, your time will begin.
Thank you, Mayor.
I have a brief presentation that I think will answer your
question.
My name is Justin Bono, ASTER Development, 9219 Arbor Trail
Drive in Dallas.
We have this project under, property under contract from
the current property owner.
I have about four or five slides that I think will address
many of the questions you've
asked and happy to stand for others.
So, our total project is 91 acres.
You've seen the location.
This zoning case covers 73 and a half of those acres.
We voluntarily annexed those 73 acres into the city.
That annexation was finalized back in January.
The 17 acres that's currently zoned in are four that front
Sherman Drive at the hard
corner of Long is not included in this case, and we have no
plans to rezone that as we've
already filed our preliminary plat on the entire project.
The property overall, and I have a diagram on the next page
where all of this will become
even clearer, but the property is impacted by power lines
and a gas line easement, which
is 125 foot wide that bisects the project, and there are
two ESA areas on the site.
We did, as Mr. Canone referenced, completed a traffic
impact analysis in advance of these
zoning hearings.
We've included the recommendations from that TIA into our
cost structure for the project.
As you know, the P&Z recommended approval of the case 6-0.
Here's the project.
Sherman here, Long along the southern end.
This is the existing NR4 zoning, which we aren't touching.
The power line easement in pink, the gas line easement in
yellow, and then these two ESA
areas that come into the site on the north end.
To answer the tree question, I think I referenced that
earlier, without getting into the details
of your tree ordinance, which we could stay here all night
on, the plan is to comply with
the tree ordinance completely through preservation without
having to pay any tree mitigation
fees.
We will preserve enough trees on the site to comply with
the mitigation preservation
requirements.
We're not requiring, by no means are we preserving 100% of
the trees, but we will, our intent
is to, and largely because they're sandwiched around these
ESA areas is how we're able to
do that by maintaining that habitat in and around those ESA
areas.
The plan is to meet the tree preservation, or the tree
mitigation requirements through
preservation.
I will also say the property owner to the north that has
supported our case, we're providing
them some street stubs here, here, and here to aid in the
future development of their
project and provide some connectivity there.
I will tell you one reason that they're excited about this
project is because we're agreeing
to preserve these areas as it feeds into those creeks that
are on their property, so they're
pleased that we're preserving the southern tip of that ESA
area there.
The zoning request is, in our six, we're leaving the on-
site ESA areas intact.
We've not filed and have no intention of filing for an AESA
.
We will result in the preservation of the majority of the
trees on the property.
This action is actually consistent with conservation
development as envisioned by your current
Denton plan, but with that preservation, the existing gas
lining, power line easements,
and keeping the existing NR4, we've requested NR6 zoning to
yield an overall feasible density
for this single-family residential subdivision.
We've filed a preliminary plat concurrent with zoning as a
good faith gesture to demonstrate
what that density is going to be and what our project is
going to be.
That is now on its third round review with city staff.
We've agreed to two conditions, which were recommended also
as part of the P&Z vote,
which is to cap density at 4.7 units per acre on this
particular parcel, and then agreed
to only single-family detached construction, even though NR
6 does allow for some attached uses.
In summary, again, we have supported the case for our
neighborhood property owner.
I've talked about the ESA conservation preliminary plat.
Our density piece would respectfully request approval per
staff and P&Z recommendation
and be happy to stand for any questions that anyone has.
- Council Member Briggs.
- Hi. - Hi.
- So I'm glad to hear the ESAs are going to remain intact.
But you did mention something about streets or pullouts for
the neighboring property.
- To the north. - To the north.
Okay, and so I assume that since the ESA follows into that
property, they will not line up with their ESAs.
- That is correct.
- Between, they are essentially, this is their property
line.
I think this is the, it's essentially one this side, one in
the middle, and one,
we have a street on the far western side of that.
So that's where those, that's where those line up.
- Okay, thank you.
And so we did meet before, and we talked about the traffic
for the high school games,
and I recommended that you go attend one.
Are you able to make it?
- I have not. - No.
Okay, all right, because Council.
- I started working on this in the spring.
- Council, Hatsbeth does bring up a really good point, as I
mentioned, with the lots of traffic out there,
and I see that most of the egress are onto long road.
But I appreciate you doing a traffic study, because that
helps me understand that it's been looked at.
What were the traffic counts that they used?
- They did two different traffic counts.
So they did a traffic count, and our traffic engineer is
actually here,
so I can have them answer some of those detailed questions.
But the city actually did ask them to go back out and do
some additional counts during the first couple of weeks
that the Aquatic Center was open.
So those counts were added to the TIA as an addendum, but
it didn't change any of the recommendations of the TIA
itself.
