Oct 12, 2021 City Council on 2021-10-12 2:00 PM (SPECIAL CALLED MEETING)

Hello and welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council. It is 2-0-1 and we do have a quorum, so today is the 12th of October, 2-1. So I'll call the meeting to order and the first thing is citizen comments. Do we have any citizen comments? No sir, there are no callers for Consent Agenda. Thank you very much. So then that'll take us to questions for staff on Consent Agenda. Councilmember Beck? Thank you Mr. Mayor. Could we get the item E pulled for discussion out of consent and into individual consideration? This is about the Denton County Appraisal District nominees. And then I have a question on I. Okay sir, are you requesting a presentation if so over what, with respect to E? That's an excellent question. If we could just remind everyone who the slate of nominees and current people are, like one slide would be sufficient. And you said item I? Yes, just a short question on the fire truck. Okay. So who, if Chief or someone on the line that can answer a question about item I? Christine or Chief? Mr. Mayor, this is Assistant Chief Cox, can you hear me? Yes sir, thank you. Okay, I'm available. Okay, Councilmember Beck? Excellent, thank you so much. This enforcer pumper truck that we're replacing because it was in an accident, I guess my question isn't so much on this exact item, but for this item and for future items, how do these large trucks, or do we mostly use them on our large arterials and highways where I guess this one was in an accident? Are these also going down into the smaller residential streets and if so, are there issues with these large trucks on the smaller residential streets? Sir, no, all our fire engines go on all the streets in the city of Denton and they provide blocking on our major highways and so forth. We have never had any issues getting down our small streets with the size of our fire engines. All right, well that answers my question. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, Councilmember Guara? I'd like to recuse from item L please. All right, so we'll pull item L, no presentation needed. Okay, any other questions? Councilmember Davis? Thank you, Mayor. I was on the board to pull L for recusal as well, but that's our taking care. Thank you. Okay, any other questions for staff? Okay, seeing none. That concludes that segment of the agenda. Takes us to our first work session item, so let me get there and I'll call that. That is ID 211802, Receive Report, Hold Discussion, Give Staff Direction regarding the Audit Project 006. Your one away, 007. I'm going to present our findings from this follow up review, here we go, which was the follow up of the Auditor of Roadway Quality Management, which was originally issued in October of 2019. So just as a reminder, follow up reviews are intended to provide information on what changes have been made in response to an issued audit. So this review was based on the recommendations and management responses originally compiled in the Roadway Quality Management audit. And that audit focused on roadway maintenance and improvements completed by the city streets division. So capital projects were covered by a separate audit, and we'll come back to you at a different time with those follow ups. So in general, the review found that significant improvements had been made to work order data consistency and street rehabilitation bond program administration, and in addition, most improvements to streets rehabilitation project quality controls are implemented. So just to begin, the original audit found that in-house construction quality documentation was generally lacking, including missing geotechnical testing and inspection reports, as well as missing documented approval for changes to the construction activity that was recommended by the geotechnical engineer. Since then, the division has established and formalized a change order process for approving design adjustments to in-house street rehabilitation projects, and is about to begin having the public works inspections division inspect in-house street rehabilitation projects. And that inspection process, while it hasn't started, will kind of follow the inspection process that happens for capital projects. The division has also defined a records retention system for these projects to help ensure the reference quality reports are not lost, and based on a review of eight reconstruction projects, all six that were completed after 2019 have retained geotechnical reports. So in addition, the original audit found that the city was appropriately accounting for and reporting bond program progress. However, the finance department was accounting for 2012 and 2014 bond revenues in a commingled fund. The city has since begun accounting for 2019 bond revenues in a separate fund, helping to improve transparency and facilitate reporting. The original audit also found that future bond programs should include street connectors in the planning process to enhance coordination between the streets and the city's utilities, and street connectors are kind of the streets in between those that were identified for reconstruction that typically also there was going to be utility construction, and so we didn't want to have to ... Basically, they didn't want the street utilities to come tear up that road right after they had just reconstructed it, so trying to get rid of that issue. And furthermore, the division has developed a process to link different work orders under one project in the work order system, which further facilitates the tracking of bond expenses and activities. Next, as part of the original audit, we found that the streets division generally had a well-designed pavement monitoring system. However, some data issues existed, including incorrect install and replace dates and inconsistent work order entry. Since the audit, the division has corrected an issue in the work order system, so that now ensures that assets are updated with a replacement date whenever a reconstruction work order is complete. In addition, they have asked the city's pavement assessment contractor to estimate the install date of all the city's street segments, so that'll help know how old streets are basically. The division has also trained its field crew members in June of 2020 on how to complete work orders. This training has significantly improved the percentage of work orders with complete information as detailed in the table on the slide. Lastly, the original audit identified some compliance issues with procurement regulations, as well as some redundancy in the division's organizational structure. And based on the results of the follow-up review, these issues have been resolved. So in summary, we found that most of the recommendations issued as part of the original roadway quality management audit were implemented, with only one recommendation still in progress. Based on these results, we do not plan to perform an additional formal follow-up review, but we'll let council know when the remaining recommendation is implemented in a future Friday report. And now drop this for questions. - Great. Thank you very much. Questions for staff. Councilman Vett. - Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I really love that they've come a long way and hit most of those points. Just a few exceptions. I think that's great. It shows the power of self-review and auditing and looking at that. A couple of questions I couldn't really tell from the report. Maybe you can clarify or maybe we can consider adding it to future audits when we revisit this. It wasn't clear to me that this audit, was this just a repair or was it repair and replacement? - It was the repairs and replacement of roads conducted by the streets division of the city. - So full deconstruction and reconstruction was also part of this? - Right. But they typically do smaller projects instead of, you know, like they're not going to, the in-house crews are not going to go redo Mayhill, but they do go subdue some residential streets. - Excellent. Excellent. That's what I thought about. I wanted to make sure. As part of this, for our internal review, I know that when we're looking for like the number of capital projects, we see how many contractors are available and what sort of equipment needs are across the North Texas. But for our local smaller in-house, do we look at the number? I assume the answer is yes, but did your audit include the number of projects and sort of an assessment of how thinly we can stretch ourselves? - I think I understand your question. The original audit looked at that. This follow-up review really, follow-up reviews are just focused on the recommendations and how they've been implemented. So I believe the original audit looked at what you're talking about. - All right. I'll go back and review that then. And well, actually that answer is probably going to be the same answer for my other questions. So I'll stop for now. Thank you. - Okay. Any other questions for staff? Seeing none. Thank you very much. - Thank you. - Okay. It takes us to item B, which is ID 212212, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the city manager recruitment process. - Good afternoon, mayor, council, Tiffany Thompson, director of HR, here today to get your direction on a selection of a recruiter for the city manager position. In the legal status report that went out last Friday, we had sent all of the proposals that we got back. We did seek out proposals from 11 companies. We got four proposals back. So today I have before you the four that did put in. I wanted to go over just some high-level details and then answer any questions that you may have. - So are you sharing your screen already or? - In my mind, yes. - Got it. - I was absolutely sharing. All right. Better? Here we go. I feel you wanting to come over here. Perfect. Thank you. So the four proposals that we got back were for Baker-Tilley CCM advisors, GovHR and Slavin management consultants. On Baker-Tilley, they are currently doing our recruitment for economic development director and we would be subject to a 10% discount on that one as well, since we have another recruitment process going on. They've done over 70 city manager recruitments. They also offer a community engagement component if council wants to do that with this position. For CCM advisors, they are a newer company that started in 2020. They do not have any experience at this time with city management recruitments. GovHR that you're familiar with, we just finished the city attorney recruitment process with them. They also have done over 70 city manager recruitments. They also do a community engagement component if council wishes to do that. And then Slavin management consultants, they've done 19 city manager recruitments. And so based off of that, Baker-Tilley and GovHR, I feel you're strong top two to consider, but absolutely happy to answer any questions and seeking your direction on a firm. Okay. And is there any insight you'd share about either one experiences, obviously, is there anything you'd add before we? Absolutely. I've worked with both Baker-Tilley and GovHR, and also wanted to announce that Kendra Williams over here is our talent acquisition partner, so she helps with all the recruitment and leads that as well. We've both worked with both of these companies. GovHR again just did the city attorney, Baker-Tilley did a judge city attorney for us previously as well. I think based off of the city management role, Baker-Tilley has a little bit more robust of a proposal that was included in your backup compared to GovHR. But those top two are definitely the ones I'd be leaning towards. Okay. Councillor Davis. Thank you, Mayor. You mentioned that both firms offer a community engagement package. Is that included in this pricing, or is that an additional module? Those should be included in the pricing. Thanks. Mayor Fortuna-Mouser. Yeah. How much value do you place on the guarantee? I mean, what do you really get for that? And if that is really valuable, do you think Baker-Tilley, which I kind of gather is where you're leaning, do you think they'd be open to the idea of a 24-month guarantee? There is value in the guarantee, especially if someone needs to leave abruptly, and then you would not have to pay for another additional recruitment cost. So that's really