Aug 07, 2018 City Council on 2018-08-07 2:00 PM

Welcome everyone. Good afternoon. Welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council. It's Tuesday, August the 7th, 2018. It's two o'clock. We do have a quorum. We're going to move through our work session agenda items. Our first item on the agenda is citizen comment comments, excuse me, on consent agenda items. Do we have any blue cards for I don't believe so. I don't believe so. Okay. And then agenda item number two is request for clarification of agenda items listed on today's agenda. Council members, any requests for clarification on the agenda? This is a sign of things to come. We're moving right along. Work session reports. 3A, receive a report and hold discussion, give staff direction regarding potential revisions to the code of ordinances on the Denton handbook for boards , commissions and council committees. Thank you all for being here. Okay. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Rachel Wood, assistant to the city manager. The purpose of today's presentation is to hopefully provide clarity around the procedural requirements of the Texas Open Meetings Act and the steps necessary to formally apply those requirements to ad hoc boards and other limited duration committees. From a staff perspective, the perceived intent from council has been that the procedural requirements of the Texas Open Meetings Act should apply to all boards and commissions, including those that are more limited in duration such as citizen task forces as well as ad hoc groups. From a legal perspective, state statute does not require advisory committees to adhere to the Texas Open Meetings Act. However, governing bodies, including those at the local level, do have the ability to require boards and commissions, including ad hoc groups, to adhere to the Texas Open Meetings Act if they deem necessary. Should the city council want to proceed with formally applying the Texas Open Meetings Act to all advisory committees, including those that are ad hoc in nature, there are really two key steps that they need to take. First would be a code of ordinances amendment, and then second would be a resolution amending the handbook. So the code of ordinances amendment would just state that we would be applying the procedural requirements of the Texas Open Meetings Act to all boards and commissions, including those that are ad hoc in nature, and also clarify that citizen boards and commissions need to adhere to the operational provisions set forth in the boards and commissions handbook as well as the city secretary's record management requirements. The handbook revision would clarify that the provisions set forth in the handbook apply to all boards and commissions unless otherwise stated, and the exceptions would be for ad hoc groups, and those exceptions include things like taking an oath of office or service limitations and training requirements just because the duration of task forces and ad hoc committees is typically shorter and a little bit less formal in nature. So to proceed, there are three options that staff has identified. First would be taking no action, and if we took no action, staff would continue to operate under the perceived notion that council does want us to apply the procedural requirements of the Texas Open Meetings Act to all boards and commissions. Option two would be formally applying the procedural requirements of the Texas Open Meetings Act to all citizen boards and commissions, and that would be achieved through the two steps I just described, the code of ordinances amendment as well as the resolution amending the handbook. Or option three, city council could decide to proceed with only specifying a limited number of boards and commissions that would adhere to the Texas Open Meetings Act, and that would also be done via a code of ordinances amendment and a resolution amending the handbook. Staff is recommending that we proceed with option two, which would be applying the Texas Open Meetings Act requirements to all boards and commissions, and if city council decides to proceed with either option two or option three, we'll come back at a subsequent council meeting to have you consider approval of the resolution as well as the code of ordinances revision. And with that, I'll open the floor for questions. Questions, comments? I think this is the kind of thing that sounds like a sort of no-brainer on the face of it because the sound of Texas Open Meetings Act must be an entirely good thing. I don't know that it's in every respect helpful for these ad hoc committee meetings, because I think their purpose is different than a body like this. Their purpose is often idea generating. We want to get citizens together and have them come up with ideas and build on each other. So the aspects that I think that are helpful and I have no qualms about, the idea that you post that you're going to meet, no reason not to do that. If citizens want to come and observe, no reason not to do that. The idea, however, that you can only talk about the things that were posted, like with us, that you can't actually get into a conversation where you introduce a new idea, I think that works against what you want an ad hoc committee to do. So I'd be in favor of saying all these ad hoc committees and subcommittees should be open, should be posted, but I don't think it's in Denton 's interest to say they must explicitly follow by TOMA per se. The other element that I think is problematic with these groups, I think it goes to the issue of quorum. I think we 've got to either, in my opinion, have a point of view like not to do these really huge committees where you can't really have a conversation anyway, you know, 24 people or whatever , you know, or have a quorum requirement. You know, it's, I think, intrinsically difficult to keep that many people going, as we've seen, to these large meetings. And then they end up not having qu orum and they're not able to do anything. So I think, like, either you don't have a quorum requirement or, you know, we have a policy of, like, you know, maybe having not gigantic committees. Like, you know, like, as I recall from business school, which was a long time ago, optimal size of a group for creative problem solving is like 6 to 10, not 24. Because below that, you don't get enough good ideas. You don't get enough good idea building. Once you start getting beyond that, group process starts deteriorating, you know, starts decrementing your ability to get to optimal solutions. So I don't know if you followed all my rant there, but I'm saying yes, open meeting, yes, post, not strictly TOMA, not the idea that you can't talk about specific things if they come up newly in the meeting. And I guess my bias would be toward us adopting a policy toward smaller committees, not 24. I support TOMA adherence. Having just arrived here, is now the time where we should discuss this or? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. These are the options here. Okay. So this is, okay. Yeah. I, so I recognize the problems with mega committees and, you know, I would concur that they create difficulty in forming a quorum. However, I think that quorum is a good way to ensure consistency. That is the rule of quorum and that I believe that the rules of TOMA, including their required postings and a number of the other rules of TOMA, including requiring all committee members to do TOMA training, which is really not very time consuming and educational and helpful creates for more orderly and transparent meetings. So for all of those reasons and the effect of having more consistency among the different committees, including ad hoc committees, and also more openness to the public, more transparency to the public, I support TOMA and I also support putting a cap on committee size because that solves the quorum issue, which arguably is created by, you know, by TOMA. But it also solves other problems that we've had with mega committees, you know, not just in the city. Any time you have a big group of people trying to decide on specific matters, it's harder to achieve consensus, harder to give direction, and there tend to be more absences because that is proportionately because every individual member of the committee doesn't feel like they're an essential part. So I would propose ca pping it at, you know, say, you know, 13, 15, something like that. Thanks. Thank you, Mayor. I agree with option two. As far as how it 's posted, that's just in how it's written to make sure that they are, they do have a wide span of what we can discuss or what that group can discuss. I do think we have in recent times gotten carried away on the size of some of the boards. There are some that do need to be large, in my opinion, when you're looking at, you know, capital improvement for a bond package. That's an example of where you want a larger board. If you're looking at amendments to the city charter, you're wanting a larger group at that point to that would more or less kind of break into individual areas of it and then bring it back to the full group. I guess one question I would have, or I think I would know the answer to this, but as far as the enforcement of the Toma, that would strictly be at the city level. That would not be something that these boards would then become subject at the state level to Toma. That is correct. Okay. And with that, I'm good with option two. And Mayor, if I may, one note that I forgot to mention earlier, the penalty provisions of the Texas Open Meetings Act would only apply to boards that are quasi judicial in nature, those that have decision making authority. And then under either one option, two or three? Correct. Yes, Council Member. I don't think I would really want to put a cap on the number of people involved, but, you know, one of the things that I have seen is, you know, you get 24 people in, and it really depends on what we're dealing with. But when you get a large group like that, it's hard to do anything. And I agree, we need to cut down on the number of members we put on these committees, but I don't think we really should put a cap on it. So of the options, which one would you prefer? Two. Okay. Council Member Briggs? Are we supposed to be talking about the number of people? No, no. Yeah, that's just been brought up tangentially, so we'll take that up at another conversation. That's not part of this discussion. Okay, yeah, I didn't think so. I just didn't want to. Yes, so I'm either for option two or three. I understand the need for certain committees to be able to be conversational and kind of bounce ideas off each other and say somebody has an idea and they want to talk about it to a few people. But then again, you know, in a meeting or outside of a meeting, if they were adher ence to TOMA, I think there's been some issues with emails sent in the past where that would have been in violation. And so I'm just kind of on the fence between two and three because I think some of them, especially, you know, boards and commissions, it's really important. But the ad hoc committees I'm on the fence about. So I'd like to ask those who are advocating either two or three, what is it about TOMA that you value? And is it everything about TOMA or just some things that are the critical elements? I just want to refresh my memory. Which option were you leaning towards? Well, I was saying, we're not bound to do TOMA per se. Rather than, you know, swallow it whole, you know, I'm saying have the requirement that the meetings be posted, have the requirement that they be open so that members of the public can come. And that's about it. You know, a lot of the rest, I think, is sort of, you know, overly restrictive and stifling of a kind of creative exchange, which, you know, I think that they're just a different type of body than a decision-making voting body. You know, they 're idea-generating bodies. I don't think it would lead to the best ideas. Yes, Council Member. So I would just like to speak to what I think I'm hearing are overlapping concerns from Council Members Briggs and Meltzer. I already spoke to, you know, why I like TOMA in addition to those aspects of TOMA that you just mentioned, because it creates consistency across the board, and also maximum openness and transparency. As I understand it, there's nothing about TOMA that would stifle a conversational feel that one would have in a meeting or that would stifle, you know, brainstorming and creativity. You can do all that. The difference is that you have to do it in public, posted. That's the one difference. And I believe that that way, citizens would either be able to -- well, they definitely would be able to witness that, you know, loose or tight, however you want to do it, interchange of ideas, but even if citizens didn't -- weren't watching, just knowing that they could, right? Just like we do here, creates a greater sense of public trust in the process and less of a feeling that, you know, that there's some elite somewhere deciding something, you know, over email. Just puts all of that -- all that great stuff that happens in a good committee out there in public. >> Any comments? Yes. >> I have a question. Are meeting minutes taken in all of the committees as of now? >> That's my understanding. I can refer to others, but my understanding is the procedural requirements of the Texas Open Meetings Act are currently applied to all boards and commissions. The purpose of the formal application is just clarifying the language and the code of ordinances as well as in the boarding commission's handbook to state that ad hoc boards, task forces and other limited duration groups would also have to adhere to the requirements of the Texas Open Meetings Act. >> Which for the formality part, we already do. >> Correct. Correct. So there should not from a day-to-day perspective really be any noticeable change on staff or on board members because we're already doing the majority of those things now. >> Any comments? >> Yes. >> So just to follow up. So okay, so this passage, it's in the handbook. So what would be the process if, say, somebody did an email chain between four people, which would be, you know -- and then -- so how would we go about -- would you just say you can't do that? Or would those people be removed from the committee? I'm just kind of trying to figure out what the process would be if that was found in violation. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> I think it's up to what the council wishes to do, but, you know, if it came to my attention, I would just remind them in an email that, you know, these -- while the discussion is nice to have, this should be taking place within a meeting, your committee meeting or a subcommittee meeting that has been properly posted to TOM A and where these things can be raised and discussed so that everyone can hear, including members of the public. And so promoting the transparency. If it continues to be repeated, then that's something that would be brought to the council's attention, and then you would have the discretion on whether to, you know, make your intent known, restate your intent, or remove certain committee members and replace them. All of those are options that are available to you on, you know, repeated violations. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Anybody else? Councilmember Hussbett, any comment? >> No. I think I line up with Councilmember Melcher. I don 't -- other than the cleaning up the handbook, procedurally, it's all the same. And so I just -- I'm not having an easy time connecting the value to cleaning up the handbook. What -- no one's told me -- I've not heard what went wrong to require the handbook to be cleaned up. So I've not heard that specific example that says at this meeting, this happened, which triggered this request. So that's what I'm looking for. I just don't understand what happened. >> I can share that. You brought it up, I guess, a couple meetings ago. It was the small area plan committee. And that there were some emails that went out to either all the members or some of the members, there was a subgroup created that not all the members knew about. There was just some things that were a little less formal or less structured, less transparent, maybe somebody -- some might say. That's really the genesis of this discussion. Because there was some -- there was some question by one of those committee members that the committee was in violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act and it was discovered that, well, procedurally and by practice, we've asked that committees adhere to the Texas Open Meeting Act rules, but specifically the language did not exist that caused that to happen from a formal legal basis. In other words, in practice we were doing it, but based upon our policies, it wasn't memorialized in the policy. So, sure. >> Well, actually, yeah, the idea that TOMA was involved was, you know, not brought up early in the life of that particular subcommittee. Meetings were, to my knowledge, I don't think were posted. And members of the public were not invited. So there was no sort of awareness that it had to follow that at all. But I didn't specifically address the email thing. I just -- you know, I'd be for that, too. The main thing -- my main objection is just this dynamic that we run into here where if it isn't something you anticipate 72 hours before, you can't talk about it. That, to me, is an impediment to a free- flowing conversation. It's fine for here where, you know, you need to deliberate and it's got to be specifically about things that the public can be prepared to hear about or they may want to speak about it, that kind of thing. But I don't think that's the nature of an ad hoc committee. So that's the only thing, really, that I think is not in the interest of, you know, what you want an ad hoc committee to do. >> So -- and correct me if I'm wrong. What I'm hearing you say is the only procedural aspect you have -- opposition you have of TOMA based upon what I'm hearing you say is that the rule that you follow -- the discussion follows the agenda posting and if you deviate too far off of that posting, then you're in violation of that. Is that -- I mean, because -- >> That's it, really. >> That one issue, basically. >> That's really it. >> Okay. All right. Yes. >> I'll just say that postings can be made that are sufficiently broad that can really cover a pretty big range, you know, under TOMA while still making sure that citizens who are deciding whether to attend or not to attend, they know -- at least when they decide not to attend, they know that, okay, this isn't going to be the meeting where such and such comes up, right? So for instance, as an example, we were just discussing the size of the, you know, mega committees. You know, my sense is because that issue is tangential to what we're discussing because it is one of the problems with mega committees is that a quorum can be hard to achieve because you've got a bigger size quorum and, you know, and absence issues. I don't think that that discussion is going off the topic as far as TOMA is concerned. So it can cover pretty broad territory. >> Yes. >> You know, if we want to include guidance toward, you know, crafting postings that are sufficiently broad to allow, you know, free flowing discussion, that would address my concern. >> Yeah. I mean, we've been doing this. I mean, the small area plan committee I think is just one of the -- very few examples where number one, it was raised that -- I mean, one of those members raised that there was a violation of TOMA. So it -- and it was halfway