I will say, and related to the football game piece,
obviously, if we're thinking about people exiting or
accessing the subdivision,
they'll have full ability to get anywhere in the subdiv
ision through this main entrance off of Sherman Road.
So if there's a backup on long getting to and from the
subdivision, they don't need to go down long to get to
their home.
They can go in and out of the entry on Sherman to get to
Sherman.
Now, obviously, if there's a backup at the loop, that's a
different story,
but they can bypass any traffic on long on those few nights
and go in and out of the entry on Sherman,
which the TIA has required to be a divided entry with the
median.
So it'll be it'll be a nice wide median for them to get out
on to on to Sherman.
Additionally, we're building a recommended a diesel lane
coming from the north and then a left turn lane into the
subdivision on off of Sherman going in there.
So we have those improvements factored into our into our
plan as well.
OK, thank you.
Councilmember Husband, thank you, Mayor.
So you you you make my point for me.
Right. So if you can imagine the high school football team
sitting on long, long road waiting for clearing and the
residents are, you know, or vice versa.
The bus gets out slow.
I just I think it works.
I'm absolutely certain it works.
I think this development is outstanding because where else
can you have an editorial right across the street from you?
A skate park and a giant parking lot to do all the silly
stuff you want to do as a teenager minutes fabulous.
But I will tell you and you got a playground for smaller
kids down on the other side of ATC.
But I just want to make sure we plan for that so that on
those worst nights, if it's just jam packed, that we have a
good plan in place.
And I'm sure you'll do that.
Yeah, we just see, you know, we've had several meetings
with with the ice day.
I don't know if you have a plat in your package, but we've
actually owns a site to the north of us as well.
We have a common area basically in this portion of our site
where we are stubbing water out to their future school site
there.
We're also putting a sidewalk stub there to to that site.
So in the future, there's a school there.
A kid doesn't have to go out on the Sherman walk up Sherman
to get to that school site.
They'll be able to, you know, stub out through that common
area to get to the school site.
So just an example of the cooperation with the school
district.
So met with Dr. Wilson, you know, on at least a couple of
occasions and working very well with his staff to make sure
we are a good partner with with them.
So I've got a couple of questions.
Do you have an aerial without the overlay of the zoning,
just a flat area?
I don't know. You got an aerial? I don't in this part.
Do you have one?
There you go. Can you blow that up a little bit rather than
open it? I'm just going to zoom in at that.
OK, that's good right there.
OK, so let me tell you a couple of I don't know if they're
called concerns yet, but it's their nuances in our code
that I think sometimes we have one believe one impression.
But then it's something different. It's not about you or
the project.
The reason I asked to be blown up is and I guess I need to
ask that preservation of an essay and the trees in the
essay.
Our code says for residential over so many acres, we've
gone through this.
You have to preserve 20 percent of the trees.
Of the quality trees and 10 percent of the secondary trees.
Am I if you're if we're tracking, then is that you're
correct.
OK, so does the preservation of the essays count?
Well, first of all, what I see is there's no trees on this
property except around the essay. Is that is that my
understanding?
So that's the preservation of the essay.
Yeah, the preservation of the essay pretty much preserves
all the trees for that tract.
That's correct. OK, that's that 35 percent.
So my next observation is, is this whole density issue
because it gets a little tricky.
Because there's 73 acres there somewhat.
Do you know how much acres the essay and the easements take
up?
I don't. Let's just assume for the sake of discussion, that
's it's one hundred twenty five feet long.
Is that what you said? The easement? One hundred twenty
five feet wide.
Wide and it's probably what is that, half a quarter of a
mile or something all the way across there.
And we just bought I think we just bought that probably two
or three years ago for the transmission line.
So my point is, let's say there's a total of between the
essay and the easement of about for the sake of discussion,
you've got 73 acres.
Let's say it's 10 acres. It's probably more than that. Let
's say 10 acres.
So that leaves you sixty three acres for development.
But you would think based upon sometimes how we present
things, not you, but how we sort of we hear four point
seven acres, four point seven units per acre.
You think, well, that's of the acreage that's that you're
able to develop on.
Well, that's not that's not how we do it. Now, that might
be how you guys are doing it.
But so what I found is on these higher density zoning's,
what that leads to is some very, very small lot sizes
because you can stick.
I think it's 73 acres at four point seven acres, four point
seven units per acre is about three hundred and forty two
or three hundred thirty something homes.
Whereas if it was the if it was four points to ninety two.
So you might be sticking three hundred forty something
homes, not on seventy three acres, but on sixty three acres
.
And we don't have a minimum lot size.
And we just looked at this in a current development, which
I was shocked because we had lot sizes of forty and forty
five foot widths, if not smaller, with the lot total lot
size about four thousand to five thousand feet.