what you're getting out of that, is saving 24 or 5 in the event that person either didn't work out or needed to vacate the position. We can absolutely ask Baker-Tilley of that part of the proposal. I will say a lot more firms are moving to the 12-month versus more, just because of the competitiveness in the market. That allows them to be able to attract more people as much as possible, just knowing some of the risk that they take trying to do a guarantee. Obviously, the rejoinder is just, you know, we've put out a, you know, request for proposals and we have seen a 24-month, so it's a valid thing to ask, I would think. Yeah, thanks. Okay. And would we have to have that same conversation with everyone? How does that work? If you're giving me direction to move with a firm, I can absolutely ask Baker-Tilley if that's the direction of counsel. I think they probably would want to know is, are we going to get it if we do the 24-month guarantee? That probably would be their next question, if I had to anticipate that. But we absolutely can ask it, just wanted to let you know what we're seeing out there as far as it's 12 months is a little bit more the standard at this point. Okay. You know, the question is for Sarah. Okay. Seeing none. Oh, can you pull down the presentation? Yes, sir. Can we? I'll get back. Councilmember Archer. Yes, thank you. You mentioned, you know, Baker-Tilley's proposals may be a little bit more robust. Can you elaborate a little bit on what you mean by that and which has the kind of the most experience with recruiting city manager from unconventional kind of more proactive resources and methods? I would say for Baker-Tilley, the diversity that they have in their proposal and just the initiatives that they have and also their previous and current city manager recruitments. They're in pretty big cities, like right now they're doing a city manager recruitment for Clearwater in Florida and Carboro in North Carolina. Just to name a couple of them, but definitely their diversity and kind of their approach with trying to select candidates and a very diverse candidate pool as well. They seem to have a good track record doing that. So that part would be the number one thing that I would reference for that. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. You know, for me too, Baker-Tilley and GovHR were the clear top two and I am leaning in favor of Baker-Tilley. Okay. So any other questions? So then I guess I need direction. I don't know that it requires a motion and vote, but I just need, is there anyone? Let's just start with the opposite. So is there anyone that disagrees with Baker-Tilley moving forward? Okay. Seeing none, but then is there anyone else that would desire to have the conversation about 24 month guarantee or, so if anyone else shares that thought, I need to hear from you. If you can hit the, Councilman McGuire? Yeah, I'd like to pursue seeing if we can get that. Okay. Is there anyone else? Okay. Then just the 12 months and Baker-Tilley. So I'll go with Baker-Tilley. Based off the direction, then ask them if they can move it to the 24 month. If they're not able to do that, does council want me to continue with moving forward with the proposal with Baker-Tilley? Yes. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. It takes us to item C, ID 211162, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the performance of the tree preservation and mitigation requirements in Ditten development code. Good afternoon, mayor and members of the council. Haley Zagurski, assistant planning director. Let me get the presentation pulled up here and we will get started. All right. Good afternoon. The topic for today's discussion, as the mayor mentioned, is tree preservation and mitigation and our current standards in the DDC. Just to start with a little bit of background information, this request generated several months ago at the February council retreat, there were some general questions regarding how is the code performing? Is it doing what we intended it to? So I'm here today just to discuss kind of where we were, the history of our tree code, where we are today and where we're going in terms of the city's goals. To start with some background, this slide just kind of outlines the history of tree preservation ordinances in Ditten. Our first ordinance was adopted in 2004, that became part of the 2002 Ditten development code. Shortly after it was implemented and adopted, within a few years there were already attempts to make it a little more robust. There were multiple attempts at rewriting that code from 2007, 2012, none of those gained any traction. 2014 was really the only amendment to that version of the code. It was very limited scope just to add provisions, allowing our tree mitigation funds to be used for planting on private property as well as public. After that was done, we again began attempts to redraft the code, make the requirements more robust. That continued through 2017 with no traction being gained with any particular draft. The state kind of pushed us in a direction in 2017 with HB7 in that they set prohibitions on certain instances where we could require mitigation. They began a requirement that if you are going to have mitigation fees that you have to offer certain amounts of credit for people. In 2018, we again began redrafting that code to come in line with the new state requirements as well as to look at how to make the code more robust as we've been trying to do for several years. You can see on the right-hand side the history of just council, committee on the environment and P&Z work sessions that we went through for almost a year, a very intensive process reworking various drafts. In addition to those boards and meetings, we also did community outreach with groups like the Master Gardeners, the Landscape Architects Association for DFW as well as some development groups, Urban Forestry Council, and various other entities. That code was finally adopted on March 19th of 2019. At that time, as you may be aware, we were also going through a comprehensive update of the entire Denton Development Code. Because of that and wanting those things to run together, we delayed the effectiveness of the tree code to go into full effect October 1st with the overall DDC. With both the tree code and the DDC, there was several months where developers had the ability to choose between which code they wanted to use. Obviously, if they had already started under our 2004 tree code regulations, they were allowed to continue under that because of vesting. That update, just to make sure everyone's aware, included not just tree preservation but also a rewrite of our landscape standards and some updates to our environmentally sensitive area regulations. Very limited in scope only to make them consistent with the tree code requirements. Before we go into more of the details of the code today and the comparison between those, I wanted to make sure we're all aware of what the different types of trees are that our code defines. Very broadly, all trees are either considered protected or non-protected. Protected is limited to those six instances you see there on the screen. The local government code with that 2017 House Bill required that we could not require mitigation or preservation of any type for trees that are either dead or unhealthy or that pose an imminent or immediate threat to persons and property. Those first two requirements come straight from the state code. Also on that list, after extensive debate during that year when we were drafting this, grape myrtles, mesquite, and honey locust were exempted as well as any trees that are on the state's published list of noxious and invasive plants. Everything else is considered a protected tree and there are four subcategories of that. The first are landmark trees. These are trees that a property owner chooses to designate on the state big tree registry as well as any tree that gains a historical designation. There is a process for that through the Historic Landmark Commission. We currently don't have any historic trees, but maybe we'll have one of those designated someday. The next category would be heritage trees. Those are going to be any species that's considered quality, but that has a diameter at breast height that's typically four and a half feet above the ground that is 18 inches or greater, and then any post oak tree that is six inches or greater at DBH. Quality trees are defined as anything that's not specifically called out as secondary or non-protected except for those post oaks, which are all considered heritage, and it's anything between six and 18 inches. And then finally, secondary is specifically defined as ash, boat ark, which is also called Osage orange. You may be familiar with that name. Hackberry and cottonwood trees that are six inches or greater in DBH. So now that we've seen those definitions, I wanted to provide you a comparison since some of you were not here during that year-long update process to make sure everyone knows where we came from and where we are today. So that first tree code we had from 2004 to 2019 had very different tree categories from what we just looked at. The historic and landmark are fairly comparable. Protected trees under the old code were ironically not protected at all. There was no preservation requirement for them, but it was essentially the same as our heritage trees today that were those quality species 18 inches and greater. We had our quality definition, which because we didn't have any of those exceptions, things like crepe myrtles or even invasive species were considered quality trees under that code. And then secondary and large secondary were roughly the same. Mesquite trees were considered a secondary tree under that code as well as honey locust. Minimum preservation is a key difference between those codes. So what we did in 2019 was a significant increase in preservation requirements. So you can see in the second row of this table for those protected and large secondary trees, we had no minimum preservation. Landmark trees were at a 100% requirement as are our landmark trees today. For quality and secondary, there was two matrices actually in that code that spelled out if you were an infill lot, what your requirements were, which was essentially nothing under any lot size. And then the same for non-infill. It depended then on the size of your property. So if you were less than an acre, there were no requirements. Between one and two and a half acres, there were some minimal requirements. So you'll notice a range there, the code established for quality, for example, a 12.5% minimum. And then secondary 6.25% was the highest that you would get to. And then above two and a half acres, there were slightly enhanced requirements. The greatest being 20 to 25% requirement for quality trees. By comparison, today our requirement is 30% across the board. That is established as minimum preservation for all quality and heritage trees. Secondary trees today do not have a minimum requirement unless that is the only type of tree on site. If you have no quality and heritage, for example, out on the west side of town, a lot of those are more agricultural fields. They do have a lot of hackberries and secondary trees, not as many of the oaks and other trees. Then there's a 20% threshold for secondary. Under both codes, there was an allowable reduction in preservation. The old code, whatever that minimum was, so say it was 25%, you were allowed to go down to 50% of that value. So at 12 and a half percent then, that difference between those two, you had to mitigate whatever it was. And that was the only mitigation required. Now you're allowed to take that 30% down to 20% in certain instances. So if you have a conservation easement on site, for example, you're allowed a reduction with the caveat that then everything, even all the understory has to be protected in that easement. Or if you want to pay enhanced mitigation for the difference between the 20 and 30%, you can do that. The other key difference is that every tree you take out under our current code, unless it is non-protected, does require mitigation. So whereas before we only had that if you were going below the minimum, then you mitigated that small percent maximum of 12 and a half percent, today you mitigate for everything. As I mentioned, there