during the whole process of the -- during the whole term of the committee. So I think if we've been practicing this, I think we can just memorialize it. And if it creates a bottleneck like you're describing in the postings, we can certainly give some guidance and direction on that. But if we've been using this as a practice, I think especially when we're talking about citizen committees who are bringing recommendations to the city council, quite frankly, I don't know if I just want to have a bunch of people getting in a room, having free flowing discussion without any kind of structure or direction because I think sometimes that's where things can really derail, quite frankly. And it provides some guidance. And then if people need more latitude, they can always talk with the legal staff and say, hey, we need a little bit more broader perspective. Could the caps on committees be part of this technically? Possibly. But that's not what we're deciding here. So that's why I said it's tangential. It wasn't necessarily a violation of TOMA. So I'm okay with -- you know, I could almost be okay with three. In other words, if we said, hey, these are the ones we're going to apply it to. But as we create these citizens' committees, we could always have this discussion again. But I mean, I think two has been our principle and our practice. And so I'm okay with that. And if it doesn't work, I mean, this is the only instance -- I mean, we're only talking about this because of that question brought up from that particular instance. So we've not had this issue before. Yes, Councilmember Riggs. >> Just another question because I'm learning. So are the ad hoc committees open to the public currently? >> From practice, yes. >> Okay. Good. Thank you. >> Yes. >> So a simple question and if the answer is complicated, we can take it for another time. But a citizen wrote in to ask if subcommittees are covered under TOMA because apparently there was an issue I had not been aware of but somebody explained it in email with the Charter Review Committee. Remember, they formed into subcommittees and then there was a question, you know, say you have a subcommittee of three. Would you need a quorum of that subcommittee? I don't know if that's an easy yes or no answer as far as standard operating procedure here or if that's a decision for another time. >> Okay. Well, yeah. I mean, if you're wanting to know how that was in the past with the Charter Review Committee, I don't know if I want to necessarily go into the past, that Charter Review, but my understanding is if you have a sub committee of a committee that because our practice has been it be subject to TOMA that if you have a subcommittee of three members of quorums, too, and so it's still just like we do. We have subcommittees of three and they get posted and those kind of things. >> That's been the past practice on subcommittees for the Charter Review Committee, bond committees, they've all been posted and had quorums. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Approaches like a larger committee. >> So I understand Councilmember Melser and Councilmember Hussbut that you all may not be in favor of either one of these options. Yes, sir, I'm sorry. >> Yeah. No. So thank you for the completing kind of the circle for me. I just I needed that to understand that. I absolutely understand and as I said before, that instance is less than optimal and so to create an environment to potentially have quote unquote paper up something that prevents that or at least helps us train people up, that sort of thing, you know, or alleviate that question. I could and we're doing it anyway. Hello? No, just kidding. So I would think I can agree with option two for the reasons you expressed. So we can come back and clean it up, but it would be more difficult to by piece mail say okay, we're going to apply it to these, now we're going to add one, we're going to add one. It's easier to say hey, we've had hard examples of issues and let's remove people from that. I think that to me makes sense. Sounds like we have a move forward direction option two. First presentation, great presentation. Thank you. All right. We'll move on to our next agenda item which is 3B. Receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding changes to the downtown reinvestment grant program's funding source policy and procedures. This will be about ten minutes. Good afternoon, Mayor and council members. I'm Caroline Bo oth, Director of Economic Development and I'm going to be giving you a presentation this afternoon regarding the downtown reinvestment grant. So I'm going to run through this relatively quickly, but I do want to let you know that this presentation is slightly different from the one that was in your backup. We've got a different map and some additional information in here, so if it's a little different, don't be alarmed. As far as background on the downtown reinvest ment grant, when it was initially started in 2007, it was created to encourage capital improvements to buildings in the downtown area and it was actually called the downtown reimbursement grant. And it had several goals, one of which was to preserve the historic fabric of downtown and provide design input on projects that applied and also to ensure compatibility with other buildings, streetscapes, the general environment, and to help close the funding gap on projects. In 2012, the grant was revised, the name was changed to the current one of the downtown reinvestment grant, and the scoring system was updated to assist smaller projects in receiving these grants. To date, 45 grants have been made under the program and the city has expended a little over $476,000 on the program itself. For every city dollar that has been invested in the program, about $34 of private investment have been made. And something I thought you all might be interested in too is that several other communities around the state have used Denton's downtown reinvestment grant program as a model to create their own programs. A couple of those cities are Brenham, Georgetown, and Denison, Texas. So the reason why we're having this conversation today is because during last year's budget deliberations, council directed that the grant program be funded via the downtown TERS fund as opposed to general fund dollars, which were actually specifically coming from mixed beverage taxes . And the change or the proposed change to the funding source led to the realization that we have to update the current policy and procedures for review and approval of these grants to include the TERS board if the funding source is in fact changed to the TERS. The current grant requests are reviewed with a number of considerations in mind, including building standards, compatibility that I mentioned earlier, design quality, historical accuracy, and proximity to the courthouse on the square or the Brock downtown transit center. The eligible expenses under the program fall into four current categories. That's facade rehabilitation, awnings, signs, impact fees, and utility upgrades. And here 's an outline of the current review and approval process. The downtown task force, which is a subcommittee of the economic development partnership board, reviews all of the applications that are submitted under the program. Then the process splits from there. If the task force scores the project such that it's eligible to receive a grant of $10,000 or less, the city manager under the current ordinance has the authority to approve those smaller grants. If the grants are larger than $10,000, and remember they only go up to $25,000, then they go to the economic development partnership board for its review and recommendation. And if it is one of those grants that's over $10,000, this body will review and make final approval of that. These grants do have contracts and ordinances associated with each one of them. All of the work is verified via receipts and sometimes by onsite inspections prior to payment because as you'll recall, it is a reimbursement grant. So the work has to be completed and verified before the payment is made. So we do have a few proposed changes to the program. The first and most significant of which is, as I mentioned, changing the funding source from general fund, specifically mixed beverage taxes, to being funded by revenue generated under the downtown TURS. We then are required to modify that review and approval process to include the TURS board. And this would be the process down here on the fourth bullet. So all the grants are continued to be reviewed first by the downtown task force, then the TURS board, and then would come to council. So we would be streamlining that process and making all of the review and approval processes the same, no matter the size of the grant. We also wanted to add asbestos and mold abatement and fire suppression systems to the eligible expenses. So this would be in a new category for, excuse me, abatement and code improvements. And obviously, some of this is related to the downtown fire that happened late last year. >> You had a question for the councilmember. >> Sure. >> Just on this page and before, so adding these things are really great. But these things can be really expensive. So is by making the proposed changes, I'm wondering why an increase in the $25,000 amount isn't suggested. >> That is not something that came up in the discussions that we've had with all of the other boards and commissions. But if that's something that you and the other councilmembers are interested in doing, perfectly within your purview, I'm sure that people who are interested in applying for grants would welcome the opportunity to be able to apply for a higher amount. One caveat to that is that historically $100,000 per year has been allocated for the program, which would allow us to do four full $25,000 grants. So we were kind of moving forward under the assumption that because the TIF fund is being tapped for other important projects, that keeping that level at $100,000 would still allow us to, you know, do those four grants and not cut too much into funds that are available for capital improvement and other projects. However, the limit could be raised and we could do fewer projects, whatever you guys think is appropriate. >> Okay. Well, are there other things in place still that haven't been changed? Like you can only apply for it per building? >> Right. So the current ordinance does restrict applications to $25,000 per address because we do see turnover in ownership and tenancy of these buildings and sometimes there might still be a little bit of room under that cap for a new owner or tenant to apply. But we don't plan on changing that unless the cap amount is raised beyond $25,000 and then we would apply the cap to the address at whatever level it's set. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yes. >> Are there any rules in place that limit or place restrictions on who the applicant can be? Obviously it has to apply to downtown. But does the applicant have to be have a specific store front downtown or could it be a group, you know, that has property or properties downtown or that wants to improve sidewalks or something like that? >> There is a geographic restriction currently to the area of the downtown implementation plan and I can show you a map. So and please forgive the misspelling of the word boundary and boundaries on this map. Every time you see it I say that. We will get that fixed one of these days . But to your question, the restriction currently and if the funding sources change would be primarily geographic, first of all, it has to fall within those lines and then it would have to be an address that had not been capped. But there's not a restriction on what a group applying versus an individual. It's typically the owners of the property but sometimes tenants have applied and received grants. So both of those things are possible. You know, it 's really the geographic restriction, the address restriction and then the work having to be completed and verified under the contract before the payment is made. Does that answer your question? >> Yes. So a follow-up, just to understand this, say the county decided they wanted to have the Confederate monument moved, could they apply for a grant? >> No. >> Okay. That was -- yeah. So I figured there were restrictions. >> It's for businesses. >> That's what I -- okay. Thanks. >> Okay. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> And then the fourth change that I just want to touch on is that the downtown task force, the downtown TIF board and the EDP board all heard some suggestions about updating the scoring system that would make it more equitable for smaller projects in that it allows more points for a category called other as opposed to being more heavily weighted for projects that are high dollar investment projects. So it's a slight tweak that would just allow more opportunities for differently sized projects to compete on a more level playing field with the high dollar projects. >> Why was the asbestos and mold abatement and fire suppression added? >> That was something that was brought up by the downtown task force members, primarily I think the fire suppression part is because of the fire downtown and we are seeing, you know, projects that when they get into their renovations, they're finding that mold, they know asbestos is there, it's costly to do that remediation. And it's necessary to comply with the code. So that was suggested by one of the committee members or multiple of them. >> Okay. So these are the boundaries. The current boundary is in red. The proposed boundary if the funding source changes is in blue. Does anybody have any questions about this one? >> Say that one more time. >> The current boundary is in red and the proposed is in blue. And so the proposed blue boundary is the TIF boundary. >> Because it's coming out of the TIF funds. >> Yes. >> Oh, that's interesting. That's interesting. So they just want the funds to stay in the TIF boundary. >> Legally they have to. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Projects have to be within those boundaries. >> Sure. >> It's just the park. They couldn't apply in it. Sorry, Gary. >> Well, on that, the reason why we did one of the decisions was to move it to this funding source is because it was considered the downtown reinvestment grant and since it was coming from the general fund and was extended -- was not extended throughout the town, it made more sense for the funds to come directly from downtown to be reinvested in downtown. >> Thank you. Yep. >> Okay. There's been a lot of prior action and review starting with council discussion and running through the downtown task force twice. The TIF -- downtown TIF board once and the economic development partnership board once and all of those groups concurred with the suggestions that were originally started at the downtown task force level. And you can see the votes there. And that is really the end of my presentation. I'm happy to answer any other questions. But the direction that we are seeking today is on how the council would like to proceed and you can see the options there starting with elimination of the program, keeping the program as is, not changing the funding source, modifying in line with all the information that I presented to you and then other options that we haven't thought of yet. So happy to take your direction. >> Okay. Council direction. Councilmember Bates, councilmemorandum. >> So I'm in favor of the downtown reinvestment grant being funded by the tax increment finance zone. I would also kind of be -- I would be in favor of raising the amount from 25 to 30 for now just to help out with -- or, you know, if the scoring changes a little bit. There are some rather large projects in historical buildings downtown that -- I mean, I know that 5,000 isn't that much, but it could be a little bit more. When we think about downtown revital ization, a lot of what was spurred was from this original grant. And so I think it's important if we're going to continue to invest in downtown that these grants remain. >> Thank you. >> Yes, Councilmember Malmertor. >> I also recommend number three with a suggested tweak, and that would be that there be some language in there prioritizing public health and safety concerns. So some sort of language that would say that anything having to do with public health and safety would get bumped to the top. That's not to say that others wouldn't get considered. And, you know, and I would include in that, you know, not only mold and fire safety that you mentioned before, also lighting issues and, you know, any kind of -- I mean, I realize sidewalk improvements can also come out of the general fund, but, you know, something like that. You know, sidewalk issues, I mean, there are a number of things that would also beautify the -- or continue to beautify downtown, but that would also really -- that are also public health and safety issues as well. >> Okay. >> Councilmember Hussbett, then we'll come back. Yeah. Councilmember Hussbett. >> Yeah. You know exactly where I fall on all this, those that have been watching. And I would encourage everyone to go read the provisions because it will answer a lot of your questions. Some of that that's been mentioned is obviously you can't do it. So -- and I say that to say there's not one program, as I've said before, in this city that is -- I mean, $34 per dollar invested. It 's -- the city gets to -- the work is done. The task force/city looks at it, makes sure it's done correctly, and then they get the money. It's the best thing going. And if you can go back to the map, because that is a big hang up for me. So I would suggest leaving it in the general fund. I -- anyone that tells -- that says downtown and the TIF board -- I mean, TIF boundaries line up, I would challenge that every day because that's not true. The TIF was drawn -- it was before my time, but it was drawn selectively to cut out houses, to focus on businesses because of some statutory requirements. It is not representative of what we call downtown. As a council, we're investing in a lot of those red areas that cut down towards EGLE with taking them out of flood zones, et cetera, et cetera. So we 're trying to -- we're spending millions to spur growth. Why not then have a mechanism for those new business owners, those new investors to be able to realize some relief and promote a program that, again, is highly onerous. It's highly involved by the citizens. They manage a lot of the systems. But anyway, so my biggest complaint is the TIF boundary is not representative of downtown. To change the funding mechanism changes those boundaries. There's no way around that. And then, too, it just sends the wrong message. And so my ask of staff is if there's a similar program as we go through this year, if there's a similar program that hits that threshold of a dollar in, gets us $34 back, which I don't think there 's many, point that out. Because it won't -- I'm not going to say it won't happen, but it's rare. I mean, it is a great program. It's great to hear that those other cities are taking full advantage of it, and I wish we would. But anyway, I've said all this before. I just -- my biggest beef is the boundaries and someone says the TIF boundary and downtown boundary are the same. That's incorrect all day. Thank you. >> Councilmember Briggs, you had -- let me go to councilmember -- or mayor part-time since you had a chance. Go ahead, mayor. >> Well, I just want to point out on that map, if you look at the difference, with the exception of between Elm and Locust and between McKinney and Parkway, and a little bitty corner in the -- on the bottom left there, everything else is public land. That big portion in the upper corner is the post office and where we are right now. So that would not -- those would not have even been eligible for these grants to begin with. So to go to the other map, which we would have to, to do this other funding, and I was pushing for changing the funding a year ago because while we could potentially have financed a police officer, he would have to keep track of what dollars or what hours he spent in that downtown area. I felt it better to finance this and leave that $100, 000 in the general fund that in turn would make it easier to finance an additional officer. >> I'm going to go with councilmember Briggs and then councilmember Romacher. >> I was just going to point out that as well, the boundaries actually extended so that more people have the opportunity to apply. But the one thing that I didn't mention earlier that I wanted to say was that when in the -- can you go back to the different boards that it goes all the way through the -- okay. So when someone is going through scoring, are -- if their business comes up for a grant, are they required to recuse themselves from that? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> If they're a board member and they're applying, they do not participate in the scoring or the discussions. >> Thank you. >> Yes. >> I really respect and agree with councilmember Hatspitz's concern about the boundaries of the TIF not being the boundaries of downtown. I'm not particularly in love with the boundaries and actually that's a big issue for me too. For me, what sold me on this new -- this latest reincarnation of the -- the TERS -- TERS fund is the inclusion of the public health and safety issues, which is a really big issue downtown. However, you know, hearing from councilmember Hatspitz and councilmember Ryan mentioning the kind of -- the possibility, at least as I understand it, of using general funds and I realize you were speaking to a -- something that you had considered previously, I would be open to a commitment that we're going to, you know, prioritize public health and safety issues downtown from the general fund. In other words, for me, even though we're voting on this -- the TERS right now, if there's enough of a consensus on council that the money for downtown doesn't have to be stuck here and that the boundaries could be changed, that's something that I would certainly be open to. I wonder just procedurally what would -- you know, and I'm going to reveal my ignorance and even though I know that we've sat for hours and you've explained to me about the TIF and the TERS all work, say the boundaries were to be, you know, reconfigured. I take it that means it's a whole new process, whole new or deal that you just can't -- The TIF boundaries? Yeah. Right. That is not easy to do. It's not easy to do and there are, as councilmember Hatsp itz pointed out, the boundaries were drawn a certain way because at the time the TIF was implemented, there was a requirement that no more than 10% of the land use in the boundary could be residential. And so it had to be drawn in such a way that met that requirement. Now, I believe that that has been raised to no more than 30% residential. So it is slightly different, but we would have to -- you know, that would have to be considered and then we would have to go through the whole process of modifying the formation documents of the TIF in order to change the boundaries. So it can be done, but it's not something that is just sort of a quickie. Council changes it and that's that. It's a little more involved. Yep. But so it sounds like what you're saying is it would be a reconfiguration of the boundaries would be an adjustment of the current TIF. You wouldn't have to create a whole new -- If the funding source were to remain the TIF for this program, right. Okay. So the boundaries for the grant program could be changed at council's desire if the funding source were to go back to the general fund. Yes. You could just leave the TIF thing aside. Yeah. Okay. So I'll kind of throw that in there with my qualifications that -- so I would be okay with number three if the boundaries could be reconfigured to -- and I don't know how, but I would really want to look at and have council look at and staff look at what are the businesses in the outside of that box who could really use that help as well and how could we better serve them. So I'll throw that in there as a condition -- another condition for me getting on board. So I want to have an understanding of that because I'm confused. So my understanding is -- so you're saying you want -- well, first of all, you talk about public health and safety. I don't know what that has -- the TIF -- the economic downtown incentive grant, unless you're moving on specific properties for either abatement, you know, asbestos abatement as proposed or fire suppression being added, okay, that's public health and safety, but it sounds like you were talking more from either sidewalks or something else. So help me -- I'm not following that. So what do you -- It could be really -- I wouldn't want to limit it to, you know, what I'm -- those are just some examples. But what I'm saying is like when the grant -- when someone would apply, if they could make a case that what they were asking for was a public health and safety issue, that then it'd go kind of to the top. So it could -- in other words, it could be something that I 'm not even imagining. So I wouldn't want to say the follow -- only the following issues count. They might have some -- you know, be able to show, for instance, that the steps leading up to their business are people are tripping on them. And if we hadn't thought of that -- Well, and I hear that. Historically, this grant -- I mean, as far as changing the TIF boundaries, I don't know -- that would just be just unbelievable. I mean, because I don't -- number one, the only problem -- the TIF is bigger than the red boundary except for the public lands that are up there at the top. So I'm really confused. This discussion has gone way out of the boundaries of what the downtown reinvestment grant is supposed to be for. It used to be just a reimbursement grant to put on awnings and things such as that, $25,000 or $10,000. I can tell you right now that the dollar to $34 that is being said, that's not that our contribution of $25,000 is the reason why somebody's come in and spent a half a million dollars in our city in the downtown. No. That's not what's happened. What's happened is, like any of us would do, if we were building a project and there were some funds available that we could get reimbursement for for certain things, we're going to take advantage of that to the greatest extent that we can to help our project cost. But I can't think of one of these projects -- there may be one, so somebody's going to come out and e- mail me. I get that. That would not have occurred without an extra $10,000 or $5,000, unless it was a small project. But the small projects, you still have to have to be a certain percentage of your project. Like, if you have a $25,000 project, you can't get the whole thing funded by the downtown investment grant . Or can you? No. Okay. It's -- yeah. So that's my point. So from the standpoint, Councilmember Huss, but is there another program like this that works this way? I think some people would argue that some of our 380 grants, you know, sales tax grants do that when you look at the rate of return. But that 1 to 34, to me -- and when you say the downtown boundary is not the TIF boundary, if we were to put a heat map up on there of where all the incentives have been, where we've granted all the incentives, not only would they be within the blue line, they're going to be within probably about a two or three block of dead center of that blue line. So the TIF boundary, I think, right now gives -- except for that corner that Mayor Pro Tem mentioned -- gives almost a larger swath of land in order to provide these types of incentives than -- that's private property. Right. That's private property. So I mean, I just assume it would be funded out of the TIF fund because that's where it's -- I don't have a problem with the amounts. I don't know if I'm going to be okay with going up 5,000 because I think if we're trying to -- this grant was not originally to try to say to people , it's got to solve all your problems that you're going to face when you build in an old downtown, but it's saying, hey, we want to help some. We want to help some. And most of it was more cosmetic. Most of it was more to restore things back to a historical kind of character for that building. But now we've got impact fees and things such as that. So I'm not going to cry over $5,000. But what that does is it reduces the number of these grants that you can get because now you can have three grants or three and a third whereas compared you could have four. So you are reducing it and most everybody is going to try to get the largest grant they can. And I really support the point system of trying to provide for smaller businesses because I know that one business in particular that made some applications that didn't get it that would have been helpful and they weren't trying to do a big major renovation. So we can blow this thing up or we can keep it what it's been historically intended to do and that is to provide some seed money for people who want to do big downtown projects. And the reason I thought it should come from the TIF is because that's where the projects are that are being funded by this. So those are my thoughts on it. I've been here ever since the beginning. My history is very clear on this whole thing from the beginning. I wouldn't in favor of the TIF at all. But that's okay. It's here and we can make the best of it and it's doing a good job and it's building up its value. So I'm okay with option three. And if the council consensus is to go to 30,000, that's fine. I think that's going to limit people's opportunity. But we'll leave that up to the downtown task force and the TERS board and if it's over 10,000, city council will make those decisions if it gets approved. Councilmember Hussbuss, sorry for taking your spot. I just haven't said anything I wanted to share. That's good. That's helpful. And so I'm going to piggyback both of those. I think councilmember Armatuer had a great point where I was going. And so my closing statement is this. I'd like to ask this council to join me in supporting a great program and I want this council to be able to define the boundaries versus those that were here. When was this TIF boundary drawn? In 2010. No, sorry, 2010. 2010. So one, two, three, four of us weren't here. And maybe five. My math is sketchy. But the fact of the matter is. There's only one person that was here in 2010. Yeah. And so my point is I want this council to be able to draw the boundaries. And if I understand you right and I thought that's where councilmember Armatuer is going, it's easier to redraw the boundaries for the downtown reinvestment portion versus trying to go back and recreate the TIF boundary. Am I right ? Yes. Yeah. So I'm advocating -- that's if it stays in the general fund. Right. It would have to be funded in the general fund. Sure. And that's what I'm advocating for. I just want to make sure because when you say it's -- so you're advocating for the general fund. Yes. You're advocating for the general fund? I would be on board with that. Yes. I would change my -- change my recommendation to that. Sorry it's so conditional. But I would change to number one. We need some direction. No, I know. That's what I'm trying to give. It's just not an open number. I'm trying to scroll back to make sure I've got the number right. Number one. I'm sorry. Number one with those stipulations. Okay. I'm sorry, councilmember. I interrupted your closing statement. No, no, that's good. You should have objected. Number one is eliminated. Right? Okay. So that's what I was trying to -- is that number one? No. That would be number two. Yes. Yeah, that would be number -- You want number two. Keep it the way it is with some modifications. Bring it back into the general fund. And then if you want to, we can talk about increasing the boundaries of the downtown reinvestment grant. Yeah. I would be for -- you know, I would be for that or for the other iteration. But I actually prefer if this is the only way we can redraw the boundaries and there's others who are for that. Absolutely. Okay. All right. So we have -- make sure I understand so we can keep track, summarize. Your councilmember Hutsbeth is saying we want to -- I want to keep it in the general fund, keep the money the same, maybe institute some of these changes of what can be included and whatever, how much money is per grant. But primarily the funding stays in the general fund. Correct. Councilmember Armitage, what I'm hearing you say is sort of the same thing given some, you know, conditional but that's sort of your priorities. Yeah, the same. Yeah, we'll say the same. Okay. Councilmember Briggs, I'm sorry. I have a complete -- so I'm just going back to the history and our conversation and going through this before. I am not in favor of it going back to the general fund unless we just completely rid of the borders and it's a whole town. Right. And the reason why we decided to do the TIF is because it was specific area and so that area would fund that area. We are in budget discussions right now and there are so many things not getting funded from our -- I mean, I just have a hard time funding facades over a fire truck. Like, I just -- it just doesn't seem appropriate for that funding source. I'm all for this program and I think it's fantastic. I even wanted to raise the amount of the grants but I just -- I think that the funding source is the reinvestment grant is the TIF. Like, for me, that's my opinion. Okay, so we're going to go with people who haven't spoken first and then we're going to sort of wrap this up because I think we're getting -- if we're all going to be talking to debate to change people's minds and we're probably not going to be doing that much. I just want to get an idea of where we all are but I want to give everybody a chance to speak so we're going to go to Councilmember Duff and Councilmember Meltzer. Number three. Okay. I'm not in favor of raising the 5,000. Okay. All right. Councilmember Meltzer. I just want to enjoy this moment of agreeing with Councilmember Duff. Okay. And I'd also like to just ask Councilmember Hussbett, just because I don't -- I truly want to understand, what is the area that you feel is, you know, not being addressed? It's just not obvious to me. So and Councilmember Ryan is correct. So I'm -- my orientation is wrong but I'd like to go down -- the TIF boundary does not allow you to go down to Eagle Drive where a lot of that area is coming out of the flood zone and the TIF boundary currently will not let us support that growth. So I want to make sure I've got -- so Councilmember Duff is option three without the 5,000. Councilmember Melt zer is the option three without the 5,000. I'm the same. Option three without the 5,000. I'm going to go with the option three. I could -- it doesn't matter with the 5,000 or not but it sounds like there's not going to be enough for the 5,000 increase so I can go without the 5,000 . So Councilmember Briggs, three with the 5,000. Okay. I mean without the 5,000. >> Yeah, either way. I mean I just know there's some really large projects coming up and I know that 5,000 is not much but -- >> Okay. >> Yeah. It's not going to give you -- >> So we're going to -- I'm going to give very slight closing remarks because we do have a direction but to be respectable and fair so Councilmember -- did you have some comments that you wanted to make, Councilmember Robinson? >> Sure. I'll just say, you know, I'm thinking more about outcomes and less on how to go there so I'm -- I see pros and cons of TERS versus general funds. For me, you know, the limited boundaries was an issue for -- has been an issue for a long time. There was a lot of need in that area and now there's been a lot done in that area and so I would love to see it -- funds applied to outside of that area. That's all that I'll say. I mean I don't -- I don't feel like it's a -- it's a -- I'll say this. If we're going with number three which is where it looks like, I would encourage people to consider redrawing those boundaries and priorit izing public health and safety issues, not disallowing other kinds of grant applications but prioritizing those. >> Okay. >> Rebuttal? >> Yes. >> No. Simply I'll just say it's very interesting to me and those that are watching that want to go back check this that we spent -- I voted against it. $900,000 on a parking lot. But now all of a sudden we have a fiscal heartache with $100,000 going to small business owners. I find that very interesting and I'm sure there's a rebuttal to support that. I just -- for me personally that gives me heartburn that the cars could park where they were. They were good and I even got emails upset that it was -- when the parking lot was reworked. But that being said, $900,000 to a parking lot. $900 plus. $100,000 coming out of the general fund to businesses, absolutely not. We can't stand for that I guess. And for this council to have some control over the border I guess that too is contentious. So I guess I'll just read and watch more meetings. Maybe I'll understand it better. >> I understand it. Okay. Let me go with Councilman Meltzer was asking for recognition. >> I would just chip in that I'm entirely in agreement that there's going to be more kind of -- there 's going to be more emerging footprint that's going to be very important in downtown. Sort of expansion of downtown. But it's not sort of the end of time. It's possible that more than one TIF. I think Fort Worth has something like a dozen TIFs. So it's not that each thing that comes before us must solve all problems. So that's my reason for -- I wanted to hear what your concern was. I share it. But I don't think this is the only way to address that. And in terms of the sort of the purpose of the TIF versus the purpose of the downtown reinvestment grant, to me the TIF itself, the TIF funds should be to improve the area -- improve conditions in the area in general. Sometimes it's health and safety. Sometimes it's just improving the appearance and the vitality of the area. But that's sidewalks, lights, things like that in my mind. Whereas the difference is this specific little program goes to individual businesses, which actually is a caution to me. I want us to be very judicious when we give those grants to make sure there's truly a public purpose that we're accomplishing in giving to a private business. And oftentimes that is the appearance of the facade because we're trying to achieve a general historic look. And I'm okay with the idea that sometimes you just need that little bit of help to make it possible to develop in downtown, which is so old and the infrastructure is so old, that that's where I can see that the asbestos and that kind of abatement. It's just -- we have a value in trying to make this area vibrant, and it's harder to do that because it's old. And just lastly I would say is that, you know, I think we discovered that we were short on tools to a certain extent when the fire happened. Or, you know, so -- and that is a public purpose, you know, indirectly if they have