That really I mean, I don't think when we think of in our
four or in our six, especially four point seven units per
acre.
An acre is forty three thousand feet. You're not thinking
that you're going to get lots that are four or five
thousand feet with maybe forty feet wide.
So you've already filed a preliminary plat, which means you
've laid out your lot sizes.
Have we Richard, have you looked at that? I mean, is that
what we're running into is the same one that we looked at
the other time where we're putting a lot of we were able to
get the density on there.
But we're using because we're using less acres, we're
putting more homes on less acres because of just the way
our code does it, which to do that, you have to have
smaller lots.
And this isn't anything about an issue with the development
.
It's it's that I think what's happening is we're getting
these subdivisions that are very small lots, smaller houses
, and they're all just sort of, you know, placed very close
together.
And but they're not zero lot lines or they're not townhomes
. So that's my concern.
So are you are you all looking at it from the how many
homes is on your preliminary plat?
How many lots including the no, including the rest, you
know, excluding the in our four already.
Yeah, well, it's I mean, we backed into the four point
seven number.
It's four point six per acre and change.
So we backed into that number based on the math.
You just you just so do you know how many lots it is?
Three forty five.
Okay, so it's it's the it's the paradigm where you're
taking the number you can get on the full acreage and
putting it on the smaller acres because you're having to
exclude easement in the essay.
But I will tell you, if I could answer those questions, not
to interrupt you.
No, you're good.
So because we're on our third round of Platte review, I
mean, we were intentional about bringing that plat in up
front so that these guys knew exactly what we were we're
putting forth our minimum lot size on that plat fifty foot
wide, not forty or forty five.
And, you know, I think another interesting point for
everybody to understand is and we followed your development
plan work that that's ongoing.
There's a draft zoning map that's out there.
This is our three on that zoning map, which is high density
residential, which allows for that fifty foot minimum.
So, you know, we're not doing anything inconsistent with
what is currently being contemplated for that site under
the new under the new development code.
So so anyways, I just want to be fully transparent about
that.
And I appreciate that was one reason for bringing forth and
Richard and his staff asked for that plat up front so that
they could get a feel for for what was going here to
understand whether they could support the case.
It's D and you already have the preliminary platform and
that's not required.
I mean, let's say up front that permanent class are
required in zoning.
That's not what I'm asking for.
I don't think that's something that I appreciate you coming
forth with that.
So is the what was the rationale not to go in our four like
the other one using the same paradigm of you could still
get four units per acre on whatever acres you're able to
use calculated by the seventy three.
In other words, it's about thirty to forty lots less other
than just an economic decision.
Seven figure impact on our project.
Okay.
I mean, that was that was the difference.
Okay.
Councilman.
I appreciate that.
Thank you very much.
Councilmember Melzer.
He's got a question.
I don't know if this is appropriate to bring up at this
point in the life cycle of your project or even within our
code.
And this might be something for a concluding item.
But, you know, I wonder why the priority on it being single
family home.
I think I'm kind of going along the same lines.
You are I understand our desire to preserve existing single
family home neighborhoods, but there's kind of a gap in the
market for townhomes.
And if there were, you know, if there were an exchange of
density for open space and tree preservation, you know,
might that not be a good deal for them.
So, I guess it's might be too late for you to even rethink
it.
I don't know if our code would even permit consideration of
it.
So I guess I'm looking for a little guidance, maybe from
the city attorney.
You know, is that even relevant now or shall I save it for
a concluding item?
If you're looking at coming up with the alternative or more
creative ideas on how to offset density for open space, you
know, that legally can be done as a --
but I would rely on the planners to actually come up with
that solution since that is what they do.
I think it's something more appropriate for concluding
items since that's not currently a code requirement to the
best of my knowledge.
I'm curious how that struck you when I said it, Mr. Applic
ant.
I mean, I understand your rationale.
I would just, you know, understanding this.
I don't know that I would pursue townhomes on this site.
I mean, maybe some sort of patio home structure, but, you
know, other -- certainly other sites that I've looked at
that are maybe closer into the core of the city,
we've certainly looked at -- looked for opportunities to do
more of a townhome type structure.
But this site was just not something that we felt there was
a deep market for, but certainly these lots are, you know,
we found success with.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Yeah, you bet.
So your average lot size is what you're anticipating?
Our minimum is 6,000.
I haven't gone through and calculated the average.
Okay.
Their minimum is 6,000, and, you know, of course, there's
some larger with several -- I mean, we've had cul-de-sacs
and --
No, no, I understand.
Would you all -- would your company be -- obviously you're
going to be developing it, and would you be the builder or
are you just going to sell it to builders?
I mean, what part of the development stage are you guys
involved?
Yeah, so we -- I do two things.