are credits required. So what you replant on site, we give you credit against that, which is required by state law. And then the other key difference is how we measure that. The old code, it's very hard to compare things under that because we allowed people to do just aerial surveys with canopy estimates of what their trees were. Now everything requires a full on the ground survey with DBH measurements so that we have more precise data. So looking at where we are today, as I said, we increased that minimum preservation across the board. We now brought our code in line with the mitigation requirements of state law. And we also kind of increased the standards for what has to be inspected and maintained on site throughout construction. We've provided some better, more concrete examples of what tree protection fencing needs to look like, for example, where that needs to be placed. And then as I mentioned earlier, the tree preservation was updated hand in hand with landscaping at ESA. So there's some key differences there as well. The landscaping code, it was a complete overhaul. We now have a point system as opposed to strict requirements. It allows a little more flexibility, but we increased standards in terms of things like species diversity for when you're replanting. And then we increased the amount of minimum landscape and tree canopy cover required for each site. So that's what you see in the table on the right. By zoning district, we designate what your total canopy cover has to be when those trees that you're planting on site for each full maturity. And then in terms of ESA, our old code basically allowed ESA and tree canopy requirements to overlap. So if you met ESA preservation requirements, you almost always met tree preservation. No additional, anything had to be done on site. With the 2019 update, we completely separated those two things. So now you first meet your ESA requirements. Anything left outside of that preserved ESA is then subject to tree preservation. So you get your ESA preservation plus that 30 to 20% preservation of all the trees outside of that. In terms of implementation, as I mentioned earlier, we had that transition period between March and October of 2019. Additionally, there were projects, obviously, that were just starting the review cycle or that were in review that were already under the old code that have been able to move forward because of vested rights allowed by state law. So in 2020, we had about two thirds of our project using the 2019 tree code. Today we're still not at 100%. We have some of those older legacy projects that are still moving through the process. But probably within the next year, we'll get to everything that's coming through the process being under the 2019 code. Along with that, we're also working to create a monitoring and database tool moving forward to keep track of what's removed, what's preserved, what's planted on sites. As you're aware, we recently did some software updates within development services. So we have a better, more modern, more adaptable project management software that we can use to assist in that effort. We're also refocusing some staff resources in terms of analyst positions. We're getting a new landscape planner on staff very soon. So we'll have some specialists that can dedicate time and effort to that that we've lacked in the past. And then we're also working in conjunction with Parks. They are working to acquire a new tree canopy monitoring software that we will be using in conjunction with them to monitor some of our goals as we move forward. And then I wanted to take you through some examples to see how this code works and how it's achieving with some of our recent developments. So we'll look at two sites. The first, this is a brand new development. This is located at Mayhill and McKinney Street. It's actually the new DPS facility if you've driven by there. So it did have pretty extensive canopy cover on site. You can see in the table down here on the lower right side, there are actual numbers of what they achieved. But I wanted to walk you through those minimum requirements so that you can see a comparison of where we were versus where we are. So this table shows on the left-hand side the 2019 requirements, the right side the 2004. You can see this is a larger site. It was not considered infill. So under the old code, they had a 25% requirement for quality trees that could be reduced to 12 and a half. So for example, that's where this range of 258 to 129 inches comes in. Current code, we do combine heritage and quality. So that's looked at as one requirement of 30%. So that requirement would have been 528 to 352 inches, depending on if they use that reduction tool. The other key difference would be those secondary trees. As I mentioned, if sites today have heritage and quality trees, they don't have to preserve any secondary. The old code did have a minimum requirement for that, so there was a handful of inches there required. But the key number to look at, of course, is that bottom, to see just how much we've increased our minimum across the board. They had to achieve a minimum of 329 inches. That would have required, again, the difference between 568 and 392 to have an enhanced mitigation ratio applied for it. So increased replanting or payment to the tree fund versus the old code, whereas if they had achieved everything with no reductions, their maximum would have been 273 inches. So again, a pretty significant increase across the board in terms of DBH required to be preserved on site. This next example is an infill site. So if you remember the table from earlier, I pointed out that there were no requirements for preservation of infill development under the old code. So there was not a requirement for any preservation under that. That's where you see the zero at the bottom. Whereas under the current code, that same 30% requirement applies no matter which property we're looking at in the city. So they would have had to preserve at least 47 inches, down to 31 if they'd done some enhanced mitigation. Again, you can see their actual preservation here in the smaller table. They achieved well over that at 83 inches. I will say this is a challenge for a lot of infill sites in the city to achieve that 30%. Sometimes even the 20% is difficult because we are often talking about very small sites with very limited ability to fit everything that you need to on site if you're trying to develop even a single family home sometimes. So that is one challenge under the code that we've seen some concern from the development community on. In terms of where we're going, when we updated the 2019 code, we established some canopy goals for the city to help bolster the requirements of that code and justify our strict requirements. So citywide, we established a 30% canopy goal that was based on the ecoregions that our city is located in. So we're kind of a split between the cross timbers forest versus a prairie habitat type. So we did bifurcate that citywide and say the east side that was historically forested should have a higher canopy coverage than the west side of the city. With the 2020 urban forest master plan, that was taken a step further. It established a 40% canopy coverage goal by 2040. It also specified that that needed to be a diverse and equitably distributed canopy. So that's where those landscaping requirements would come in that have a species diversity requirement for new plantings as well as those minimum canopy coverage goals across the site. So even on the west side of town, we have at least 15 to 20% canopy coverage required for each property. And as I was hinting at, those goals are going to be achieved by not just preservation but also planting. So to give you an example of that, this top aerial shows a section of the city that's roughly between Bonnie Bray University and Highway 77 in 1942. The red indicates what was covered by tree canopy at that time as opposed to 2017 that you see in the bottom image where clearly the development of neighborhoods and parks within that area lended itself to increased canopy coverage over time. And then the next steps, as I mentioned earlier, we are working towards creating a database and tracking tool for this to monitor not just what's removed but also what's replanted as we move forward. We're working with the parks department. As I mentioned, they're working on getting a new canopy monitoring software that will allow us to monitor progress towards that overall goal, also monitor heat islands within the city to see where we might need to focus additional tree planting. And then development services within our team. We're very excited about a landscape planner position that we're filling that will really provide us that expertise in landscape architecture and native plantings and things of that nature, as well as be that tool for enforcing and implementing this code moving forward. So they'll be chiefly responsible for plan review inspections as well as cross-training with some other teams to make sure if a building inspector, for example, is on site and sees tree protection fencing is down, to know they would recognize that and they would be able to help correct that issue as well to provide extra eyes on the ground. And with that, I will stand for any questions or recommendations that you all wish to provide. Okay. Thank you. Questions for staff? Councilman Bet? We knew I'd have questions, right? So the first thing I want to do is if you weren't around for the difference between 2004 and 2019, it's a huge difference. And I really applaud development services and sustainability department for really working to make this better. So let's start there. It's dramatically better than where it was. And so I guess the first question I have is on the issue of how to get compliance. I mean, you said you think it's sort of trailing off vested interests going from 2004 and earlier to 2019. Are there any mechanisms we can employ, you know, reduce fees and whatnot to get to increase compliance with it, voluntary compliance with 2019 GO? It's really something that I don't know we have a lot of flexibility on. We could, you know, of course, if council wanted to adopt a policy to try to incentivize that through fees, we could look at doing that. But truly, state law pretty clearly spells out things that people can be vested in and tree and landscaping requirements are one of those. So if a developer elects to stay with the code that they initially came in under, then that is their choice under state law. So other than an incentive-based program, I don't think there's a tool that we could use to require that as long as their project has been consistently active since they started. Yeah, I take your point. That's the problem that I remember from P&Z and now in council. But I guess, do we have, in your explorations of other development offices and stuff, or just in your general experience, is there, do you think there is an opportunity for incentivizing compliance if we were to craft some sort of incentivization program? It's possible. I would have to go back and run some data. I don't know that we have that many projects still lingering under the old code that it would be worth it. Like I said, 2020, the last number we had, we were about two-thirds under the current code. I would say we're probably much further along than that now, a year later, from when we initially ran that data. So I don't know that it would be worth the effort, but we could certainly run that data, get the numbers to you, and see what you all want to do with that. No, I take that point too. There's no sense fixing a problem that's about to fix itself. But if there's sufficient, maybe a number that would help me, and there's no rush to this, it would be something like how many vested projects are still out there. That just gives us a ballpark versus maybe some context of how many projects in general we have. And then speaking of the data, I love, love, love, love, you know I'm going to love that any time we do database enhancements and actually look at the numbers, I've just been banging on that for years. One of the things I think that the development services and Haywood and the urban forestry probably needs to do is move forward maybe more expeditiously on our tree inventory. I know that one of the one-minute pitches that staff is