fire suppressant systems, which are -- which they're not required to have by code. You know, and I don't think we want more of downtown to go up and smoke. So, you know, I think it's smart to include that. >> Councilmember Briggs. >> Just for clarification, because I've heard some -- from the original downtown reinvestment grant, the only thing that's changing is the funding source , right? The amount of money is still the same. The boundary is actually a little bit bigger so that the small businesses, they're still going to be included. They still have the right to apply for this. And did I -- do I recall that now council will receive in all of the grants no matter what amount? Not just less than 10,000. So it will go through the board and everyone will come to council. >> It will actually -- yes, they'll all come to council. They'll all be reviewed three times by three different bodies no matter the size, ending in council approval. >> No matter the -- thank you so much. >> You're welcome. >> And one final question. And this is still an accumulation. If the funding is not exhausted, does it roll over to the next year or does it go just stay in the TIF fund balance? >> I'm going to let Tony answer that because I would hate to tell you the wrong thing. >> Mayor, Tony pointed to the Director of Finance. The answer is yes, it stays in the TIF. If it's going to be funded out of the TIRS fund, it's going to roll over and stay in the fund balance for that TIRS. >> Okay. So it's not like it's being segregated out. Like if we budget 100,000 and 50,000 is spent, there's not 50,000 that's put in a segregated fund and then there's another 150,000 for the next budget year available for the downtown investment grant. Or is there -- in other words, does the -- is there any difference between the funding of what's requested and what 's funded? Does that accumulate somewhere to where you can have more than $100,000 in any given year available for disbursement? >> In your scenario, what we would likely do or what we could do is the following year we could appropriate 150,000, but again, everything drops to the fund balance. >> Well, but that's an important distinction and difference , and so that's a question for I think this body to -- how was it before? >> So the way that it was working before, there was 100,000 that was going into a downtown reinvest ment fund that was only specific for that use. And so any money that wasn't spent would just roll into the fund balance. On an annual basis, we would appropriate 100,000, even though there was an additional 100,000 that was coming in, plus there was already a fund balance there. So the idea would be that if they ever needed more than 100,000 in that particular fund, we would have to amend the fund to allow for additional expenditure or increase that expenditure the following year. >> And unfortunately, I've created my own nightmare in that it's a pretty important policy decision that I think we need to make, but I don't know if we need to make it right now. But if it 's just going to stay in the fund balance, this council can come back at any time and raise that amount or modify that if you want to allocate 100,000 or if there's at each budget discussion, you can say, well, we didn't fund it all, do you want to have this year 150 allocated? We can handle that at a budget discussion. We don't have to do that right here . Thank you. I just talked myself out of it. Okay. Staff, do you have your direction? >> Yes. >> Option 3, I believe, as presented. >> Option 3 had five. >> Yes. Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> How long -- is this a placeholder for the budget? >> It is. >> Okay. Just in case because we're getting close to break time. Okay. We'll go on to agenda item 3C, receive, report and hold discussion of staff direction regarding the FY 2018-19 city manager's proposed budget. >> Mayor, city council, Tony Puente, director of finance. I don't have a formal presentation. This is just another opportunity for the council if there's any additional questions that you may have about the proposed budget that we discussed with you on Thursday. I'd certainly be happy to answer any questions that you may have if there 's additional questions that we need to follow up on. We are currently working on some questions that the council proposed to us and we're planning to bring that back to you on the 14th. Again, we'll be working through that over the next couple of days. We will continue to have a work session item on every council meeting from now to September 18th to give you an opportunity to ask any questions or if there's any additional information that you may want. So we're here to answer any questions you may have. >> Any questions, comments? Yes. >> First, I'd point out that the budget as presented, actually this is a question. First, do I have this right? That on the utility rate part of it, that the average customer would save $10 a month, so therefore $120 a year? >> Yes. >> And the average house would save about $80 a year? >> That's correct. >> Right? Oh, I'm sorry. Not save. Pay $80 a year more. So net the average homeowner citizen is coming out ahead $40 a year with what's been proposed so far. So I think that's a pretty great achievement to have gone through all that detail and come up with something that not only keeps the citizen homeowner citizen whole but a little bit to the plus. If there is an exploration of where else would you go, I think it's at least since we have this time to talk about it, it's at least worth asking what are the most plausible options to get down to the city calculated effective rate? I'm going to guess none of them may be palatable, but that's a good pressure test of the argument. What else might we have considered doing and would we prefer that to what's now being proposed ? That might require some preparation to answer that question. >> I'm not sure it requires a lot. I basically still would have made the same recommendation in terms of the capital projects. I think that's critical that we follow through on those promises and we've got real needs. We probably would have scaled back the ongoing request for funding that we suggested such as the public safety. There's library improvements. So across the board right now, especially given the pace of work coming at us and the increase in population and the continued increase in trying to keep our fees at normal levels or as low as possible anyway. I think there's some disagreement on the council whether they're all there, but trying to have as little impact on the public as possible, especially in the parks and recreation area. I probably wouldn't change much other than scale back the ongoing request moving through the future and a lion's share of those are tied to public safety. That's not typically how I would budget it, but I think the capital project needs that we have right now are just so great that I wouldn't scale those back in order to fund all the other ongoing requests. I'm not seeing a lot of areas, quite frankly, that where I'm seeing the opportunity to scale back staff without having a significant impact on service levels or program levels. That weighed heavily into our desire to move forward. I think the buildings that we're looking at, the public safety service center, obviously you're familiar with the radio systems and you're familiar with the $15 million in additional street work really drove the decision to recommend the one cent increase this year. But we're not seeing a lot of areas right now where we're over staffed or over budget. Last year during the budget process, which you weren't around for, we did repurpose and reconfigure the budgets to the tune of probably $8 to $10 million worth of spending and redirected numerous staff vacancies into public safety and into other areas that we saw as our biggest need right now. Made this year a little bit more challenging in terms of looking for those cuts or the ability to repurpose existing tax dollars. So I feel very confident with where we are at this point. That's not to say that as we have ongoing vacancies this year that we're not going to think about whether there's a different way to do business or whether there's a different need that we didn't anticipate at this point in time, but I probably wouldn't change much other than scaling back those ongoing requests and the use on the supplementals. So -- Well, you know, I don't have like a strong need to press the point, but really the intent of my question would be to say not would you change anything because I don't think you would. That's the recommendations -- the recommendation. I 'm not saying I necessarily would change anything. It's just if we wanted to get to the effective rate, where would we look to go and we might look at that and say, yeah, but we don't want to do that. So that's really my question. Not what would you change? I don't think you would change anything. I think I answered that question. I would scale back the supplemental request that I submitted. I'm not seeing a need in this community or support to scale back library funding or parking wreck funding. I'm not a fan of just going in saying I'd cut public safety. That's just not the way that we operate the budget. But if anything, we're seeing a continued demand to hold the line on prices and to not cut back programs in areas that you would typically see as the areas that would take those hits. And that's, you know, that's economic development, that's parks and rec, that's library, environmental services. It's just not something I think this community would tolerate it. Councilmember Briggs, do you have a question? So what is the dollar amount? What is the dollar amount we would need to find in that supplemental to get to the effective? In the neighborhood of one to one and a half million dollars. Do you have is it somewhere in the middle? That's correct. Okay. In the middle of? So right around one and a quarter. Well, you know, that's the interesting part about being on the council for so long. You know, I had the opportunity for historical context. Well, I mean, I'm shocked, quite frankly, sometimes at the discussions around this table, because I hear you asking for the what can we do to get data to the effective rate? And I heard Councilmember Briggs yesterday talking about we were talking about engineering that we got $500,000 worth of plans, the mobility plan and the thoroughfare plan thoroughfare plan that, you know, in order to achieve maximum efficiency for the engineering department that we're trying to get the businesses. So I'm the first one that would say, hey, let's make sure that we're spending money wisely. But I challenge anybody here today, and I challenge anybody listening to me today, what have you spent money on in the last year that you haven't had to raise that amount that you've spent? Gasoline has gone up, food has gone up, insurance has certainly gone up. I mean, all kinds of things have gone up. And if we're looking at with this city that the average homeowner and that's the some people are going to have more of that tax burden, because their appraisals have gone up more, some will pay less taxes, because their appraisals have gone down. So if we're going to use the average, so and I'm not going to offset it with the utilities, you know, like you said, let's offset it with utilities and you save 40 you save $40 over the year. I really don't I mean, because utilities are more of a, you know, that's an enterprise fund. And you know, we've got to we want to keep those rates as low as possible, but $80 a year. I think we're going to be lucky if in the next two or three months, that we're not going to have desire, we still have an engineering budget to come back. We've got these two plans that we want to consider to make sure that the engineering plan is effective. So let's not get what is it called penny wise and pound foolish. Because if you look historically at the tax rates, they stayed the same. When appraisals have gone up eight and 9%. Last year, we dropped the rate three cents, three cents, four cents, four cents. And if you look at what we 're getting for that one cent, what's the amount of the sub what how much is it? The supplementals for 1819 3.3 million, some of those are our one time expenses. Well, but no, but but that's so what what I'm hearing then you Mr. City Manager say that if you wanted to get down the effective rate, we're going to keep the capital projects that we that we propose because we think that that's we need to do that because number one, we have some debt, some capacity and debt that will allow that we'll just have to cut some of the things like inspectors for our public works that are causing our streets to maybe buckle because we're not spending enough time out there. So, you know, I get it. And if y'all want to bring back something that says, hey, if y'all want to cut these things here, you can cut it and get us down to the effective rate and I can tell you exactly what's gonna happen at this board. We're all gonna say no, that's fine. But if we want to have that exercise, go ahead and do that. But I'm quite frankly very excited about what we're able to do with the amount of growth that we've had. So it's not a criticism. I'm just saying I don't understand. Yeah, I don't understand what what's your then help me understand. Yes. Yeah, but I have the exact same position as you. So if you want to fight over it, that's all right. But I agree with you. My point was to say, what a great accomplishment this budget is, you couldn't make a change to it that you would prefer to where we are. That's that's and I know some people might say, why can't we get down to that? And my point is to say, I don't think you'll find an option that you like better than where we are. Well, then, okay, sorry, I'm so unclear. No, no, I felt that you kept asking, what can we do? And just but just to make the point like you, you know, these options are not better than where we are. Okay, I guess we had a three or four hour conversation on that before. That's why I was no, that's fine. I'm glad we're in agreement. Fantastic. Fantastic. Yeah, it's not. It's not. I'm not criticizing you. I'm just saying, I figured you were saying, hey, what can we do to get down to the effective rate? He gave you sort of a high level answer. And you came back and asked him the question again. And he gave me the same answer. Now, if I would have asked that question, and this is part of the difference, if I'd asked that question, I said, I want specific recommendations or specific things that you would be willing to cut to get us down to the effective rate. So it's that's not that's not what you're asking for. Yeah, I was just saying, if if you wanted to get okay. I perceived the first answer saying I wouldn't change anything. I didn't and I accept Mr. City Manager that you probably did pack the answers looking for in what you said and I didn't fish it out. But I perceived it as saying, I wouldn't change I wouldn't change it, which I would neither. But but the point of my question was to say, if you had to, where would you where would you look, which which city manager did respond with and just sort of to indicate like, you know, we wouldn't necessarily want to do that. Sure. Okay. Fantastic. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's why I started by saying, isn't it great that, you know, that we're actually not only keeping the citizen whole, but actually to the plus side. Yeah. Okay. No, I don't Yeah, I'm fine. I mean, I'm not attacking you or criticizing anybody. I'm just stating my own my own thoughts and observations. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Councilmember Archer. So I would just like to say my own variation on on your explanation for why we couldn't quite make the effective tax rate. And I was disappointed to see that we couldn't do that. But I but like you and like you, I see the need for some expenditures to meet what I consider to be public needs. My the difference in the way that I would explain it to the to the public would be to say, I don't see it as simply a matter of, you know, prices are going up so much every year. And so we've just got to expect that. I see it as you know, there have been some audits and studies recently that have uncovered a lot of, you know, big, big gaps, big problems, and that were done in the past that we have to mitigate now in the present. And so, you know, a lot of those expenses, you know, for instance, in traffic in our in our engineering department, I mean, had, you know, could we could go back in time and a time machine, we would have been adding a little bit more every year. So anyway, that's just the difference. So I wouldn't say just expect, you know, things to just keep going up and up, I would say that that that councils and management would I would hope keep trying to do the effective rate every year, but it just so happens there was a lot that was uncovered. And we 've got to mitigate past damage. And then once we and being fiscally responsible in the meantime , but hopefully next year, that effective tax, effective rate can happen. Well, that's just my own little my own version. Well, I mean, as far as mitigating, and we're paying for things that problems that have happened in the past, and we're incurring expenses, the exact opposite is happening. We've cleared up projects, we've cleared up things that are have been financial drains on some of our programs like solid waste, we cut solid waste rates by 12%. By 12%. And let's make no mistake, I'm not saying we advocate a tax increase just because things are going up. But when I've sat in this, not this chair, but at this table for 10 years, and I've seen how it's gone over the last 10 years, and I want to encourage you, we had a three hour discussion on the budget. So when I hear well, we'd like to get to the effective tax rate, what can we do? I didn't hear a whole lot of that. So if you have specific questions about what programs can could we look at reducing to get to give us some options on the effective tax rate, if y'all want to ask for that, then we're going to ask for it, I'm going to ask for it right now. So next time when we have a budget presentation, if this council said we want to get down to the effective rate, you tell us what you think you would need to do to do that. So we're going to answer that question instead of leaving it out there hanging so that we can be as transparent as possible with the public on what we're spending those extra dollars on. And what it would take and what are the tradeoffs for that. Instead of just wondering. We're going to be able to make that decision the next time we get together and talk about this budget. Any other questions about the budget? I think we need to though include in that because we've got to make a decision. We still don't have the engineering budget. When is that going to be forth coming? Do you think? Probably in September. We're negotiating right now. Okay. Is that going to be part of this budget? Yes. Okay. All right. So then we need to also put into that that kind of formula, these two plans that were put off in the secondary supplemental or next year's that wasn't funded in this supplemental which is the thoroughfare plan and the mobility plan. And we also have to take into consideration that the council passed an ordinance, I think it was last time where we had a maximum tax rate of the current tax rate that we have right now. And so this will be a great discussion when we come back because we're going to go through and that's what