I develop subdivisions into finished lots and sell finished
lots to builders, or I entitle land and sell the land to
larger builders.
Okay.
If they choose -- if they, you know, by the nature of the
transaction decide, hey, we'd rather just develop this
ourselves.
Sure.
That's a possibility as well.
Yeah.
So yeah, you're either going to -- if you get the rezoning,
you'll make a decision on, well, is this something I want
to develop myself into a subdivision and sell off, or just
sell it as a package and let somebody else come in.
So it's a large builder that has the capability to develop
a project of this size themselves.
Well, what's encouraging to me, honestly, is that you do --
you have got some 50-foot, you know, minimum lot widths,
and if your minimum lot size is 6,000 feet, that's much
better than what I've seen in some of these others where
they were literally, I mean --
4,000.
-- 40 by 100.
Okay.
And if you don't do a development right with those small --
with that kind of configuration, it can turn on you fairly
quickly, even before the whole thing gets built out.
So that's my concern.
So I appreciate you.
And obviously, you're not bound to a preliminary plat at
this moment.
You could come back and change it at your leisure.
And Richard and I already know we have some changes in the
works.
Yeah.
Sure.
Those are my thoughts, and I'm going to be voting to
approve it and hoping that my observations are realized to
some degree that if you hold to pretty much what you've
said.
Now, that means if you sell it off as raw land and entit
lements, none of that matters because somebody else can do
it at what they want.
And so I understand that.
That's my only concern.
So it's not about you guys.
It's just more I've seen this happen.
And what I don't want to see is a lot of neighborhoods that
develop into very small, small homes that we certainly want
some affordable housing.
But we also want to make sure that neighborhoods have a
state, you know, have a degree of integrity long term.
I would I would say if I could just add this concluding
comment to that.
I think one thing it's important to realize is that with
the density restriction that we built based on this lot
size any if you approve it with that density cap.
And certainly the restriction on detached housing any
smaller lot size that anybody were to develop by nature of
how the math would work would immediately would have to
result in more open space.
Some smaller lots, but you would have to offset that by
more open space because you can add to your lot count. So
so I think that's an important protection, if you will, in
that in that cap that's that's included in the
recommendation.
Okay.
Councilmember Ryan.
Thank you, Mayor.
And I agree with your concerns, Mayor.
Would you be opposed to adding the additional restriction
beyond beyond the 4.7 to add that 50 foot lot width and
6000 square foot minimum.
I certainly don't mind the 50 foot width I'd like to. I don
't think your current code has a minimum so I'd like to
leave a little bit of flexibility there just in case on the
on the size itself but I certainly don't have any problem
with the minimum, the minimum
I'd like to leave some flexibility just in case we end up,
you know, backed into because we really hadn't planned our
plat based on a minimum because your code doesn't require
it generally that's where that is but I hate to get have
our plat get backed into a corner we need something,
you know slightly less, knowing that we're complying with
the spirit of it being you know being a minimum of 50 foot
wide.
Right. I guess to kind of a follow up with as with staff
that I thought we did have a square foot minimum.
Is it not so.
New code not upcoming code.
Yeah, it's.
No, if you're under, if you're under two and a half acres.
Yes, if you're greater than no the only, the only
limitations are setbacks. Otherwise, there are no minimum
lot sizes, when you get over I think it's two and a half
acres or two acres.
Okay, because I'm looking at our backup.
Yeah, I'm just not seeing it but on page three of the
comparison chart the update comparison chart. It shows
minimum lot 6000 square foot so that's just a part of in
our six to begin with.
So it wouldn't have to be added. I think that's the that
tables just the general standard.
So if you go further with within the code 30.
I don't recall the exact section, but but if it is greater
than, then I believe it's two acres, then those minimums
are are in fact essentially waived.
There are no requirements.
Thank you.
Councilmember Briggs.
So, with a preliminary flat.
Can, can the changes to the USA.
I don't follow your question. So, with a real like if. So I
'm okay with the project with the TIA recommendations and
the, the signalization and the construction.
And both protecting both.
Isas. So I didn't know if that had to be passed with the,
with the restriction on density as well. The ease of
protection.
So, so I don't solve it. I mean, with the with the next
people who are developing, take the same route, if they
want to impact those I'm, you know, certainly defer to
planners and city attorneys my understanding is that we
would have to come
to your they would have to come to you with an alternate
USA plan that you would have to approve so you know there,
you can't just go impact it without you all getting another
another bite at that apple and, you know,
so that would be my answer.
But if I misspoke.
Councilmember.
I have a question for staff.
And that is about this slide.
It's the analysis denton plan 2030.
About rural areas.
And I'm curious, how does this relate to how this continues
the present character of rural areas and denton.