working on for me is the ESA inventory, and I think it would really, you know, the tree inventory both. I know that Haywood is primarily focused on city PF land that he can easily access for the tree inventory, but I think there's opportunities, as we've said through various meetings, for crowdsourcing private lands and ETJ and everything else. I mean, you know, it doesn't hurt to have the numbers in your database, and some numbers are better than zero numbers. Okay, and so in terms of numbers, I guess my next question is one of the things I love is that we updated our database definitions of the types of trees and how we're going to preserve them and to kind of fall straight off of the urban forestry management is you led with this is we have no land park trees, and this goes again to the point of we need a tree inventory because I think all of us can think of some amazeballs, if I can use that term on the dais, trees that exist in our community that under no circumstances should ever be removed for their historical significance and just their sheer size. And yet, I tried to get trees in my neighborhood put into the Texas A&M database, and that's challenging. Let's just say that. I filled out all the paperwork personally, and there was only one that I might be lucky enough to get in, and yet I think anyone driving around the neighborhood would recognize that that's a tree that should never go away, actually four or five of them in my neighborhood. So I think we have some data acquisition that we could really improve to help our planning. So do we have any timelines on the kinds of data acquisition that would maybe lead to some landmark trees and some definition changes? Specific timelines, I'm not sure, I know, like I said, for the canopy side of things, Parks is actively in the purchasing process for getting some software that will assist with that. It's just been within the last few months that we've been able to fully roll out our new community development project tracking software, so we're still in the early stages of figuring out exactly how to tailor that to meet our needs. So that may still be a continued work in progress. With respect to landmark trees, we have no historic trees, but the site that I showed you the example of, the DPS site, actually did achieve the Texas Big Tree Registry, is my understanding, for having a landmark designated tree on their site for pure size. So I think that one even made the newspaper when they discovered that, I remember a short article about it. So we do have a landmark tree at least, just not a historic tree yet. So one of the things I think that would maybe help on that is some other definitions that I was a little concerned about in our four types of trees. One, maybe I'm just misremembering or I misread or I conflated two categories, but in our landscaping and preservation category, are we still including Chinese pistachios, which is invasive, in our category of recommended and/or allowed trees? So that is, it would fall under a quality or heritage tree, and depending on the size of it, we're just a tree existing for preservation plan purposes. That particular species I believe is on the approved planting list that's currently available on our website in the Site Design Criteria Manual, which is a document that we acknowledge is out of date. It was written in our old code and we are working to update that. So we have a draft new planting list, and I suspect when we get that new landscape planner on staff, that will be a task that she will help us in finalizing that recommended planting list to narrow it down, but today it still is on the list. Okay, yeah, I think, you know, I think we're probably completely aligned on this idea that an existing Chinese pistachio should be preserved for its biological infrastructure. I love that term, I'm going to use that from now on. Biological infrastructure. But maybe we take it out of our preferred planting so that we don't plant any new invasive species? Not ideal. I love the improvements to the inspection, but I was going to ask, one of the things I noticed just in my interactions with development services that I'm going to encourage us to do on this training element that you discussed and the cross training, is this concept of the drip line versus where the tree fencing typically is, which is somewhere inside the drip line, which means the bulldozers and the diggers and everything are crushing the heck out of the root beds, so I encourage us to maybe be, as we are interacting with various development groups, to be more cognizant of that drip line concept. And then, two more questions, thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Mayor, two more questions. I'm going to say that on the back to the trees, I think this is so much better where we are today than we were in 2004, and I want to make sure I preface everything I'm saying with how much better this is, but I'm going to say that I think we have some room to grow that I think the 6 and 18 inch definitions for most things are not in line with, again, I'm going to use my new favorite term that I coined today, which is biological infrastructure, and that's because a tree growing in a riparian area, the exact same species is not the same in an upland habitat, it's not the same in the middle of a field, in a grass field, they're going to have different abilities, a 6 inch tree is just, one is younger in one environment and older in another environment, and the older and more established tree is going to have a greater biological infrastructure than a young sapling, so I guess what I'm saying is I would encourage us as we develop new planning to honestly make it easier for developers to remove saplings, but make it progressively and maybe even exponentially harder to remove established trees, but those curves are going to vary from environment to environment, so pulling it out of, maybe all our curves are sort of geared towards farmland because that's a lot of what we had going, but I'm not sure that's appropriate for all our different ecosystems, and so if we could look into the idea of having different DBH growth curves representing the actual biological function of the tree rather than merely, this is how many inches you've got to pay us $300 an inch for, because I think that leads to coarse grained and punctate mitigation efforts, and then my last question is, you mentioned about grassland variation versus, because we're in this forested area between grasslands, do we actually have plans to include actual grasslands in our, well, we can't really call it a tree canopy because they're grass, but in our vegetative definitions of both preservation and preferred patterns of preservation, thank you Mayor Pro Tem, but in our preferred patterns of preservation, some areas will want to be grasslands and canopying them up is a bad idea, even though that generally is a great idea for our goals, I want to make sure that we're matching our goals to the ecosystems in which they find themselves, and that goes to that, I think the growth curves should be different in different areas as well, so I'm encouraging us to have sort of a prairie grassland plan that is not simply trees, that is appropriately geared towards maybe, I mean, this is a thing that developers may love, it's maybe it's less trees if they're willing to leave things in prairie, I know that means land is following biological infrastructure and not cement infrastructure, but you know, it's probably easier to mitigate to some degree a grasslands than a tree canopy for some locations, so I think that would be worthwhile investigating, I think that's all my points, thank you Mr. Mayor. Thank you, I have far less to say, I'd like to add to Councilmember Beck's request for you know, kind of a rough overview of how many projects are currently moving forward under the pre-2019 ordinance versus how many are moving forward under the 2019 forward ordinance, and if I could add to that, I'd love to see like, you know, a rough estimate of like how many acres the project is, how many acres are treed, because I'm thinking in particular about like the Four Star Razor Eagle Creek development, which is just one project but is a really big one that involves a lot of trees, and I would love to see kind of how that represents the total number of trees that are being impacted by, you know, this vesting of certain projects in the pre-2019 tree ordinance and would help us make informed decisions about if we could perhaps offer incentives for that developer to voluntarily preserve more of those trees in the Phase 4 area. I have a question about fencing and drip lines, so fencing is required to be at drip line, correct, it's just not always being followed necessarily, more of an implementation issue. Let me verify that, the code does make a distinction between drip line and critical root zone, I believe. Okay. Let me see if I can find that particular section, but in general, yes, the intent, the diagram and the code shows the fencing to be at the drip line of the trees, and that may not always be the case in the field, there are exceptions allowed in the code, for example, if there's a retaining wall or something that has to be in place, there's provision in the code for root pruning that needs to be done to allow for some of that infrastructure or grading efforts to encroach within that and how to more safely do that and keep the tree intact, but in general, that is the requirement, yes. It's already in the code, okay, all right, I just wanted to clarify because there was something that Council Member Beck said that made me think, wait, do we not require that fencing to be at the drip line? And I also just want to reiterate Council Member Beck's support for including grasslands in some of our plans moving forward, possibly including it as a class in the ESA or a class of ESA because, yeah, we certainly, we have plenty of prairie land as well as upland habitat. All right. Thank you. Mayor Proctor Meltzer. Thank you. I have a bit of a quiz question and I apologize for not having thought of it ahead of time, but do you have a sense of roughly what percent of Denton is currently zoned for single family or duplex? Is it more like 20%, more like 50% and more like 80%? Off the top of my head, I do not. We can certainly get that data to you. But it's a pretty significant amount of Denton is zoned. I would agree. It's not 10%. No. No, clearly. So, you know, I don't know if it was evident to everyone that in the 2019 plan, single family and duplex, property zoned for single family and duplex are exempted from tree preservation requirements. And so since this is our opportunity to look back now and review, do we still think that's a good idea? So I will say that exemption also existed in the 2004 code. I know you had sent us a question in advance wondering if we've had, you know, if that's been exploited in any cases. I polled all of the planners and none of us could think of a single example as to when that has occurred. That's great. So I would say since we've had the exemption since 2004 and it hasn't been an issue, I don't know that there is a need to attempt to update that provision. Our code is also has to straddle the line of being consistent with the 2017 legislative update that did provide exemptions for single family and duplex properties and did not have any specificity as to owner occupied. It just implied that if the resident of that particular single family home or duplex wants to remove a tree, here's when we can and can't require mitigation. So we would have to be very cognizant of how we interact with that requirement as well if we were to update that. I take your point. Just as others contemplate this, the reason we hear about owner occupied, because I had asked about that, the case that was made in 2019 was that people don't generally want to cut their own trees down, but the concern is not every piece of single family zoned real estate is somebody's own tree in the sense that they live there and that's their tree. And my concern was could somebody in a very strategic way skirt our requirements by putting together a bunch of single family and exploiting that loophole. So I've re-raised it. I'm interested whether others pick up on that thought. Thank you. >> Councillor Davis. >> Thank you, Mayor. I'm interested in that question