these placeholders are for. These questions come up, these desires come up of, you know, we might need to do look at this funding instead of this funding and the engineering department, that will be a major question. And if we want to stay at the current rate that we've sort of projected, then we may have to change some things out for the engineering if it doesn't come in whole. It's the way I see it. But we'll find out those answers to those questions. He's fixing to put me in a headlock. Go ahead. This is an inherently arbitrary discussion. Yes. And I question the value of it. You know, we can certainly bring some ideas to you right now but, you know, I think we tend to look at the budget as a, you know, as a discussion on services that we're currently offering, what the public would like to see. We've had a lot of pressures. Are you talking about the conversation I'm asking for? Yeah. I think we're going to get on an emotional treadmill. The only reason I'm asking for it is because it's been expressed on a couple of occasions here today that there was a desire to see the effective tax rate. We had a two or three hour meeting on it. And but so we can scratch that discussion. If nobody else is interested in having that discussion, it doesn't matter to me. I wasn't going to have it in the first place. But we are going to have to discuss the engineering proposal and if that's coming in September, that's like we approve the budget when? On the 18th of September. Are we going to have that before the 18th of September? Most likely. I'm not as concerned about that as you are. Primarily because we do have some dollars budget in the current budget to handle that. If we had to get through next year with a one time injection of dollars to handle that case load, that is exactly the plan with trying to fund these thoroughfare plans, mobility plans, the fire air truck is once we close out this fiscal year, I will be back to you with a plan on some of these additional items. So I'm just not concerned about that engineering contract as much as you are. Not only that, as I mentioned yesterday, probably 60 to 65% of that contract at most is general fund obligated. So you have to remember all the utilities kick in for their fair share of that engineering work that is being done in the development review process as well. So yeah, it's going to be a little bit more expensive. There is a backlog, but I would certainly structure a contract where there is a one time dollar set aside to handle the back load and then move us forward. It can be handled fairly easily moving forward and we will make sure it gets handled fairly easily. So what I'm hearing you say is these concerns that are being raised about additional funding that might need to be required in order to really make our processes efficient, like in engineering with the plans, you will bring back a series of options with if we have additional dollars left over from the 2017-18 budget, which is anticipated, that's where you are saying those funding requests and that's where the conversation will happen with the council. Here is what you have the options to fund with this additional money if you want to fund any of them. And that's how you accomplish those. I was pretty clear. I get where the council is in terms of the mobility plan and the thoroughfare plan and the air truck and any other things. We will set those dollars aside as we close out the year. And I committed to the council. That would be the very first set of recommendations I brought forward. >> Okay. Great. All right. Councilmember Briggs, you had a question or comment? >> I'm not right now. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Any other discussions on the budget? And we'll have this placeholder for? >> For the 14th and then the 21st as well. >> And then as far as the questions that were raised on the DME budget, will that be a placeholder as well on those same days? >> 21st. >> 21st. >> 21st. >> Yes. >> All right. Good. Okay. Any other questions, comments? Fantastic. >> Thank you. >> Let's take about a five minute break. Come back. And we'll wrap up our last open work session. Welcome, everybody, back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, August 7, 2018. It is 3 47. We are on our last public work session report, which is receive report, hold discussion, and give staff direction on the composition of the City Hall West Steering Committee due to recent resignations, attendance, and quorum issues. >> Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the Council, Mark Nelson, Director of Transportation. I do have a very brief presentation this afternoon related to the City Hall West Steering Committee. The committee to date has had six meetings. The first one was in December of 2017. The most recent was on Monday, July 30. Generally the attendance at these particular meetings has been good. Typically between 18 to 20 members do attend. We did have an issue at the last meeting where due to low attendance, there was trouble maintaining the qu orum. The committee did convene, initiated conversation, and towards the end of the meeting, a member or two had to step out through some prior obligations and actually indicated resulted in a loss of quorum. They were able to recall one of those members and continue on with business. But really what may be contributing to this, there have been three members that have resigned from the committee. Peggy Riddle resigned in March of this year. She moved out of the City of Denton, which rendered her ineligible to serve on the committee. Then on Monday of last week, on the 30th, Paul Abbott, the former chair of the committee, as well as Courtney Cross, both submitted their letter of resignation indicating that they had scheduled conflicts which would prevent them from participating in full at future meetings. So along with those vacancies and the fact that we've had about a half dozen members that have missed three or more meetings has contributed to some of the attendance issues or concerns. But for the purpose of this discussion this afternoon, we have a couple of options to look at how we may be able to avert future quorum issues. And these two options here, one might be to reduce the quorum or reduce the committee membership from 24 down to 21, which would take into account those three members that have resigned or further reduction. The other option would be actually submitting or appointing new members to reestablish the committee at full. So real quick, this is pretty much the last slide that I have. This last slide that I have to give you an idea of what faces the committee, there is a meeting on the 27th which would be to consider or receive the business plan from the consultant, and then the committee wanted to take the preferred option or options out to the public and have a conversation, have a public meeting with the public. We haven't set that, but that would be in the first or second week of September. And then there may be another meeting on the back side of that to consider or otherwise formally accept and then advance a recommendation back to the council, which was the original charge of the committee when it was established in November of last year. So with that, I can take any questions that you may have. >> That's members. >> So just of note, Dallas Gill, one of the other members that I nominated, has moved out of the city or I know is planning to. >> Right. >> So that would be two of the three members that I nominated off of that board. So I would really like for, I already have one person and another second one who is considering it, one that has agreed to it. I would prefer to keep the number. I know we talked earlier about the size of the committees, but this is a balance. That way everybody has the same amount. And if we do take it down, then I think that we should all equally have the same amount of members. I mean, just that would be my opinion. >> Right. >> Councilmember, Mayor Portem. >> With only basically two meetings left, I feel like the reduction in the what we consider the size of the committee works well. I mean, the chair that resigned was one of my appointees. I don't have an issue with not having as many as somebody else might have up there. Again, if we were two or three months back, I would think of it differently, but we're pretty much down to the tail end and just the learning curve of putting someone else on that committee. That's going to take a meeting and a half of the two meetings that we're going to have. So that's my opinion on it. >> Ms. Malachar. >> I recommend number two that we be able to find replacements, but I do understand the issue with the learning curve so late in the game. I had already asked pretty early on when I found out that somebody had to withdraw from that committee because it turned out that they didn't live in City of Denton. I had made it known that I thought that Georgina Ngozi of GDEC would be a great replacement for somebody on that committee. At the time, I was thinking the person who had to step down , but that person was appointed by I forget who, and the person who was appointed by my predecessor still intends, as I understand it anyway from your email earlier today, still intends to stay on that. So I would -- I think that someone like Georgina would be great because she's been attending those meetings regularly, has an investment, so there wouldn't be that learning curve for her, and she would be able to replace one of the members. But I guess Councilmember Briggs, you've already -- was Georgina one of the people who you had asked? No? Okay. So then I have to -- okay. >> Thanks. >> Councilmember Duff. >> I'm not in favor of appointing anybody else to it. I think we had too many members on there to begin with. >> Okay. >> Councilmember Maitzer. >> Okay. >> My suggestion would be to basically wrap up the committee as a whole understanding that financially the timing is not conducive to action or taking action any time -- I mean, we're at least one year out, and this is kind of where I've started at the beginning. We're just not in a position to even with the recommendation take action because the financing is just not there. We just had this conversation. So it's really a matter of taking the committee. You're going to take this recommendation as I see it, and I could be absolutely wrong, and then set it on ice until we're ready to act on it. And by then, I think it could use updating or there could be new funding sources or there could be new mechanisms that would have to be considered. Then do we reconvene the board? Is it the same committee? So I just think there's a lot of moving parts that we're not ready to act on, and I think we've seen a trend kind of citywide to have a good plan in place that's actionable and then go. So this ready, set, wait approach as I see it, and I could be absolutely wrong if that's the case. If we're not going to act on it in 2018, 2019, then I say we take the information we have and shelve it and come back when we're ready to act upon it . Yes, go ahead. I guess I have a question for those council members who have been participating and been part of it. With the thought that there are only two meetings left, are there any particular areas, even in this sort of pulling it all together, even if it's been on the shelf for a while, are there any particular areas of expertise that are absent on the committee where somebody could come in and contribute from their background in a way that would be helpful? Are there sort of particular areas where there are gaps? Sure, I'm sorry, yes. Yes, I think the, to answer the question succinctly, I would think a financial expert to, because the only numbers we received are from architects and kind of his projections and the consultant from Salmon Center, but that's a little different. So someone with financial expertise that would be able to talk about cost, projection, performance, that sort of thing at that level, we have not had. And so if there was someone to add to the mix that could perform that function, because that to me is going to dictate next steps. If we had a clear picture of what projected costs are, what projected revenues are, that sort of thing, it then kind of drives everything me personally. Sure. Well, and I would say that to the members that have resigned, Paul Abbott was police department for many years when the police department was in that building. That was a large reason for him being there. Peggy Riddle being part of the county historical group, that their expertise was greatly appreciated while I was there. But again, I don't think that we have that much left to cover in this. And I'd also like to point out that the meeting on July 31 was originally scheduled for July 16, which was when we ended up having ethics training. So it got canceled out and moved to another date. So it wasn't on people's calendars for as long. And that probably also contributed to the fact that we didn't quite have the quorum there. I think even at 24, I think we probably would be close to quorum at the next couple of meetings, even though we've lost some . So I'm the only council member who has lost two. No, I've lost two. You have? It's not on here. I thought I lost Abbott and who was Abbott's? Okay, I've lost one. Yeah. And so I mean, if council is consensus, I would just at least like to replace one of mine so that we're that I mean, that that's my request, because I've already asked someone and they've already committed and they've been following along and they are familiar with the project and are eager to jump in. So I'm not going to replace mine. They've got two meetings left. I think this I think Councilmember H usspeth, which you said, as far as what some of the expertise that might be like is the financial. See, I don't see this is sitting on a shelf because the council hasn't even taken it up what's coming out of the committee. I mean, so whatever comes out of the committee, the council is going to have a work session to talk about it. And at that time, we probably will have some opportunity for some financial things. But I'm in favor of wrapping this up, getting the committee's recommendation. I'm not going to make a replacement appointment. I'm not going to sit here and say that, oh, I don't think Councilmember Briggs should make a shouldn't be able to make an appointment one appointment. But I think as we've seen from what I've heard that's going on in this committee, that it's sort of just it's somewhere it's just gotten sort of off the rails. I think we just need to get it wrapped up. We need to get the recommendation to us, put it in council's hands. And we're duly elected to make these kind of decisions. And if it sits on a shelf, it sits on ice for a year or so. If that's a decision of the council, so be it. If the council decides that there's opportunity to move forward on some of those recommendations or some other type of options that we may discover in the course of our deliberations, I'm all for that as well. So I 'm not I don't favor reconstituting it to its original size. I will say I'm not going to sit here and say to Councilmember Briggs, you know, because she feels she's not represented. But I don't want to point people to these committees that are supposedly represent necessarily my interests or my views. So I don't see I don't see that as if there's a couple people missing that and I don't think you do that either. But if two of my people were gone, I'd be like, well, that's the process. And if it were early if it were earlier in the game, I'd have the same concern. I said, well, let me let's reconstruct. But I've sort of I think this committee's work is nearing an end. And I'm with you. I'm ready to wrap it up. So I don 't I don't have an issue. I don't have a desire to appoint new members. But I'm not going to go to the point of saying that Councilmember Briggs shouldn't be able to point one if she feels comfortable doing that. So I'm just not going to I'm not going to point another one. Comments. Yes. So I can I can agree there. I guess that that's my question for for Councilmember Briggs. I don't see how a new person even if they've been following along could enter they would they would in my mind to make that work, they would have to agree with everything that's already constituted and move forward, which almost negates them adding new information because if you come on and you bring on try to introduce new ideas or rehash decisions, it's been hard enough to get to this point. And so to go backwards and say, hey, we want to look at well, have you thought about this configuration? Because my understanding is where we've left off is they decided on a floor plan that they're going to promote and a mixed use approach. Maybe maybe if you could summarize that and then that would be my question that that if a new individual was appointed, they would have to pick up where this summary stops and move forward. And that leaves no planning, no floor. My understanding leaves no no no kind of work to be done. So that's correct. On on the 30th, the committee was was able to reconvene and voted in favor of a floor plan that is a flexible floor plan that allowed for essentially a multicultural facility that could allow or may not allow the use of the fire truck. It would have opportunity for the use of the auditorium for performing arts as well as the downstairs truck room, either for the presentation of the fire truck or use as a as a conference center or reception area. And then some of the rooms upstairs as use for whether it's a visual visual arts, craft arts and crafts type stuff, or even the use as a veterans Hall of Fame. There's some area in there that can be utilized for the Veterans Hall of Fame and Veterans Museum. And then certainly the auditorium could use be used for presentations as well. So the person that I've nominated has been working on historical catalog of Denton is a historical professor. There's some things there knows where the project is knows that he's going to just be jumping in for the next few meetings. It's just when I heard and saw my list of all three, some with three absences and then two, one moved and then one resigned. So yeah, I mean, we haven't discussed the absences and the people on there as well. So I just went ahead and started calling and talking to people. And this was the one person that that I reached out to. But if you guys do not want me to feel that then then I won't. I'll just tell them. Or I, yeah. So two things. So I already made my point about Ms. Ngozi. But if we're not doing replacements across the board, I would also echo Mayor Watts in allowing Councilmember Briggs to appoint one of the replacement members. And then to that, I will also add that even though a reduction in size of the committee reduces obviously the size of a qu orum that's needed, there's still a problem with or potential problem for these next three meetings. You still got to make sure that that you make a quorum so votes can happen. So I would encourage or actually I should probably ask first for confirmation. Are there members, there are three members of council on that committee, right? That is correct. And and and and you have you get to vote on that committee, your voting members of the committee. That's correct. Yeah. So I would just, you know, encourage those members of council who are in that committee to make sure, you know, to to attend those those next three, three meetings so that there's a yeah, so that so that everybody's everybody's present. I don't anticipate that being a problem, but just kind of keeping