Yeah, as I had mentioned earlier, what the what the land
use plan indicates is technically it's supposed to be
consistent with the zoning is supposed to be consistent
with the land use plan.
And so it's not that they're creating a standalone
development somewhere out out in the middle of nowhere. It
is adjacent to development that's already occurring. Okay,
got it. So, thank you. I remember you saying that I just
wasn't sure. So this, this part here about the rural areas.
It's just kind of by way of background. Right. One of the
one of the criteria is consistency with the comprehensive
plan and in the public public facilities. Got it. Okay.
Thank you. Thank you. And I want to comment on that on that
later.
For now, I'll just say about the the the noted going to
that where's the slide about the notification. This is just
kind of a note for for planning.
You know, the public. So I realized that the public notices
rule requires 200 feet and 500 feet.
You know, and I think a case like this shows that in in a
rural area, you know, I mean, right here is next to the
school, but it's no surprise that that, you know, 200 feet
covers three.
And then the, I guess, 500 feet is that another three in
additional three. So a total of six. Six, six notices total
that were sent. I believe no, I believe they're all the
same. The same three.
That's what I said. Same because it's such there's 500
there was just no. Yeah. So yeah, thank you. So I'm
grateful to Councilwoman Briggs and Councilman Hutz with
for raising the issue about the kind of the school traffic
and to y'all for being in conversation with the ISD.
And I would like to see in the future and I know this is
coming on a future agenda. When we talk about our future
work session when we talk about the spin program the South
Lake kind of neighborhood.
They have a more advanced neighborhood and notification
program that's kind of more extensive and notification
program like that would notify whole neighborhood so we
could get, you know, families that go to the schools to
come and give their input.
And that's not speaking to you know the merits of this
specific project.
But just to say that you know this is a good case in point
I think for how our notification processes could use
improvement and back to the, the rural issue. So you know I
truly appreciate the, that these, the ESA is going to be
preserved.
And, you know, like you said this isn't just kind of coming
out of out of nowhere in this untouched pristine space, it
's adjacent to an already developed space so I'm, I'm okay,
I'm okay with that.
So, but, you know, just for for future consideration.
We just need to stick with the issues that are at hand
because we've been going at this almost 12 hours so if we
've got future things we want to discuss, we'll put them on
concluding items and then we'll be able to discuss.
It is it is with it with it, so I will be supporting this
with the ESA is with kind of a heavy heart.
And thinking back to raise razor went ranch which by the
way I mean I frequent I shop there so I'm not anti razor
ranch, but we've got these places that used to be ranches
and farms, and then they're, they're turned into non ran
ches and farms and they're
kind of named after you know so this dark farms, and it's
named after the thing that the kind of area that it used to
be.
So I will, I will leave it at that for now but but I don't
mean to single out your, I mean this is, it's a sensible,
it's sensible in this area.
And I do like that it's kind of a tribute to the farming is
of this area.
But at one point, are we going to just lose all of our, our
rural spaces in this city and I am concerned about that and
there was an article recently about that so thank you.
Thank you. Any more questions for the applicant.
Thank you. Appreciate that says a public hearing anybody
else was he's wishing to speak, come down state your name
and address your time will begin.
Anybody else wishing to speak.
When I close the public hearing Councilmember Briggs.
I move approval with the PNC recommendations and the TIA
recommendations.
With the overlay, I guess. Yes. Okay. Yeah. All right.
Second. So that's a motion for the recommendations as
displayed on the screen with restricted to single family
detached housing at a maximum density of 4.7 dwelling in Sp
raker, and the recommendations per the TIA is that right.
That right. What's the traffic study recommendations.
Mayor correct. I'm just want to confirm with the planners
but it's my understanding that those are actually addressed
during the planning stage that we required as part of the
part of the part of the part of planning.
So we're not including that condition wouldn't be needed.
It's a requirement order to have the plan as long as it's
required. Yeah, I'm good. So just okay. All right.
So,
would you like to restate your motion. Yeah, I will restate
my motion.
I would like to move approval of this item with the overlay
proposed.
The maximum density of 4.7 dwelling units per acre.
Okay, and customer Ryan, I believe. Yeah, I will second
that. All right, let's vote on the board please.
Okay, moving on to agenda item six be hold a public hearing
consider adoption of awareness regarding a request by
climax enterprises for the expansion of the people's
funeral home.
Point of order.
Okay, well, good.
Yeah.
See, it's been a long day folks.
I'm going to move on to agenda item six, which is a motion
to approve the approval of the city council.
Okay, so this is the city council.
This is a property that's owner occupied. It's an owner
initiated request in the fully rehabilitated property.
They purchased it.