as well, but I think it would also be helpful to know what portion of that single family zoning just in rough numbers is undeveloped, because I think it would be in some ways, especially with land prices right now, most of what we see, I can't think of a zoning case, maybe Councillor McBeth could from P&Z, a zoning case where somebody had large numbers of single family parcels and was looking to develop already zoned single family parcels. Typically what we see instead is that someone's subdividing existing large parcels. So I'm a little less concerned about, I think it's a valid nefarious plan that someone could come up with to kind of create a group of parcels and clear cut them and whatever. I think it also might be cost prohibitive to do that, just with the environment we're in now. I think we'll see a lot more development in our green field and non-infill kind of places, not things that are already subdivided. But I also wanted to mention how much I appreciated the side-by-side between the two codes, because as we've been talking about this issue, not having been on council back in 2019, I went back and looked at all the times I've gotten a call or an email about a tree coming down, and it is often, because we care about trees in Denton and we're paying attention to it. Just like Councilmember Beck said, we all know a tree in the neighborhood, or maybe many, that we would just hate to see go away. As I went back through and reviewed, almost every single one of them was a project that happened before, that started before 2019, that was vested in the old code. So I like the direction Denton's heading with the tree code. I like that we're talking about tweaks that can make it even better, but I'm really glad that we're acknowledging the very solid foundation we have with the 2019 tree code. - All right, Councilmember Beck again. - Just a brief follow-up to Councilor Davis's. My observation in the last few years, both here in council and in P&Z, is more that the problem is the reverse of Councilor or Mayor Pro Tem's issue in that we take a property and we subdivide it and we go to 30% and then we go to 30% of that subdivision and then we go to 30% of that subdivision and eventually you have no trees left. And I know in general we have rules and procedures to preclude that, but I think if anything that would need to be beefed up, the subdivision issue, maybe more use of conservation easements or something like that to maintain the integrity of a cops of trees. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. - Councilmember Burt. - I was looking at slide number 13, this is where we're going next, where are we going next steps. It says staff is working towards means of monitoring progress and all of these noted items under here. Again is implementation again or are we implementing it at this point? - Yes, yes. We are currently implementing the code for any project that wasn't previously invested under our old requirements. So far we haven't because we had limitations with our old software and of course the last couple of years have been a little stressful on everyone in terms of staffing and workload. But where we're hoping to go is with our new software that we have creating a means in there of when a planner reviews a project or a new landscape planner perhaps that they can go in once that plan is approved, log the data of what was preserved, what was removed, what they're going to be required to plant. So that moving forward we have a database that if someone wants to know total preservation that we've had in a year, we can go pull that data and quickly run that report. So that's where we're hoping to go. But yes, we are currently implementing the code, just not the data and monitoring aspect of it yet. - So you're already implementation phase. Okay, so because it says Parks Department obtaining new software for canopy monitoring. That's the part that you're seeing that you are not quite there yet. - Yes, and that's actually a separate piece. I don't know where they're at. I believe they're in the purchasing process now. I think it's called TreePlotter. - Okay. - It's a new software that would, my understanding is it'd have pretty regular canopy aerial imagery updates so that we could monitor where we're at working towards that 40% goal. And then it can also zero in and show us where the heat islands are within the city so that we know where to target new planting as we move forward to help limit that and increase the canopy as well. So both of those components, the data monitoring and the canopy monitoring are in, we're in the progress of getting there. Climate services is in the process of filling a landscape planner position. Was that part of our supplemental this time or are we gonna be looking down the road? How far are we looking down the road on that? - So that is a position I believe was already budgeted and we are actively recruiting that person. Hopefully they'll be starting in the next couple of weeks actually. - Okay, great. All right. Thank you. - Okay. Any other questions? Council Member Archer. - Yes, I have a question and then direction. So my question is what is the punishment or potential punishments for developers who say they're going to follow the 2019 or the previous pre-ordinance and then don't? And I'm thinking of Council Member McGuire brought up the four star property about which council was recently or at least some of us are hearing a lot from a concerned neighbor to that property who was doing really community monitoring and often letting us know that there were violations and staff would come out and check it out and in some cases tell them please don't do this, please stop doing this. In some cases it was not exactly clear to me what exactly was seen, what they did, what the developer did and what the response was but I was wondering if you could say a little bit more about what that looks like, that protocol for holding developers accountable because obviously once you destroy particularly in this case this was a historic post oak forest more than you said you would there's no going back, there's no bringing back that forest. - Sure, so in terms of enforcement obviously the inspector assigned to the site would monitor throughout the process of construction to hopefully avoid those issues if a tree is removed that was designated to be preserved on their approved plan then we have that survey data we know the size of the tree at the time they presented the plan to us and they would have the option to either mitigate for that tree by payment into the tree fund at the ratio that's approved in our fee schedule which I believe is $200 per inch of diameter or they could replant trees on site of a comparable number of inches to offset that but currently those are the two fines if you will that they would have the option to either plant or pay. - Yeah okay so it's an exclusively pecuniary punishment right there's no you know nothing else in our ordinance other than paying more either for replanting or into the tree fund I'm wondering is there anything that you know of in state law you know precluding us from having further restrictions for instance such as I'm just throwing this out there as an example saying you know if you make this kind of violation twice or you know or even once you can no longer you know apply for a variance with the city of Denton or you'll no longer be eligible for et cetera et cetera is there anything in the in state law that precludes anything like that? - I am not aware of anything I'm looking to Mac to see if he I can't think of anything in the 212-905 provision specific to trees but. - Right and I'm not aware of anything either but the the city within its own jurisdiction has authority always to to issue citations to seek conjunctive relief I think there's probably some ability to to pursue some of those options that you mentioned Councilmember Armentor about some additional penalties associated with that because it seems like sometimes the the penalty is not proportionate to the damage done when we lose that many trees I've seen that happen before so that's an idea that we could we could pursue. - Yes thank you and I I know that you know obviously that's not what we're we're discussing today but it's it's obviously connected to to the idea of monitoring you know we're we're doing all this monitoring and what's the effect of our of our monitoring not only in terms of making sure laws are being followed but you know following up when they don't so get followed so anyway thank you so much for that so anyway just as far as my direction goes I just want to say you know with that repeating I agree with the concerns and recommendations expressed by my fellow council members so far and I think those are really good points I would as far as monitoring goes I'm really happy and pleased about the new monitoring software I can't wait for that to get set up I'm excited about the new landscape designer and and I'm hoping that that it will be somebody who has a familiarity and with and preference for you know organic methods and preservation and sustainability which is very much in keeping you know with the spirit of of our city and the way our and our city's close relationship with its with its parks and preserving native species and I want to just as far as kind of forward thinking you know recommend that both this council and the sustainability committee consider not only additional monitoring for instance in the form of community and community monitoring and listing volunteers such as the one you know community member who who really helped us help council help staff monitor the forest our project you know to see if there's anything we can do to have you know a kind of a volunteer community support for monitoring in addition to staff and in addition to that to have it us in the near future look into ways in which we can strengthen this tree ordinance as council member back said it is so much better than the previous version but it it needs strengthening and we have a new a new council now with a you know more more of a sustainability focus than than ever than I can think of on on Denton City Council and that's that's really exciting and we also have this new sustainability committee so I look forward to hearing their input on not just monitoring but strengthening the ordinance and as part of that strengthening to look into additional additional punitive measures besides just fees for when you know developers destroy more than they're allowed to destroy and so that we can we can ask you know and answer the question of you know should it really be should a fee be able to be all that it takes and also our fees working you know to dissuade developers from cutting more than they're allowed to cut so those are that's my direction and recommendations okay and I just want to say so could you help me the twenty percent to thirty percent flexibility is that administratively approved yes that is built into the code there's three options you can you would either have to set aside that twenty percent or whatever you have less than thirty between thirty and twenty in a conservation easement that either dedicated to the city or held by a nonprofit that designated for that purpose of holding land you could if you have ESA on site there's an option to set aside as a preserved habitat that could be in a conservation easement it's essentially the same thing but it's adjacent to an ESA so you're having an overall larger area or you can do it through additional mitigation efforts so they're the ratios that are applied across the board are increased for that ten percent difference but that is something that staff can approve through either of those three means okay I follow up with that I want to understand that better just because you know those decisions trigger emails and and so I just want to understand that better not that I'm advocating for change but just want to understand those options better then when you talked about the single family structure and then built there's kind of there were no requirements that the structure has to be there right that's not a single family zone or is that a single family zone or a single family structure has to be there and then they're allowed to cut as as needed sure so the exemption is for existing single family or duplex properties that have