that in mind, keeping in mind what happened last time. One clarification I can make is on the public meeting in early September, I don't necessarily think that would be a quorum meeting per se. Certainly, members would be encouraged to attend that so they can interface with the with the general public who attend that particular meeting. That's correct. My inclination is, you know, now that sort of surface the issues that it's late in the process that so anybody who would come on would have to be able to really hit the ground running that it better bloody well show up because we have quorum requirements to it. You know, I think that I trust the council members who have openings to either fill or not fill with those understandings with the understanding that, you know, financial expertise might be helpful to plug in. I don't know if Miss Ngozi has expressed interest in serving, but I know that she could contribute from minute one. And, you know, if there's somebody who could fill the gap that Peggy Riddle represented in terms of knowledge of the sort of regulatory environment around historic restoration, that's, you know, that strikes me as like something that could contribute even in a late conversation. You know , I trust council members to make decisions within the existing framework and that they'll responsibly pick people who can contribute and will show up, you know, or not, you know, we 're not nominating. Okay, so not sure. It seems like the consensus is the least to you. We're moving forward with the last two meetings. The real question is about the nominating filling those positions, which you know, I've expressed my thoughts. I mean, I like your sentiments on that, Council Member Meltzer, as far as, you know, just if people want to nominate, let them nominate. And if they don't, then don't. And I can accept that. I mean, that's fine with me because I've got one that I'm going to choose not to and Mayor Pro Tem can do what he needs to do and Council Member Briggs can do what she needs to do . So I'm okay with that. It's just got to get wrapped up. I mean, they got two more meetings. We'll get it to the council and then that's when the real work begins. We begin to hash it out to see is it shelf, is it going to be shelved or is it ready to move forward on some kind of at least time time frame. So is everybody okay with that sort of what the plan that Council Member Meltzer outlined? Yes, Council Member Hudson. Yeah, I'm okay with that. But but fair warning, right? Because I I'm a little, little direct, I'm told. But just whomever that is, if they if they start walking back, then I'm going to say something. I mean, and that's just that's not I think it's only fair for me to say something in advance that I don't want to go. It's just been a treacherous ride. And I don't want to go back. And so I don't know if it's best to look at the agendas and and have that update whomever to the if anyone's going to appoint, hey, let's get the agenda. Let's say here's the next two meetings. Here's in theory, what we're going to be talking about and see if that's appealing and if that's okay. But if floor plan issues to fire truck or not to fire truck, I mean, any of those things I'm going to I'm going to try to keep us moving forward and not read it because those are just I mean, anyone that's been there knows it has just been it's been hard work to get to this point. And we're in overtime as it is with the original direction. So I just I just want to say that in advance so that it doesn't seem like it's it's reactive. I'm just saying it's been a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to this point. And I want to keep it keep it moving. And let's let's ultimately get to where we make a decision. That's legitimate. Well, and I think part of my position is based upon coming from people who were on the committee and people who were outside of the committee and just very several different people, not just the person that it occurred to that, you know, people are being told to h ush and be quiet in the meetings. That's just not acceptable, especially if you're not the chair. shouldn't be doing that if you're the chair either, you know, people have a chance to speak and if you have disagreements, that's fine. But you just don't tell people just hey, stop talking. So anyway, that's why I think it's sort of time for it to wrap itself up. So I think Councilmember Meltzer has a very great idea that he's going to trust the council members to appoint people if they want to. So I think it's going to be open to new appointments based upon each council members vacancy. And the presuming that I don't know if the quorum is based upon the 24 or based upon those that are getting at it. Is it based on the 24? Quorum right now is based on the 24. So if if there's one member reappointed to replace the two vacancies that Miss Briggs has, then that would bring it back up to 21. If you choose to add additional from there, then you may choose to go back to so let me add maybe a caveat to that. Instead of making the quorum, you tell me if this is even legal. You know, because if we were to say yes, you can appoint members. So it's a quorum of just whoever's there, do we have to have a specific finite number defined? Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we have a quorum set out in the resolution creating that? At 24, yes. 24. Okay, then we'll just have to keep it the same and then 21 you'll just have to have a quorum with the people that get reappointed. Yeah. Yes. So as I understand it, we there is no policy, we have no policy for attendance on committees, how many meetings that you know, actually, the committee is abiding by the Council Board Commission policy, which basically there's a statement in there that if there's a if there's an absence, then the individuals need to to notify the board chair, the staff as to the purpose of those absences. Medical death in the family business related, those are excused absences, then if they miss over 50%, that's why I chose the more than three or more absences, then that's that's grounds for for removal from that. So that that is grounds for removal. So missing three of those meetings is grounds for removal. As I understand it. Yeah. So the person who was nominated by my predecessor missed three of those meetings. But it is so you say grounds for removal, but removal is not imperative is it? That's correct. That would be that would be that would be the council. Yeah, the council as a whole or the or the person who I think we've wrote on them all as a whole. Yeah, yeah, because I feel I would feel uncomfortable, you know, making that decision just for my the person I appointed if it wasn't applied across the board. You know what I mean? Well, but I think what he's saying is that that's the way it should be. Well, you couldn't remove them unilaterally, the council would have exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's right. I think that's what it should be. So I just wanted to be clear. Sure. Yeah. Okay. So any other do you feel like you have direction? It sounds like the quorum has got to stay at 24. Correct. Council members who have vacancies can choose to appoint or not appoint based upon their own discretion. And we'll get our recommendation in October. The one. Oh, sorry. Yes. One recommendation I would make. Yes. From a staff perspective is if understanding the next meeting is on the 27th would be to get those nominations in and try to get that on the 21st if possible. Okay. Otherwise, move forward. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Can we discuss early if we don't have a quorum what those rules are? Because I I don't want to add more. You don't want to add. I don't want to add more meetings. So for example, we don't have a quorum. What is dates? Can we at least have conference? We well, I'm gonna finish the question first and then you can say no. The question is, can we at least have a conversation? Or at least understand . So can if there's not a quorum, can there be a conversation of those that are in attendance and just not take action? If not, the other the part B to that question is I want to make it clear. I don't want to add more meetings. And so if we don't have a quorum for the from now to October, then it's just done. Can we agree? Okay. Discussion without a qu orum. Since you've opposed the OMA or that's coming forward, if you don't have a quorum, the technique can't technically can't be a meeting. And so the discussions amongst the existing committee members could not be had. On the other hand, what I and many other municipal attorneys have advised is when you don't have a quorum, a staff presentation can be made, but no questions could be asked because then then you all are engaging in deliberation. So and that's why I answered the question in two parts. So can I clear? Let me just ask a clarifying question on that. And based upon our earlier discussion of Toma, we gave policy direction to make some changes because currently our handbook nor our council rules of procedure had that kind of language saying that so if we don't pass that, we don't memorialize in our handbook and in the council rules of procedure, what we stated and that is that everything subject to Toma, technically, so correct me if I'm wrong, that if this happens, that this this committee, as it stands right now is not required by our handbook or our council rules of procedure to follow the procedures of the Texas Open Meetings Act. Is that am I correct? I thought that's why we had that whole discussion earlier. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. So if we pass, if we don't pass that, then yes, you can have conversation. If we do pass it, then yeah. So I either way, I'm okay with I just want to have staff prepared to press on if we don't have a quorum, I would ask that we agree that staff does a presentation. And that 's that that data is satisfied. Then we get to we do the open house or the public meeting September, the same thing in October, you know, or whatever, whatever the structure is. I don't know that I understand it. I'm understanding it right. But whatever that is, I just want staff to do a presentation to hey, we're here. We don't have a quorum. Here's our presentation date satisfied. Move on to the open session there in September. And then final ize a recommendation. I don't want to add dates because we didn't have a quorum. If that 's my suggestion, and I'll see if if we can find a group there. Okay. All right. Got it. Do you have direction? Give it back to me real briefly. So what I understand is that if if there is a vacancy and a council member has a vacancy and wishes to make a recommendation or nomination, need to get that nomination and preferably by the end of this week, so it can be teed up for the August 21 meeting. If then council would act on on that resolution to amend the existing committee. And then moving forward with the next meetings, if there is not a quorum at that particular meeting, staff will give a presentation based on the information at hand and not engage with the committee in terms of questions. And then move forward with the council recommendation solidifying that council recommendation for prior to committee termination in or phase out in by October 31. Okay. Yep. Everybody okay with that direction as stated by Stan? I see no objections. Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yep. All right. That concludes our open session. We will now convene the closed session at 420 or what 418. We will consider the following items. Oh, I'm sorry, you've got a Council member Huspeth has to recuse himself on this item. consultation with attorneys under Texas Government Code section 551.071 deliberations regarding real property under Texas Government Code section 551.072. Welcome, everybody to this meeting of the Dent City Council on August the 7th, 2018. It is 630. And for our first agenda item, would you stand with me if you're able to pledge allegiance to the US and Texas flag? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one indivisible. Okay. We've got several proclamations and resolution tonight. We've got a resolution and appreciation of Warren Lee Howell. Where's I'm going to call you Chief Howell. That's how I know you come on down. And anybody that wants to come stand with you, certainly would invite them to come down as well. That's it. Okay. All right. Well, I'm going to go ahead and read this resolution . Then I know how do I pass chief pass chief. How's that pass chief? Is that okay? Yeah . Resolution and appreciation of Warren Lee Howell. I didn't know it was Warren. Whereas chief Lee Howell has served in the Denton police department from 1981 to December 2004, excuse me, retiring as lieutenant and rehired as chief of police from October the 20th to July 31st, I'm sorry, October 2011 to July 31st, 2018. And whereas the city of Denton has been extremely fortunate in having enjoyed the dedicated and outstanding contributions of chief Lee Howell and his efforts to make Denton a better and safer city. And whereas chief Lee Howell earned two commendation awards during his career with Denton police department for his leadership in major cases in 2002, he received the meritorious conduct award and bar for a case in 2002 that involved a hostage situation in Cook County. He received this award for heroic deed and exceptional meritorious conduct that involved risk and danger to his personal safety. And whereas chief Lee Howell was an original member of the Dent on police tactical unit serving a total of 16 years on that team, including eight of those years as commander. And whereas chief Lee Howell always served above and beyond the efficient discharge of his duties in promoting the welfare and safety of the city, treated our residents with compassion, patience and dignity and has earned the full respect of his fellow colleagues and the citizens of Denton and the loss of his services will be keenly felt. Now, therefore the council of the city of Denton hereby resolves that the sincere and warm appreciation of chief Lee Howell felt by the citizens and staff of the city of Denton be formally conveyed to him in a permanent manner by reading this resolution and to the official minutes of the city of Denton and forwarded to him a true copy thereof and be it further resolved the city of Denton does hereby officially and sincerely extend its thanks to chief Lee Howell for his successful career as chief of police for the city of Denton. Okay, I've got one more plaque to read and then we're going to be able to add lib on the comments. Any council members that would like to share a few words and I want to offer the chief an opportunity to share a few words from his heart and from ours to you. The city of Denton expresses its gratitude to you, Warren Lee Howell , for devotion and invaluable service to the citizens of Denton serving from February 1981 through December 2004 and October 2011 through July 2018 as an employee of the city of Denton police department. Employees such as you are a valued asset to our community. Your contributions to the city of Denton are greatly appreciated. Well, chief, I certainly want to say thank you for your service, not just as chief over the last few years, but just in the community. You served this community pretty much most of your adult life in one form or another in the capacity of law enforcement. Thank you so much. Thank you for putting your life on the line so that we can be safe. And I know you're going to continue to do that and just wish you all the best. And I so enjoyed getting to know you as our chief and as a person. So thank you so much for the example that you led in this city and that you continue to lead. So I want to congratulate you. Thank you, chief, so much for your service. You bet. Anybody else have anything to say? So just want to want to echo that and say thank you to think about it. Taking a force from when we had a few body cameras to everybody having a body camera and just the job has changed quite a bit and you adjusted well and led those in a representative of kind of just a great strong unit that you leave behind to appreciate your leadership and those kind of foundations you laid because I know that comes with a lot of hard work behind the scenes that I'm sure we don't know about a lot of blood , sweat and tears that kind of pour into making that foundation solid so that we benefit going forward. So thank you for that. Yes, Councilmember Briggs. Hi, chief. So I want to let you know that I really appreciated your calm presence and your steady hand as you led our community and the relationships that you built with this council and the community members. I truly thank you for your service and I wish you well on your journey. Chief Hall, I want to share a story that I often tell that shows how special you are and how lucky we've been as a city to have you as our police chief. After Senate Bill 4, there was a lot of uncertainty in the community. Families had many questions, were very concerned. You gave a town hall meeting here. It was packed. The room was packed and there was a lot of worry in that room, a lot of tension and many questions and you answered every single one of those questions. And for some of the questions, the answer was, I don't know, because they were questions about what will happen in the future. And I heard as I was leaving, two mothers were speaking and they were saying to each other that they would be able to sleep for the first time that night, through the night, because they could tell that you cared. And they -- excuse me. Sorry. But anyway, thank you, thank you. That's really -- that's something that's hard to -- when looking for a replacement, it's -- you definitely can't tell that on paper, you know? But we're going to do a lot of looking into the eyes of the finalists who come and seeing if we can kind of read their souls through their eyes and tell that they care. That's extremely rare and we've been very blessed to have you and thank you. Anybody? Yes, of course. [Applause] I don't have another story to add, but I definitely want to reinforce, you know, and add just my appreciation for your having been a humane, caring, principled voice with -- you know, for the police force and for the community's needs. You'll be very much missed. Anybody else? Yes, Councilmember Duff. Yeah, I just want to give you my appreciation. I haven't worked with you all that long, but you've been very receptive to any comments that I had and we really -- we're going to miss you. Yes. Anybody else? All right. Chief, you want to say a few words? Thank you. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, each and everyone in the council members. I have -- appreciate the comments. I have tried very hard to be the police chief to everybody in the community and be very fair and do the best job I could. The League of Police Department is in excellent shape. I see some of the personnel up here at the back of the room where they normally stand, at the back of any room, but they are tremendous professionals and I've been very proud to be part of the police department for over half my life. So I appreciate the support the council has given the police department and the confidence and trust that you've had in me. Don't leave lightly, but I've spent over half my life in service to the City of Denton, so I feel like it's time to try something a little different. So thank you very much and I'm always available for consultation if you need me. [Applause] Mayor Summer Youth Program, come on down if you're a participant in the Mayor Summer Youth Program. How are you? Good to see you. How are y'all? Good to see you again. Oh yeah, they showed up. Fantastic. What I'll do is read the pro clamation here in a moment, but I want to take a time just to have you introduce yourself and tell us where you served, you know, what job you had during the summer. Hi everyone, I'm Natalie Parks and I was in the sustainability department this summer. Hi everyone, my name is Sostika Saw and I was in the finance department this summer. Hi, I'm Isla Evans and I was in the utilities department. Hi, I'm Catherine Leroux and I work for the Denton Public Library in the family Fowler Branch. I'm Matilda Watson and I worked for Parks and Recreation Center. I'm Elise Colmance and I worked for Animal Services. I'm Sammy Puente and I worked for South Branch Library. Hi, I'm Hedy Poston and I worked for Reprographics. Hi, I'm Valerie Puente and I worked for Human Resources. I'm Alicia McElroy , I'm the director of education and workforce initiatives at United Way of Denton County and I helped to coordinate Mayor Summer Youth Jobs Program. Hi, I'm Charlie Rosendahl with the City of Denton and I helped run the program from the City of Denton side. You know, a little history about the program. When I first got elected, I attended a U.S. Conference of Mayors workshop and they talked about the Mayor's Summer Youth Job Programs that they had in other cities. Now, these other cities were like Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., some of these large cities and they would have thousands, literally thousands of students who participated. And it sort of was overwhelming to me at first but I thought, well, let 's just talk about it here at the City of Denton. In partnership with United Way, with the Chamber of Commerce, with Denton Independent School District, we were able to come up with a program that fit Denton size and we've had about, started out with about 15 or 11, went to about 30, we're about 20, so we're averaging about 25 to 30 each summer and it gives these students an opportunity to gain some experience, to earn some money, to receive some mentoring and just to really broaden their horizons and maybe give them some opportunity to know what they might want to do and also, just as important, what they might not want to do. So, and we have several more that we're unable to make it tonight but we certainly want to congratulate them as well so thank you all for participating. How many of you are, is this your first year to participate? Okay, and so the rest are repeats? Fantastic, fantastic. So this is a proclamation by the Mayor of the City of Denton, Texas, whereas in the summer of 2018, the City of Denton, United Way of Denton County, Denton Chamber of Commerce and Denton Independent School District continued their partnership to support the Mayor's Summer Youth Jobs Program and whereas working a summer job as a young adult is a rite of passage that provides valuable experience to prepare young people for their future careers and whereas providing summer jobs to the youth and community is important in establishing professional and personal character for young people in developing the leaders of tomorrow and whereas 24 students were placed in jobs in the City of Denton organization and throughout the community and whereas these students committed eight weeks of their time to performing jobs, learning about various career fields and developing professional skills that will serve them as they enter adulthood. Now therefore, I, Chris Watts, Mayor of the City of Denton, Texas, do hereby proclaim August the 7th, 2018 as the Mayor's Summer Youth Jobs Program Day here in the City of Denton and ask all residents to honor the 2018 participants of the Mayor's Summer Youth Jobs Program for all their accomplishments and admirable representation of Denton. Let's give them a warm welcome. One more. Yes, introduce yourself and where were you employed? Well my name is Cody Perez and I employed at Fleet Services and yeah, it was wonderful working there. I mean, I don't know what to say after that. Thank you. I appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you. Well thank you all so much and for those who are, how many of you are graduating? Graduating seniors? Yeah, okay. Well just did, yeah. Yeah, that's good . Well, Godspeed on your journey wherever it takes you and for those who are still in high school, don't hesitate to reapply for next year. So thank you all again so much. Let's give them one more round of applause. Denton Farmers Market Week. Come on up. Introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about Denton Farmers Market Week. Hello, I'm Vicki Oppenheim. I'm the Executive Director of the Denton Community Market and yeah, we're here today to celebrate the National Farmers Market Week and particularly in Denton. We've had a great year with our farmers. We have about 30 agricultural producers at the market and we have some of the highest standards in DFW for our farmers. They're all sustainably, they sustainably produce everything that they sell and they 're producer only markets so we don't allow any... So we're very proud of our standards and through our Denton Community Market Certified Farmers Program. So it's really a celebration of everything that we've been doing with our farmers. And here's Rachel Weaver. Thanks. I'm Rachel Weaver. I'm the vendor coordinator with the Denton Community Market and I just really enjoy working with all the local vendors who bring all sorts of interesting things every week. So we're open every Saturday, 8 a.m. to noon during the summer and after September 9 a.m. to 1 on Saturdays at the Denton County Historical Park. Fantastic. Thank you. This is a proclamation by the Mayor of the City of Denton, whereas Denton and surrounding area farmers and ranchers provide citizens with access to healthy, excuse me, healthful, locally and regionally produced foods through farmers markets, which are expanding and evolving to accommodate the demand for a diverse array of agricultural products. Whereas local sustainable produce food and social interactions are important motivations for attending the Denton Community Market. And whereas farmers markets and other agricultural direct marketing outlets provide infrastructure to assist in the distribution of farm and value added products, thereby contributing approximately $9 billion each year to the U.S. economy. Farmers markets and other agricultural direct marketing outlets provide infrastructure to assist in the distribution of farm and value added products, thereby contributing approximately $9 billion each year to the U.S. economy. And whereas farmers markets serve as a significant outlets by which small to medium, new beginning and veteran agricultural producers market agricultural products, generating revenue that supports the sustainability of the family farms and the revitalization of rural communities nationwide. And whereas the City of Denton recognizes the importance of expanding agricultural marketing opportunities that assist and encourage the next generation of farmers and ranchers, generate farm income to help stimulate business development, job creation, build community connections through rural and urban linkages and more. Now therefore, I, Chris Watts, Mayor of the City of Denton, Texas, do hereby declare and proclaim that August the 5th through August the 11th, 2018, be known as Denton Farmers Market Week and encourage Denton citizens to celebrate farmers markets in the city and county wide and join in this observation and activities. Thank you all so much for what you bring to our community. Those who will be involved in this proclamation for the Emily Fowler Library staff heroism I'm not going to try to restate. I'm just going to, the facts are in the proclamation and I think it speaks well for itself. So I just, I just want to honor y'all with reading this proclamation. Then we have some, some other people who 'd like to speak. This is a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton, Texas. Whereas on Thursday, July the 12th, 2018, Denton Public Library staff members demonstrated bravery, teamwork and heroism by taking action in a life threatening situation at Emily F owler Central Library. And while performing library duties, Robert Mitchell, Isaac Serna and Catherine Estill noticed an unconscious man on a bench outside the library. And whereas they alerted Kimberly Wells, who put out a call to action and joined them to check on the citizen while Isaac Serna provided updates on the situation to 911 operators. And where staff assessed the situation and noticed the citizen was not breathing and was unresponsive. Robert Mitchell began CPR with the assistance of Catherine Estill while Laura Douglas brought and operated, operated the library's AED device. And whereas these library staff members selflessly and without hesitation use their CPR and first aid training to save the life of a Denton citizen. Now therefore I, Chris Watts, mayor of the city of Denton, Texas, do hereby proclaim August the 7th, today, 2018, as the Emily Fowler Library staff heroism day in the city of Denton and ask all residents to honor those who went above and beyond to exhibit such heroism and bravery to save a life. Let's give them a warm welcome. I believe, I believe Chief Hedges, our Fire Chief, has some additional comments. Thank you, Mayor. So as Fire Chief, I'd just like to talk briefly about how impactful the actions of this team before you actually were. I mean, we know the result of saving a life, but let me just give you a few details. So 350,000 people experience sudden cardiac arrest each year. Survival of sudden cardiac arrest begins with the first responder or the lay rescue, these people before you. So before you humbly question your involvement of the rescue of this individual, you should also be aware of the following. Statistics show survival rate of 31% with bystander assistance in the form of CPR or AED. Without bystander assistance, that survival rate drops to 11%. Sadly, less than 50% of the people in need of CPR receive that care even when the cardiac event is witnessed. I would like to reiterate the proclamation. Your team was heroic in recognizing the patient's need for assistance. You were brave enough to act upon the situation and provide CPR. The teamwork you displayed to expedite care, including notifying 911, led to quicker advance care by EMS. That is exactly why the Denton Fire Department exists, to save life and property. Your team today displayed the traits and values of the Denton Fire Department, and I would like to present each one of you with the Denton Fire Department Citizens Life-Saving Award. [applause] Thank you. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next agenda item is presentations from the members of the public. If we could roll the tape for 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. >> Our first speaker is Layla Comings. Come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. >> My name is Layla Comings. I'm 1740 Car us Lane, 76266. And I'm a volunteer here in Denton. And actually I brought a video if it's okay, I would like to direct your attention to the screen. I'm on a short time. >> My name is Layla Comings and I'm a volunteer and coordinating member of an outreach team led by Wayne Alishire. We directly serve low income families and children as well as our local homeless population. A few months ago, my friend T anya Anderson and I drove to Austin, Texas for a street retreat sponsored by Community First Village. They sent us into the streets of Austin with not much more than a sleeping bag and a water bottle for three days in order to experience homelessness firsthand for ourselves. But the experience taught us things you can't see in pictures, like how differently people treat you when you're homeless or how much anxiety comes from not having access to a bathroom. Businesses with public restrooms often won't allow a homeless person to use their facility. And when I woke up at 5 a.m. on the sidewalk, the only option was a porta potty. But when I got there, it was padlocked. We literally had no choice but to find a shrub. We also didn't anticipate how heat exhausted, dirty, smelly, and disgusting we would be before our first 24 hours on the street. I had to wash in a slimy creek. I had blisters the size of walnuts on my feet already. We walked and walked and walked. You go into survival mode within just a few hours on the streets. And at one point, all I wanted to do was sit and rest in a public park. My guide said not to get too comfortable because the police usually purge the homeless people from there when they come by. But in that moment, I was thinking , "Nuh-uh, I don't think so. I'm going to sit right here, let them try to make me leave. Only 24 hours on the street." And my mind was stretched enough to try to take on the police. And by day two, I woke up wishing I had a beer. I don't even drink. But it seemed like it might make me hurt a little less. The thought of facing another day out there was just that agonizing. I felt like an outcast, invisible, worthless, depressed, sick and tired, and I'd only been homeless less than 48 hours. I simply couldn't imagine myself being hired for a new job in that condition either. I discovered there's really no place a homeless person is allowed to be except the library. You aren't allowed to exist anywhere else, especially after dark. How is it that we think we can take away a person's right to freely occupy each and every sort of space available out of doors when they don't have a house and the shelter is full? We met a few other people who were homeless out there. Each had a different story to tell. And I found they only had one thing in common other than homelessness, and that was trauma. Each one had suffered major trauma as a child or in a war. Homeless people are called lazy all the time. But it was impossible to be lazy out there. The people we met weren't lazy. They were broken. William's father pimped him out to pedophiles at 10 years old. Wheelchair Mike was a disabled vet who had served three tours of duty. Rebecca grew up watching her mother make bestiality porn for a living. By the time we returned to the village, 48 hours felt more like a month. The streets were a living hell and the village was like heaven. Homeless people aren't the problem. They're a result of the problem. Community First Village is now the largest community-based model in the country. They have found a successful solution to permanently house hundreds of their displaced citizens. Four minutes is not enough time for me to outline all the details, but I brought the ULI case study for review. It's just food for thought. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Rhonda Love. You'll come down and state your name and address. My name is Rhonda Love. I live at 1921 Holly Hill Lane in Denton. I'm going to speak to you both personally and as a professional in public health. I have a family member who recently died. It's my brother. He was almost 80 and was living in a VA facility in Bonham. This is relevant because my brother had at one time in his life been a dentist with a highly successful practice in Saginaw, owned a home on Eagle Mountain Lake, had four children, and was by all accounts a successful member of the community. In about 1975, bipolar illness took him over and he became someone else. As part of that, he also became homeless for eight full years. We did not know where he was. We were, of course, quite worried and terrified. Then when we did find out where he was and he was able to come home, he spent the rest of his life from his mid-30s to his 80s, almost 80 , inadequately housed. We did everything a family could do. One of the reasons that I really care about the establishment of a center like has been proposed to Denton. Other reasons that I care has a lot to do with my professional life as an academic public health teacher and researcher. In that capacity, I learned a lot about other organizations like the World Health Organization, which has a framework called Social Determinants of Health. I suggest that everyone familiarize themselves with that concept. One of the major social determinants of health of a population is homelessness and housing in general, but being homeless or inadequately housed is a major determinant of illness. Another important resource is called Healthy People 2020. I have listed these resources in the paper that I have handed out to you. This paper points out that homelessness is a major health risk, particularly for children whose mothers are homeless, especially if those mothers have been homeless for six months or more. The children have a 250 percent increased risk of poor health and a 118 percent increased risk of developmental problems. I also want to call to your attention a group called the Canadian Homelessness Research Network. Many of the people involved with this network were either students in the program that I was part of or colleagues, since that's why I know so much about it. I know that you are interested in what are called best practices and will be attempting to look at that in this whole homelessness issue. I want to tell you that they talk about best practices, emergency practices, and promising practices. They make a differentiation among all of those. Those differentiations are important. I urge you to learn more about these distinctions and ask staff. You'll find there's very few truly best practices because that requires experimental or quasi-experimental designs. Most of what we have are called promising or emerging practices. That is, different kinds of research have been done about, but not enough to tell you for sure that things are generalizable. You know from what you've learned already that Texas and other cities, cities in Texas and in the US, have programs like the one that's being brought to you for your consideration. It's enough to be said about those to show that these programs do alleviate the effect of homelessness on a population. I would simply like to say that both as a person, an individual who has seen the effects of mental health and homelessness on not just my family of origin, but all the family members. And as a public health professional, I urge you to support this center. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The next speaker is Wayne. Is it Al Scherrer? Hello, my name is Wayne Al Scherrer. I reside at 8980 East wood Avenue, Crossroads. First of all, I want to say thank you for allowing us to speak. We've been working with the homeless actually Bridge and Hope Ministries for the past three years. And one of the things that I know that's a concern is what's going to happen if we do this transitional housing. One of the things that I ask that we can be concerned about is what's going to happen if we don't do a transitional housing. I've actually personally had three homeless people that we lost due to homelessness. One of them being Manning . He was living under a bridge and the water came and swept him away. One lady was able to survive because she was a little bit stronger, but Manning was very weak and frail and wasn't able to survive those floods. Another gentleman known as Turtle, he was social anxiety so he wouldn't go to the shelters because he was claustrophobic. He didn't want to be around others. So he was in a tent. The temperature dropped to 17 degrees. He froze to death in his tent and he was found by another homeless gentleman. I knew him very well. We spoke for hours at a time. His mother and father drove 18 hours from Indiana to collect his ashes because they didn't want to receive his ashes in the mail. With that opportunity I was able to actually show them where the camp stop was and there was some closure that they had. One of the things that I've realized working with the homeless is they're somebody's father, they're somebody's son, they're somebody's brother, they're humans. We have established relationships with these people and we've gained their trust because we've been consistently going out there every Sunday. I hear them say it every Sunday. For that brief moment that we're there, they feel accepted, they feel loved, and they feel like they're part of a community. With this transitional housing facility, it 's going to give them a place where they feel like they're safe, where they feel like they can at least get a good night's rest. They're going to have a place to shower. They're going to have a place to use the restroom. They're going to feel like, you know what, I'm a part of a community. I'm not being rejected anymore. I pray and I urge you please support this center because we know the results of if we don't have something available, we know what's going to happen. Winter's coming and once again we're going to be faced with the same situation that we were faced with last year. Someone is going to possibly die because of the environment that they're having to live in. I'm not going to take up all the time. I just wanted to once again thank you guys for allowing us to speak. I pray that we have y'all support in this. It's a go for everybody. It's a win-win. One of the things I always say is together we can make a difference. It's everybody working together and putting the resources together and bringing even the community. I'm also networking with other churches . We have other churches that come out there and they're part of it. It's not what we're doing. It's what we're doing together and we really truly are making a difference. If you want to see the difference that's being made, I invite you to come out every Sunday at 3 o'clock at Quaker Town Park and you're going to see the homeless that are there. We're playing football. We're playing games and we're just having a great time and they feel the love and acceptance. Thank you. >> Councilmember Briggs, I believe, has a comment or question. Thank you for what you and your ministry are doing. Can you just give us an estimation on how many individuals you feed every Sunday? >> Well, when we started this in October we were feeding 10. Now every Sunday we feed about 100 or more . The word gets out and everybody shows up and we give out feminine products, clothes. This past week I actually had a homeless person that they went and collected clothes and brought to the park so they could give to other homeless people that were out there. It's a community that we're -- and they're building a community within their cell. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Next speaker is Jane Piper-Lunt regarding transitional housing. >> While I'm getting this set up I want to say that Robert and Leslie Trice saved my life when I had a heart attack at Emily Fallon. So I really appreciate them. >> Name and address too, please. >> Hold on. I have a PowerPoint and I'm trying to get it going here. >> Thanks. I'll just need to -- >> Yep. >> Okay. I'm Jane Piper-Lunt. I live at 1205 North Austin. We have an exciting proposition for you. The purpose of the Denton Basic Service Center is to build transitional housing that our town lacks while people wait for permanent housing. Our goal is to get as many people off the street as quickly as possible. Not to be confused with tent cities, almost all established transitional villages started out with tents because it's the quickest, cheapest way to create a community that can then participate in the building of transitional dwellings. When our displaced neighbors are able to connect as a community along with the general community on the building of their own homes, they invest in a place that they care for and protect, gain valuable trade and social skills, have mentors who they know care and are there for them, give them purpose and rebuilds their self-esteem which is damaged on the street. When we talked to staff about renting land from the city, we were given a list of city-owned property and we found what we think is the ideal place. It 's conveniently located near downtown at the dead end of a light industrial area less ening the NIMBY factor. It has the acreage to build 120 to 150 dwellings. As we walked it, we found it might be pretty expensive to prepare the site but when we looked at a piece of property directly across the street which is level, possibly has water and sewer lines, it's already fenced on two sides yet much smaller. Meeting with a contractor who's with Ditton Permaculture, he showed us that by starting out with small pilot program on that lot, we can use permaculture techniques to prepare the other site in an inexpensive environmentally friendly self-sustaining way. This way we can build close to 200 dwellings. The project agrees with housing first philosophy that stabilizing a person's life with a place to live is the first step in transitioning towards healing. Couple this with supportive self-governing community and local health agencies that deal, that healing is much quicker. Residents with the support of overseeing organization establish rules, duties and discipline. We are also willing to take on and run the city's employee to empower work program therefore not only giving shelter but income to some of the residents and help in supporting the village by redirecting some of the administrative costs back into the community. With little effort we have collected close to 153 letters of support from citizens, businesses and our displaced neighbors. We have not raised money yet until we have the land. Once we have that we will start grassroots fundraising, collect materials and apply for non-government grants. These kinds of villages have garnered national and international publicity as creative effective way to help lessen the affordable housing crisis and when cities acclaim as proactive participants in the care of their low income community. Our proposal has two different scenarios, a high end proposal going straight to prefab cedar dwellings based on the proposed site estimated at $221,000 which requires substantial investment from the city. The other preferable plan starts out with tents on platforms that will be built into more substantial dwellings from recycled donated and low cost materials. Both will be fenced with a security entrance, have some type of community bathroom covered meeting and cooking areas, a water source, trash pickup, eventually showers, washers and dryers will carry the liability insurance. We are asking the city to rent us these two properties at a very low price to rave off these, help us with a special use permit and navigate codes, any in kind donation of surplus supplies and the money to get us started, the in line budget is on the proposal and discounts on services such as trash pickup. Thank you. Council member Melzer. Mr. City Manager, I read in the Friday report that there's a shelter planning work group that's being organized by city staff with a long list of potential organizations to be part of kind of devising a long term strategic plan to address unhoused people. I would just offer as a suggestion that this group might be part of that in order to evaluate what role a solution like this might play in our overall strategic plan for addressing the problem. And I want to disclose that I'm a former board member of that organization. Council member Amater. Thank you. And I want to disclose too that I also am a former board member of that organization. I have three interrelated and thank you by the way for those of you who presented. Three requested staff reports, two of which I think would fit in with this upcoming work session. One would be a separate matter for another time. So for the upcoming work session, I would like to see a cost estimate for what staff would imagine as a Denton version of this, the Austin community first village, whatever that might be, however staff might interpret it just to get the ball rolling and to compare a plan like that to a plan like this. And I want us to also look into the possibility of a plan that is entirely funded by the city and to explore what the pros and cons would be of partnering with a nonprofit versus taking this on entirely on our own. And related to that, I'd like to know about this particular site at Texas and Riddell if that could somehow be part of that work session as well. So those two are related to the work session. The third one is related to Ms. Comien's part of her presentation and this has to do with criminal trespassing law. So I guess that this would be a staff report, something in an upcoming Friday report from our legal department. But I have often wondered in doing research not being able to come up with a conclusive answer as to how it can be criminal trespassing when it's a public park. And if I'm in a public park after 10 p.m., will I be arrested for criminal tresp assing or is that some other charge for curfew violation? I'm concerned about the way criminal trespassing laws so often end up affecting our neighbors who are experiencing homelessness. So those are my three requests. Thanks. Thank you. Councilmember Briggs. I just want to say thank you for coming and all of you for speaking. We appreciate you coming and showing your heart and your care and concern for our vulnerable population. And I think there's many ways that council can help, hopefully. But I just wanted to ask the city manager to let us know what kind of process we can have to keep this discussion moving forward. Some of the ideas were pretty good but just so that this gets on some sort of future topic of discussion. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. We have a couple of open mic requests to speak. Janice Hunt, if you'll come down and state your name and address, your time will begin. Hello. My name is Janice Hunt. My address is 2100 Spencer Road, number 3511, Denton, Texas 76205. And I myself have been very concerned with the homeless situation anywhere and everywhere when I my daughter was a year old. I was living in San well I wasn't living there. I was out in California and then I ended up homeless with my ex-hus band and our daughter who was a year old. I found a couple of plasma banks where I started to sell plasma. I was using this arm twice a week at one plasma center and this arm once a week at the other one. I only got $7 back then. That's all you got. So there was a movie theater where you would pay a dollar and they would run the same two movies all night long. And I would tie my daughter to me and that's how I slept. Anyhow I did make it out of that. And then there was another time while I was living in Hawaii I was homeless for about three weeks there. I would say if you're going to be homeless do it there. But aside from all of that there are a few things that I still have concerns for when it comes to the homeless like I know one gal she's a student at UNT and yet she's homeless and I know there's several others. There's also another girl who chooses to be homeless. She gets more than $3,000 a month but she's I can't remember if it's Army or anyhow she was a medevac. I think during the Kuwait war she gave 12 years of service. She had her partner blown up in front of her. I know she has issues and yet she chooses to be homeless. So for these individuals I have concerns that there's got to be something else also. A step that might help well and I noticed that when they were building the tiny house with the tent inside that was kind of then going in the direction if we had a campground that was designed and built similar to a national park campground or something where it had the bathrooms, had the dumpsters then I think that at least that way homeless people could have a place to sleep because otherwise as it is it's illegal for them to sleep. I mean that's part of what being human is. You have to sleep and yet if they sleep anywhere they get in trouble and then after a while they have a criminal record and who wants to rent to a criminal record you know a person with a criminal record. So if we had a campground I think that would also then help transition those who are homeless into the homes and for those who choose not to be at least they have a place that's safe and legal for them. That's pretty much it. Thank you. Thank you for speaking and sharing your experience. I would also like to add to that same work session or request for and this could be included in writing or as part of the backup or presentation just looking into the possibility of what would be involved in sanctioning and cleaning up any of our existing camp grounds because I don't know if that's something you would like to speak to if you're aware of that we do have people who are already living outside. Councilmember Armentor I hate to interrupt but this is the open mic portion and since we have no advanced knowledge and the public is an advanced knowledge of what the speakers are going to be talking about it only applies to section 3B is what was designed so that you could ask questions and ask for additional work session topics. I apologize. New councilmember my bad sorry. I just wanted to add that I do have a proposal that I've almost got complete that I will then give to the City Council. Thank you. Alright the next speaker on open mic is Mr. Willie Hutzpeth . Come down and state your name and address. Your time will begin. Mayor you have given out awards. I think I need an award for when councilmember Hutzpeth was seven years old I kept him anyway. My name is Willie Hutzpeth. I live at 623 Newton. I want to define for you white privilege. This is my definition of what I've experienced. An individual with a certain hue or tone or color is afforded a certain position and relation and reaction to that color of the skin. That's positive. Then I want to talk about the fire department here in Denton. I'm going to bring back the next time I come some data. One how long has Dent on been in existence? When did it first when was it created or whatever they would call became a city? How many African Americans has there been on the fire department in the fire department that data? Then I want to leave with you the same question that I've been asking since 1989. Why don't we have African American firefighters? Each council has passed that on. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. Let me tell you something. It doesn 't look good. Something's wrong with that picture. The other frustrating part about this whole process is the association of the firemen, they campaign to keep it like it is. Notice the only vote or recommend or support candidates who are already on the city council. Let's think a minute. If they're already on the city council, then they've proven or they've shown that they think that's okay to continue this procedure of not hiring African Americans. Now I talked about women too early on in the '89, '90s. Then you hired some women. Then I talked about Hispanics. You hired some Hispanics too. Boy, but my race ... One of my friends said, well, he 's an ex-friend now. He said, they just don't want to be hose draggers. That's what they call the fire. They don't want to ... Hawkwash. I've actually been with guys who tried to get into the city as a firefighter and they couldn't. It was just blocked in several ways. I 've got the question. I'm going to present the question to you again as an African American with no white privilege. Why in the world don't you hire African Americans firemen? What is the problem? I know what the problem is. I'm stating it publicly so that it will be printed somewhere and others will start maybe asking the question too. Why don't you hire African Americans? It's a segregated place. None of the firemen speak about it either. Not one. Not one fireman that's hired now talks about it. Not one. That association most certainly doesn't talk about it. Something's wrong. I want you to look at it, figure out what it is, and I will be back here every meeting asking the same question. Why can't African Americans be firemen? My granddaughters said that they want to be a fireman. I said not indenting you on them, not unless you change your color. All right. We'll move on to the next item on the agenda, consent agenda. Council Member Briggs. I'll recommend approval. Council Member Ryan. I'll second. We have a motion and a second for the consent agenda. Let's vote on the board please. Motion carries 7-0. Next item is items for individual consideration. Consider adoption of an ordinance directing the public of notice of intention to issue $31,810,000 in principles of certificates of obligation. And we do have a card wishing to speak on this, so we'll have staff report and then before we take discussion, we'll have the public comment. Mayor, City Council, Tony Puente, Director of Finance, I have just a very short presentation that I'll go through on this particular item. So state law requires that we publish a notice of intention , which is what we're doing today. There's a requirement that we publish that for two consecutive weeks in the local paper. We must -- Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Another requirement is also that we must wait 31 days before the council considers approving a bond ordinance and approving the actual sale. That during that 30-day wait period, the purpose of that is that there could be a petition to require that these be taken to the voters for a vote, very similar to what we do on when we issue GEO bonds. July 17th, July -- on August 2nd, the council also considered the particular projects that are being recommended as part of this notice. The maximum principal amount being recommended is 31.81 million. That's 31.655 million to actually fund the projects, an additional 155,000 for the cost of issuance on those bonds. Right here you have the actual projects that are being recommended. And just really quickly, I'll go through that list. 6.5 million approximately for the radio system replacement that's primarily used by public safety. 500,000 for design of Fire Station 8. The construction will actually come at a later time. 4.5 million for rehabilitation of the service center. 3.25 million for small transportation projects across the city. $5 million. This is our match to fund the Mayhill Bridge at DC TA Crossing. 620,000 to complete the Fire Range project. 1.3 million for various street reconstruction projects, road projects at the airport. And then 9.8 million to complete projects from the 2012 and 2014 bond programs. Next step, if this item is considered and approved tonight, the council will then consider the actual bond ordinance on September 11th after that 31- day period, wait period. The plan tentatively is to actually sell the bonds on September 12th with delivery of proceeds on September 28th. That concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to ask any questions you may have. >> Yeah, I was going to take the citizen first. >> Thank you. Mr. Willie Hutsmith, state your name and address. Your time will begin. >> My name is Willie Hutsmith, I live at 623 Newton. I can 't believe you're going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. And I'm going to suggest that. >> I'm going to suggest that. 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