This is property is built around 1926 possibly a little bit
before after a lot of research we couldn't pinpoint the
builders that might have been Henry Stevens, or it could
have been the owners jh and Mary Pearl boy, who's the boy
family own the property for 70 years.
And the boys were very influential in in Denton, and this
is a property as it is it looks today I'll get back to the
boys in a bit. So this property could have been designated
because it's a nice example of the prairie style craftsman
home, and, or it could have been designated
because of the boys.
And this is the interiors of fully rehabilitated nicely. So
coming back to the boards. I just want to say a little
about the Mr and Mr boards were Mr and Mrs. j h board were
very active in the city of Denton as evidenced by dozens of
reference to them in the local paper
and the dental record Chronicle, and Mrs Boyd in particular
held regular meetings of various clubs and organizations at
607 East College while Mr j h boy was an active member of
at least two fraternal organizations in Denton. And at the
time of this writing, we could not find out what he did for
a living.
We do know he declared bankruptcy, a little after the, the
great depression started. We learned a little that Mrs Boyd
had a family member in Kansas, that was his mother Mrs McAd
ams.
We learned that the daughter lived briefly in this home
here in Dallas.
Jane Boyd.
Here are the fraternal organizations from 1945 that Mr Boyd
was involved in the mate their Mason related organizations.
Then, what was interesting in the research is a lot of
people thought this house was built by judge boy who lived
up on North Bell for his two daughters to attend TWU but
that turned out not to be the case.
And these, his daughters went to school elsewhere. And on
the right you see that Mrs Eleanor Boyd became a member of
George Washington University faculty and then later, the
Dean of Women at Texas West Texas State College.
This is a reference just to the connection up north you
know there were people moving down to, to Texas from up
north and the Mr Boyd had a brother that was a Reverend and
another brother up in Geneva, New York.
This home.
And one of them want to say that so it's located to the
east of TWU in this area, and one time was considered for
historic district, and it still could be such but when TWA
was in that real expansionist mode they did buy up a lot of
properties and demolish them.
So, it's nice and we might save one, we would save this one
and recommend its designation because it meets three
criteria that it's a home with distinctive characteristics
of this style that it's a home, as in number 13 that shows
example of pride in our city of Denton.
And these are the reasons we recommend its designation.
We did have sent out notices and we received one favorable
email and in fact that owner would like to designate their
property, and the owners this property are not here this
evening.
And but they're probably watching.
Any questions for staff before we open the public hearing.
Seeing none. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Roman. We will now
open the public hearing. Anybody wishing to speak on this
agenda item please come forward and state your name and
address and your time will begin.
Good evening. My name is Erica Basilio address is going to
be 600 Grove Street, as well as 601 East College Street in
Denton, Texas.
Okay, so we object to the property located at 607 East
College Street being deemed as historical property, our
standpoint being that this land will become a college
property at some point in the future, which internal
benefit our city as a whole.
Now I say this with firm belief that allowing this house to
be deemed as historical land, demise the housing
opportunity for potential productive members of society.
I believe the owners of this homestead were made aware of
the of a project in progress with TWA you. And ever since
then they have been.
They have been trying to stop this project for their sole
benefit, rather than acknowledging this property could
potentially provide additional prosperity education
sustainability to our community as a whole, seeing as
sustainable development is development
that meets the needs of the president without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
I couldn't quite get it. You said you support the historic
designation or you do not.
Do not. Okay.
Councilmember armator.
So, can you say because this is this is news to me.
What can you speak about.
What was the intended purpose that you were just referring
to.
Okay, so the property that we are speaking on right here at
six or seven each college street. She's the mean to make
this historical.
And therefore, that will I feel like it will take away from
future housing for students.
Okay, so, so there is plants at TWA you has plans for
future housing in this in this area. And what, what kind of
you mean a dorm or are there specific plans.
I'm gonna have my, I'm the assistant property manager the
property manager.
Okay, sure, sure. Okay.
If you could state your name and address one more time
because I didn't get that either.
Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. Okay
. So your comments you concluded your comments. Okay.
Public hearing obviously you're up to speak. So if you
state your name and address your town.
Hello, I'm Mary Bricky and I have property there at 600
Grove Street and six oh one East College Street.
So if you were to look at an aerial shot of that block
right there. We own the two properties.
I don't know which side of the street that is but facing TW
U. This would be the neighboring property that would like to
be considered historical.
The property behind it, the entire block is owned by TWU.
So basically there's three other homesteads right there.
Our property there, which kind of like an L shape has been
in the works of a progress or of a housing project with TWU
, which would be like dorms.
But it's not anything that's it's still like a couple years
away from being there. But if this house were deemed
historical, therefore we could not demolish it or
reconstruct it.
And so then there wouldn't be no way to develop that land
for student housing.