an existing structure on them if there are provisions into the code if that structure is to be demolished then they are subject to the requirements moving forward with the exception that state law we have to start at ten inches instead of six inches but it has to be an existing structure on the property got it and I think that may when I've seen that provision violated it it's been that right it's it's someone leaves a house they're going to sell it they destroy tear down everything but one house or one structure cut down whatever trees they want and then finish the the house and sell the land so for what it's worth that's where I've seen the system game and I don't know that you can close that loophole there's a lot of moving parts there but just that that's what I'm concerned about and then I'll just say I mean I think our community is great in that way I'm glad to see the growth but I'll just say outside of this document this enforcement this you know kind of forcing the the tree trantic canopy growth the citizens of the of Denton voted you know in a significant way to to have us purchase land to to say for green space and that sort of thing so it's it's I think it's a priority for our community across the bar irrespective of who sits at this dais and I think that that's proven out in that initiative to get with the citizens overwhelmingly voted in my opinion to support that the only other question I have is with respect to the mitigation you mentioned the the trees I know we're going to a canopy measurement but if they're mitigating for tree I think you mentioned it's per inch is that is that right is that how it works correct so that there is still some overlap there the the code and all of the survey work that has to be done and the documentation of preservation and mitigation is all done by diameter inch of trees the city's overarching goals through the urban forest master plan and even the DDC are based on tree canopy coverage though so that's where we need those two different components to our monitoring moving forward to know not just the inches that we keep but also the the canopy that that would be achieved with that got it okay great okay I think that's that's everything I had thank you very much great presentation okay that let's take a 10 minute break it's 314 let's come back at 324 we'll finish our last work session item and go straight into our items for individual consideration so be back at 324 and welcome back to this meeting Denton City Council it is 324 we're back on the record and we're going to we're in our work session to item D and just for those that are tracking along we're going to go finish our work sessions and then take care of consent agenda so that those staff members for those couple items that were pulled can present and get them on their way and then we'll go into closed session so we'll modify that a little bit but first of all item D which is ID 212134 receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding the update to the Denton to the city of Denton COVID-19 response Mayor and Council Ryan Adams customer service and public affairs and pull up this presentation real quick perfect so this is again another one of the Council's weekly COVID-19 updates and just like our last one that took place on the 21st we are going to give a brief update on COVID statistics here in Denton County at the last meeting we did have a discussion on the 15th order of Council that was adopted that same day and today we're just going to give a brief update on that order as well a little bit of positive news relating to COVID-19 and the statistics for Denton County our positivity rate ICU occupancy hospitalizations while still elevated they are declining this is reported today by Denton County Public Health to the Commissioner's Court with regard to vaccines they continue to administer third doses and boosters and that is one thing that actually our Denton Fire Department is assisting with and as we reported two weeks ago the timing for additional approvals whether that's expanded eligibility for boosters or vaccines for persons under 12 years of age there's still no timetable on when we can expect those and of course we did present two weeks ago that Denton County Public Health is offering drive-thru testing events they do require registration ahead of time so I will show just a couple of the graphics that demonstrate the slight decline in our COVID cases you have one below with it which is cases by date reported and then as we've previously presented reported cases by age and probably one of the stark the most stark changes has been the decrease in pediatric cases compared to a high of several weeks ago. So I did want to provide an update and this is the same information that was provided in the Friday report this past week related to our American Rescue Plan response initiatives we have received approval for the Denton Fire Department to become a provider for them to be able to give vaccinations we are simply waiting on the arrival of some required equipment that we need to order store or provide those vaccinations we are finishing up our internal staff training so that we can administer tests molecular tests internally for internal staff and this is going to be incredibly helpful toward our ability to maintain our staffing level so that if any person could be exposed or was exposed we can perform that test and they would be out of commission or isolated for less time once we can get an accurate test accomplished. And then of course our vaccine communications campaign we have launched the We Care campaign and this is primarily based on a website wecaredenton.com and we will be rolling out digital and non-digital communication items beginning this week. So moving on to the 15th order of council so that is effective through October 31st like our previous orders we have focused on education and outreach we did based on previous direction council sent out a second letter to businesses letting them know of the 15th order and its new expiration date and that the requirements of the order are essentially transferred over from the 14th order nothing changed there. We have posted signs of city facilities and we continue to make masks available to those persons who enter. There has not been a significant change in what we are seeing with regard to our parks and rec or library compliance in those facilities there is overall compliance we do still offer masks to those who walk in and do not have one we are very thoughtful about how we approach those situations and try not to escalate or create conflicts by doing so. There is overall compliance although we do receive periodic complaints. So just to give council an update on what staff has perceived as the public response and of course we are not talking to everyone out in the public but this is just resulting from our communications and interactions with business leaders. We can confidently say that compliance does appear to be mixed and this is based on our interactions. We do feel businesses understand the order in talking to them they know what the requirements are they have been through this before during the pandemic a year ago and we are hearing the same things from chamber leadership when we have asked them what they are hearing from their members. In those discussions we have asked them what essentially you know that noncompliance and it generally falls back to the conflicting state orders or conflicting county statements. Of course states saying one thing cities saying another thing and that does cause that best confusion but we do have business owners who are compliant relying on what the state or the governor has said as a basis for that noncompliance. A slight change I believe from the last time we presented it in ISD is now encouraging the use of masks it is no longer a requirement however city facilities continue to require masks as I previously stated. Since the 15th order does expire here at the end of the month on October 31st at your next meeting on October 19th we are going to bring back an action item for council to consider. This will extend the requirements past October 31st to a specified date. Council will have the option of accepting that as it is presented. They can modify those requirements such as only requiring city facilities to require masks or they can modify the extension to a different date than what is presented by staff. Final option would be for council to take no action and if that is the case then the order would expire after October 31st. Happy to answer any questions that council may have on this presentation. Questions for staff. Councilmember Guara. Sort of a procedural question but should we be holding on to our suggestions for how we might modify or extend the order until that October 19th meeting or are you looking for that input now? I think that I would defer to the council. We can take that direction now. We also have a scheduled COVID-19 update on the 19th. That being said we would want to make sure that whatever we bring forward is reflective of council's direction and the more time to do that would work but I'll defer to the council whether they want to have that conversation today or on the 19th. Okay. Yeah I think we probably need to have it today. Yeah. Well so I'll go ahead and provide my perspective. It wasn't so clear last time we had this discussion but it's very clear now that this wave has peaked and that we are on the way down. I'm currently looking at the daily hospital capacity graph from the Denton County Public Health website and on let's see here on the eighth the seven-day moving average almost touched that 15% threshold line of less than 15% of total inpatient beds were occupied by COVID patients and then it kind of snuck back up a little bit. If that line gets below 15% and stays there I would be comfortable talking about modifying the order but since that has not yet happened it seems like it might happen soon but hasn't happened my recommendation would be to extend the order through November. Okay Councilmember Burke. Okay there we go. Thank you for for waiting for that. I have a question and then I'll have a comment. It says a public response based on some interactions with staff we feel businesses understand the order. Do they agree with it or most likely don't agree with what's going on? That's not really telling me what's on their mind about the order. Are they saying let's will you all consider you know removing the order? What are the businesses telling us? You're just saying we feel businesses understand the order. So we've we've not engaged businesses on whether they feel the order is proper or not. Our role as staff is to simply educate them on the order. What I can what I can tell you is that in those areas where businesses are non-compliant it is not because they don't understand generally don't understand the order and what it's asking. Okay that makes sense. Non-compliant businesses point to conflicting state or county statement orders and so they are they they're they're conflicting these two areas but they're not conflicted about the cities. So when they have been non-compliant what they have told us is that we're not following this order because the governor says I don't have to or the county has said that this order is not not legal or it's against the state order. And so they point to those things in those occasions when we spoken to businesses and it has come up that is the far and away the main reason for non-compliance. So my my opinion on this I would much prefer my constituents to tell me what they with what's on their mind of course I would want to do what they say but if we're going to have this debate at this time I would definitely want to consider modifying some of the requirements you know just going out there and being amongst the people it's just a very clearly evident and obvious that it's being you know folks are just not wearing their mask as much and so we're seeing most people not wearing mask or and then some people that that still are I would definitely want to be in line for modern modifying the requirements. So whatever that is I guess we could still debate that and you know take that up for whatever it is and that'll give me an opportunity to figure out what we will want to do with that including whoever's watching and if I'm sure we're going to get some emails and text messages you know what they would like to see us do and I would definitely go along those lines most likely. Thank you. Councillor Mayer for Tim Meltzer. To me this is a leadership issue and not everybody is going to follow and I mean that's obvious and and we don't have the same opinion among levels of leadership you know between city and county and state but whatever benefit we get that encourages people you know however much to conform with what the CDC is currently recommending is in the right direction. I'm really heartened that we are past seemingly past peak hopefully you know that comes to fruition. I think now is the time to you know not let up see it through to where we're no longer classified by the CDC as a high transmission area I don't I consistently don't want to put my judgment on the medical conditions I just you can just look it up any day CDC mask guidelines by county you can look up Texas look up Denton County and it gives the recommendation and it says the high transmission area they recommend that everybody everybody wears masks in public places so that's guiding I would also point out that I think most hospital administrators would tell you that they like to see ICU beds at sort of 66 to 80 percent occupancy not greater than 90 percent we're still in the single digits for available ICU beds it's not literally just a function of physical beds it's a question of physical beds and people to staff them but that is a lot lower than what's optimal operating condition for just the general you know safety and welfare of our community so I'm very encouraged and I and I want to congratulate everybody that has you know kind of taken the cues from this to you know modify their own behavior and are part of the you know solution and you know getting us to a safe landing and I think we should keep it up for a while and I wish I could pick a date out of the air but I can't I hope it's it comes from back thank you mr. mayor yeah I'd like to concur with with a lot of what mayor pro tem said you know in in looking at the epidemiology of these things Americans have this unfortunate tendency to as we crest a hill to say woo and and and take off all you know the restrictions that got them to trending downwards and of course this causes additional waves and we end up rippling at to to sort of continuum you know iterating to to a place that keeps us at a higher level than we should if we had just stuck to our guns just a little bit longer and kind of gotten into the bottoms of the curve we never seem to quite convince ourselves oh you know things are better so I you know I can't I still got to keep going it's sort of like people don't want to take all their antibiotic course of antibiotics and they end up stopping early and then of course they get a breakout infection it's exact it's almost literally the exact sort of thing not quite and so yes we don't have a hundred percent compliance but yes I'm I'm convinced that the steps that the county Dr. Richardson has been recommending those few businesses that are compliant those citizens that are compliant the education provided by staff have made a difference the fact that it's constantly in the public sector and in the public eye that they can't just ignore it they're like okay the leadership in this in this city you know is still taking this seriously and we're still trying to get to a better place it is it is not the time to put on the gas not yet so my direction would be to continue the status quo all right Councilor Armitage yes I concur with council member Beck this is that that you know proverbial umbrella in the rainstorm that appears to be keeping us dry and that is wonderful but we don't say I you know council member Beck said woohoo you know time to get get rid of the umbrella because that is the thing that is that is protecting us so I too you know am heartened by this trend but I'm not anywhere near celebrating especially with this council member Meltzer I'm sorry Mayor Perth I meant Meltzer mentioned you know are with ICU beds in the single digits so as I mentioned last time you know I think that we should let science be our guide the CDC guidelines you know have been pretty consistent recently in following the science and they are scientists and they're making recommendations you know not just for the nation but as Mayor Prochem said you know to the level of you know counties in even here in Texas so I think that that is a very good metric to use to so I will likely be recommending that we continue with this ordinance you know until a a an event certain you know the event certain being when the CDC says that mask use in Denton County is no longer recommended I did have a question a specific question for staff and that is about requirements mask wearing requirements for school resource officers because the school resource officers the SROs work for both the city and the school district in there when they're working in their capacity as SROs and so you know I've had some questions about what those requirements are you know I was wondering if do the SROs need to follow when they are at the school acting as SROs are they under the city guidelines which require masks are they under the DISD guidelines which now just strongly recommend and encourage them however they're putting it okay no yeah Chief Dixon's can and can speak to that absolutely good afternoon mayor council Frank Dixon chief of police counselor Robert a great question so while the SROs are on campus they're still a city employees they're still going by our guidance with the understanding that when they're outside say in the greeting line of the buses in the morning and afternoons when they're outdoors it is not mandated that they wear face coverings so when they're on the campus my expectation is and they know this to be wearing the face coverings when they're inside there's always going to be times where they're going to have to take them off to adjust for you know fogged up glasses or take them down for a second to adjust something here or there so it's not going to be absolute but that that is the direction that's going to give it to them thank you so much I'm really pleased to know that because you know as a parent of public school kids I get daily I'm still getting daily announcements on weekdays you know from my kid's school saying there's been you know at least one covid case and so I'm concerned not only about the kids but the staff you know and that includes you know city employees who are who are working there too so I'm glad glad to know that okay mayor Pratham are you requesting to speak again no I guess it doesn't automatically withdraw okay yeah there councilman Beck is that okay great no just want to make sure yeah I'll just say I mean I guess we need to put out a notice this I mean it is I've heard everyone say that when the CDC says it's time right and I would represent its time so I took the the the note and read it and so what it does actually say high transmission area and I quote in Denton County Texas community transmissions high transmission everyone should wear a mask in public indoor settings key statement master requirements might vary from place to place make sure you follow local laws rules regulations and guidance so I would represent to you that the CDC's website post as of 8/12 I mean October 12th says the event certain is now stringing this out a month at a time based on no data and interesting when so the CDC God's guidelines direct you to a local law we are the only entity that does not have a medical professional that is interpreting that to mean we're in charge of making decisions the county has a medical professional school district has a medical professional the state has a medical professional on staff all three of them say no mask requirement city of Denton does not have a medical expert everyone directs you to the guidelines of the CDC I'm doing that and they're conceding saying hey there's local local guidance is what you should follow by our ordinance being in place we are directly creating a conflict and confusion for our citizens and so I'm just frustrated that we keep doing this a month at a time I'm frustrated that it's not steeped in science it's not steeped in the CDC guidelines because they're saying follow local ordinances and we're not doing that so you know obviously I think we need to put there's enough to avoid support for it I think we need to put that out and it's just unfortunate that we're we're at this point and I hope the citizens make their voice heard in whichever way they want in whichever way they deem necessary again because they are at the top of the org chart here in the city and I'll just defer to them and my hands are tied unfortunately and I'll point out that in the summer when the CDC guidelines said that we could remove the mass this council was also hesitant then so it doesn't seem like it's consistent but that that's where we are today so with that thank you very much I appreciate it thank you council yep it's going to take us to item E ID 211416 receive report hold discussion give staff direction on pending City Council request good afternoon mayor and City Council Stewart bird's eye the assistant to the city manager today we begin a new supersized journey in our pending request for information we have our two minutes pitch request process going for anybody who's watching for the first time we will review up to seven requests per meeting one for each council member who's made the request staff will simply introduce the request and then the elected official will now have twice as long they will have two minutes to justify and describe their requests the remaining elected officials will have one minute to provide feedback and indicate their support for the use of staff time and staff will respond to all requests where a consensus of council is established now as discussed in the retreat this year and in August the agenda committee will assist staff with the scheduling of items that receive consensus through this process and so as guidelines for council members who are responding that they would like to see the request to be forward they may indicate whether it is a high priority moderate priority or low priority and then that comment will help to guide staff and the agenda committee in scheduling these out today we have three requests the first one is from councilmember Davis it is a work session to establish a green catalyst fund council members request is there and then some staff information about the steps that it would take to move forward take this one forward through the sustainability framework advisory committee is there as well so I will stop sharing my screen and councilmember Davis you have two minutes thank you Stuart I appreciate staff kind of adding some information there to the original request council remember I expressed some frustration through the budgeting process about the sustainability fund not having a for the amount of money we were putting into it not having a framework established whereas we have an economic development strategy that does have a framework built into it but I'd like to do is piggyback one off the other not to short circuit what we're asking the sustainability committee to do but to kind of put a marker out there that one of the best things we can do is to attract firms to our city that are aligned with our goals that if we're going to be spending money on economic development let's do it in a way that aligns with the goals we've already stated as a council and as a city organization there are firms out there that have a firm commitment to sustainability that do align with the things we're trying to do in Denton that are coming here because they want to help us green the grid and all those other good things they want to build LEED certified buildings all those sorts of things so really what I'd like to do with this request is not short circuit or create a second work session but just kind of put a marker out there for when the sustainability fund item comes to us that I'd like to see some portion of that I stated a hundred thousand dollars but obviously that's a decision for council to make as a group but some portion of that in a significant way contribute to economic development. Okay, thank you. Mayor Proctor Meltzer. I think there may well