We got a council member requesting to speak so I want to
make sure you concluded your comments before we took
questions. Okay.
Council member Meltzer.
I have a question for staff.
What is the impact of designating a property and historic
landmark with respect to a state entity like TWU and you
know whatever their rights might be or how it might affect
their plans.
Well, I'll say a couple of well no one I'll answer that
directly that the TWU of course if they acquire a property
property they do not have to even pull a building permit
and they can demolish a historic landmark.
In fact, in 1986 designation period that we had here in
Denton, there was a home that was designated an historic
landmark and it, it isn't there anymore it's property that
TWU owns it's just a vacant lot.
And this does this in any way, prevent to do you from
acquiring the property. No.
Okay, thank you.
Okay.
Anybody else.
Councilmember Almitro.
I'll just say, I mean, historic.
Historic property and that's so valuable to our city. Our
university is also really valuable to the city, and it's,
and also having a good relationship, you know, good town
gown relationship is really important and.
So, I'm sorry to see that that there's this tension.
And I would hope that this can be work, work through. Now
there are people there.
This house is currently inhabited is it.
So, yeah, yeah, so I'm as, as sympathetic as I am to, you
know, the issue of student housing and and wanting to have
a good town gown relationship.
This is, you know, there are people living here right now
and it's a historic house so I've got to go with the, with
the, the historic house and then the people living there.
Unless, and the historicity of it unless I don't know maybe
one of my colleagues could kind of talk me out of it but
but I truly, you know, I'm sorry that there's this tension
and I would hope that, I mean, I don't know what the
timeline for the historic designation is.
I would love to see if something could be worked out, you
know, you can't always make everybody happy but I wish
there could be some way.
Because, you know, the university in this house are going
to have to be neighbors no matter what.
Anyway, I would I would also be okay with tabling while
people can work it out but then again, you know, people can
always work things out so nice there's just, you know, a
disagreement but anyway I'm sorry there's that there's that
tension.
Anyway, that's all I wanted to say thank you. Thank you.
Councilmember Melzer.
I would underscore the point that we just heard that this
doesn't have any impact whatsoever on any plans, TWU might
have or on any prospects that folks have come here, might
have for their property being developed or just it doesn't
bear on it one way or the other.
So, you know, I, but I appreciate it. Always, and citizens
care enough to come and participate in city government
night. Appreciate coming and listen to every word, but
given that I think you're those concerns are not impacted.
And the fact that I appreciate that nights who want to
preserve historic homes and I want to call attention to, to
the special character of Denton that our historical was
provide.
I move approval of this item.
Councilmember Briggs.
Yes, yes I will, I will second, and I.
I gotta close the public hearing hold on.
Anybody else wishing to speak please come down state your
name and address I apologize.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of city council Mr Mayor, I
live at 613 East College Street, I live on the other side
of the neighbors who are requesting historical status my
name is Christina cram, and I just want to let you know
that I am in favor of historical preservation
of the property. I do know that TWA does have a lot of land
but I also know that they have availability to eventually
move out to the golf course which is now being closed, so I
think they're going to have ample opportunities, and I do
understand the concerns of my neighbors
right here, but I think that they would still be able to
redevelop the land, if they so choose. And thank you very
much for letting me have the opportunity to speak.
Okay, any questions.
Yeah, no, no, we got yeah yeah come on down. Thank you.
Thank you. See no further questions. Yeah, this public
hearing.
State your name and address and your time will begin. Jane
Piper lunch 12 five North Austin.
I think this is a very important opportunity to communicate
the noticeable difference that's happened in just the past
year between the parking garage apartments that are being
built, you know the affordable housing that's being
destroyed the historic
symbolically, even if we can't protect it from TWA, that it
's important that we show citizens who are very concerned
about this, that we do understand that we want to help
preserve these homes.
Thank you. Thank you.
Anyone else wishing to speak.
We will not close the public hearing I'm sorry we'll go
back. So we have a motion by Councilmember Meltzer. I
believe we had a second by Councilmember Briggs Is that
correct.
And that's okay to reiterate that after closing the public
hearing. That's great. All right. Thank you. So we have a
motion in a second.
Let's vote on the board please.
Motion carries six zero on the concluding items and given
the status of time let's let's try to limit our concluding
items to maybe two per council member.
If you could indulge me in that that'd be great because we
've been going at this 12 hours.
Councilmember Meltzer.
I have to go to them. That's great.
I would like us to have a discussion and work session about
policy options to motivate greater density in exchange for
open space and tree canopy.
And second, I'd like to ask that our resources that that
you know the work on homelessness have been so great at
putting out word about the cooling shelters, they
investigate whether there's a need during this inclement
weather coming in these next few several days, whether
there's a need for more overnight beds and whether we could
facilitate
the already organized volunteer groups to oversee cuts, you
know like an emergency shelter in a city building, for
instance, the Civic Center.
Thank you customer breaks.
Okay, so I have more than two, but I'm going to read really
fast. I really would appreciate if you'd limited it to okay
. Okay.
So, I will. Okay, so, first of all we learned that the.
There was a delay or an attempt to delay the inspection and
maintenance of the enterprise pipeline, which serves a didn
't energy center, and that staff worked with their lobbyists
Stuckey and Burgess and aircott and the railroad commission
to get approval for the delay and I understand all the
work that we've done before but I just would like to
request that if any on matters of public safety that
Council be kept in the loop through processes like that,
all the way through rather than just in the end.
Just for, for our own sake if anybody answered, you know,
asked us questions for that and then I will skip to this
one that we need a family shelter in Denton.
Okay, there.
Today we learned that there are 60 families, family
households right now that are homeless, which means that
they're more than likely on the street or in their car.
And so I would like to see if if staff could explore public
private nonprofit groups for partnerships and see if what
we can, what can be done.
Thank you.
Councilmember husband.
I have two that I'll give you but the two for this portion
would be.
I'd ask that we, and we've discussed this PNC there was a
tie on 613 18 on a vote.
And the item is a Z 18 dash 304 be.
I'd like to have that brought to city council whatever that
process is to make that happen.
I think it's just important that we do the city's business
and not have issues tied up in limbo.
We have one PNC member that has recused himself and I think
that should come to council, and I think it should come to
council clean I'll tell you, I don't think it should come
as as rejected because I think that incentivizes people to
lock up things if that happens again.
We've incentivized people to work towards resolution. So I
'd like to have it come here clean whatever that process
looks like is as quickly as possible because again I'm very
sensitive to whatever the decision, we need to make a
decision and not have people just kind of vacillating in
our processes, and then I emailed you a link in a kind of
quote from my concern I need to make sure, and I'd like to
see have the city start exploring blocking a website.
From its computers I'm assuming that's a practice they've
done regularly anyway this particular instance the courts
just allowed an individual to.
Produce plans on how to make print gun parts parts and
assemble them using a 3D printer understanding we have a 3D
printer at North Lakes, I don't want to be complicit in
that and I want to make sure we have, we've, we've gone
lengths to block that site or related sites as they, as
they come up the ruling was just in the
process of making sure that there will be kind of
variations of that so I just want to make sure we're, we're
kind of following that new cycle and stand in front of that
.
So, I get to concluding items of a longer list, and I just
want to say first, I had made some, some promises which I'm
just going to I'm going to have to break to certain
citizens that I, and groups of citizens I promise I will
get that I will get that out of the
ruling items so I. So anyway, I'm gonna have to break a
couple of those promises for tonight. But as long as for
next time can we have more than two.
Sure, well, we'll talk about that you can always send them
to the city manager as well. I know I know it's not that no
, that's the only way to get.
There's you know the special place for saying it in public
and, and having having witnesses having the video. So that
's why there are a number of.
Anyway, so.
So, first, and by the way and a couple of them were taken
by Meltzer and and Briggs.
So I appreciate their mentioning those items.
I will say,
I will use one of my items to add more to to Paul's okay so
that counts as one of my concluding items.
And that is kind of just to reiterate, we've got a big gap
in our, the way that we meet the city meets the needs of
our homeless and deals with our homeless population we do
so much as a city.
And this need is precisely as Councilman Meltzer was saying
, and actually coupled with with with Achilles about about
family, family housing shelter.
There are these, there are a lot of people who don't have a
place to still don't have a place to stay at night, or a
place to sleep during the day, or a place to just be during
the day, and to keep their stuff.
So, I would second, and I'm open to just about any solution
and even multiple solutions for what he mentioned about the
civic center other ways that we can provide spaces.
In addition to the, to the two shelters overnight shelters
that we have now for people to be not just at night, but
during the day, and keep their stuff. I'm open to just
about anything but I would like to have to have kind of a
work session on what are some possibilities
for other cities done their models in Austin and elsewhere
I know there have been at least one discussion that I can
think of in the past about a tent cities model.
That's just one option and also that was under previous
council so I think because there's so much caring about the
homeless in our community.
And it is such a need that that it's pretty imperative we
discuss that.
The second is kind of under the category of meeting needs
of disabled people in our community.
I'm a citizen which I thought was a great idea to have a
some sort of citizens committee on disabilities or mayor's
task force or whatever, some sort of citizens body that
would be recognized and kind of created by the, by the city
and listen to, just to kind of
give some ideas, just recommendations as to ways that the
city can better serve our citizens with disabilities, which
includes great number of.