be great opportunities in this area I fully expect the sustainability committee to consider them and I would expect to support them however I see no need to tie their hands in that specific way in advance in their job which is determining what action plan will do the most for sustainability in Denton. I firmly believe that just doing the best job possible investing in sustainability one of the four pillars of Denton's adopted economic development strategy will in and of itself help attract companies that share that direction. This has already been amply demonstrated in fact it's why we even have the sustainability fund to discuss. The company was attracted by our commitments and they're writing checks to us instead of us writing checks to them. So good suggestion but I would say just let's let the committee do its job. Councilmember McGuire. Thank you I really look forward to digging more deeply into our plans for the sustainability fund I will say that my hope for the sustainability fund is that we can use that funding in the most impactful possible way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. And while attracting private entities that might have a commitment to sustainability is a laudable goal I have my doubts that it would be particularly impactful on reducing greenhouse gas emissions within the city. And for that reason I'm going to say I would like I would not like to move forward with this. Thank you. Councilmember Bet. Yeah I think it's a little cart before the horse I think Councillor Davis's ideas are good but as Councillor McGuire said we don't know which directions we're moving into and how we incentivize those and to the levels that we want to incentivize those. I think it's early I think if we get directions on the on the ways that we want to move forward maybe one of those is indeed incentivizing a particularly sustainably oriented company to leverage but as Councillor McGuire said it also may we may not have the funds to have the most impact. So I think this is just early and I'm not necessarily opposed to it but I am opposed to it at this time maybe later I would be more receptive. Okay anyone else. Councilmember Armitage. Yeah I concur with what has been said so far I'll just add that you know there are already you know tools within economic development that that we can strengthen to you know give extra points to private companies who are showing sustainability measures there are things we can do not just in terms of carrots but in terms of sticks that we haven't been preempted on by the state to raise our bar for sustainability requirements for private entities. So you know while I appreciate the idea and I do think economic development is an important piece of the sustainability puzzle it is it is it is just a part of it there's already an infrastructure there and I don't think it should should be the focus we should let the sustainability committee make their recommendations first. Okay so that's that's for against so that that proposal fails I will say in my minute that I think that's unfortunate I do agree with Councilmember Davis it is unifying unifying and we need subject matter expertise to then say which measurable goals are to are attainable and most effective. I don't think you can do that from the dais without an expert input you know we can't just wing it from here and achieve that you do need that a consultant that specializes in that matter of fact I had a conversation with one while I was at a conference this week to try to understand that expertise what industry standards are how to measure that how to communicate that back to the taxpayers so it's unfortunate but that that fails thank you. So the next one yes sir I just want you in or you need to say I'll I'll introduce it as soon as I can get it to pull up there we go our second item comes from Councilmember Meltzer it's passing a resolution to engage state delegation to oppose the currently proposed redistricting his request is there on your screen and then we put together some staff information about where it is in the legislature process right now and that if this does move forward we could prepare a resolution for next week's council meetings for consideration. Yes and I didn't know at the time I filed this couple of weeks ago that the Texas House would be voting on this today so we may not be able to act anymore in a way to affect the outcome but I'd like to go ahead and just briefly share this information with you all and and with the public just borrowing a little from what was briefly on screen the latest congressional redistricting proposal from the Texas legislature carves up Denton in such a way that the vast majority of our residents would find themselves sharing a representative with distant Amarillo Wichita Falls vast stretches of the panhandle areas that have little in common with Denton and Denton County it'll dilute Denton's impact during elections it'll inevitably lead to our being represented by someone with little to no ties to our area and will hurt constituent services for Dentonites and will make it far more difficult for Denton's municipal leaders to have a meaningful connection with our representative in Washington so I was asking this council to adopt the resolution telling the legislature and especially our own delegation to oppose this anti Denton travesty and create a non-tortured district that includes all of the city of Denton and neighboring communities lack of twists and turns and keeping communities of interest together I think those are the right principles to guide redistribution or redistricting so I hope someone on their staffs is listening right now I will draw the request for a resolution okay anyone else see it councilmember Archer I want to thank councilmember Melzer for bringing this forward this is it is the most cynical sinister kind of gerrymandering just transparent just clear gerrymandering with no basis in the geographical or cultural realities that they're dealing with I think Mayor Pro Tem Melzer put it really well I'm I'm very angry about this gerrymandering it's a disservice to Denton we have so little in common with with Amarillo and the other entities that we are grouped with solely for you know political purposes it is really dispiriting and and just a big slap in the face to what representative democracy is supposed to be so I strongly strongly support this this measure I think it would mean a lot to the people we serve councilmember Warren thank you yes I want to agree that this map is very plainly gerrymandered with the intent it seems pretty specifically with the intent of diluting the voting power of our constituents in particular and if by some chance the way that that this vote turns out today leaves it open for decision at a later date then I would I would support moving forward with this resolution but of course if if if the redistricting passes today then it will be a moot point thank you councilman bet I think although the I concur with all the points said so far I agree that we this is just egregious and we are being disenfranchised as a region I hope that the the the knowledge of this trickles up to Austin in some fashion I wish for Mayor Pro Tem to have success in this resolution although he just withdrew it but I do think we should keep this in the back of our mind in case there is an opportunity that arises as councilman McGuire says to to to revisit this and and re-reinitiate this discussion councilman Burke Mayor Pro Tem millsir thank you so much we of course needed to have this come before us it was it wouldn't have been right not to have had this discussion at this time I if if we were to be able to do it today I certainly would be in approval of us with that resolution I am just acknowledging that there are a lot of fearful people out there there's a lot of fear fear of change fear of something turning over I don't know I can't I can't say what I'm really really thinking but I know that there's a significant amount of fear and there's a lot of power out there that we all need to be mindful of there's people that are making some significant decisions for us without our approval and again if we have an opportunity if it comes back I'll be definitely on top of that in in support of anything going forward again thank you councilman Davis thank you mayor I just briefly want to say because I think it needs to be said I've talked to a lot of people about these maps we have a number of redistricting situations going on right now and specifically on the map that we're talking about nothing against our friends in Wichita Falls or Amarillo but I can tell you I haven't spoken to anyone in our area who's excited about these maps who thinks they're quite the right way they ought to be or that the lines have been drawn the way that is in Denton's best interest okay in the next item Stuart our final item today comes from councilmember Armitour it's passing a resolution to thank Chris Watts for his service on the DCTA board and to remove him and John Ryan who's the alternate from their positions for cause her request is here on the screen and it's also included in the backup and then some staff information here on the second slide just outlines kind of where we are in the nomination process and what that looks like as as we move forward outside of her request so if her request is approved then this kind of timeline would be altered a little bit so I will take that down it also includes some of the requirements for being on the board according to the DCTA bylaws I did want to mention that pull that down and turn it over to councilmember Armitour thank you and this is really a three-part proposal it is about thanking and removing and replacing in those final two steps they were moving and replacing under DCTA guidelines as I understand it have to be done on the same day so that would be a part of it part of this I would like council to issue a statement to the DCTA board thanking Chris Watts for his service as council's appointees to the board and replacing him and his alternate John Ryan prior to the October 28th DCTA board meeting rather than in November when their terms were originally scheduled to expire the cost for Mr. Ryan's termination is alternate is a simple fact that he hasn't been attending either DCTA board meetings or the Denton City Council meetings where DCTA has been discussed and is therefore not prepared to represent in the event of the primary appointee's absence as for Mr. Watts although he has worked hard in this role and is doing what he thinks is best for Denton and DCTA his action this action that I'm proposing would qualify in both cases as removal with cause the unfortunate but stark cause being that is he has chosen to see serving at the pleasure of this council by choosing to go against the resolution of this council as no bus cuts Denton a committee of 17 people from 10 different labor unions observed in their September 22nd petition Mr. Watts ignored City Council's voice at the July 22nd meeting of DCTA board of directors although Denton council had passed a resolution that DCTA should maintain its bus routes for six months Mr. Watts argued that the bus routes should be maintained for only three months moreover at the September 21st Denton City Council work session he stated that it is not his role to follow the instructions of Denton City Council as its appointee to the DCTA board of directors we've gotten a number of emails on this topic including from the head of the Texas AFL CIO which is no small matter anyway I truly want to thank Mr. Watts for his service. Thank you I have a legal question Matt before we hear from everyone I just want to make sure I understand this so you provided a update status update and tell me if we need to go in the closed session but you provided an update and you provided a link to a meeting a previous meeting where city attorney Aaron O'Leal explained that this is not his words not a city board or commission with respect to removal for cause that's at minutes 737 thereabouts our timestamp 737 have you reviewed that and can you speak to if we're proper to have a conversation about removal I know it applies to city Aaron's words it applies to city boards and commissions but his words DCTA is not a city board or commission yeah some of this conversation probably should be closed session but I did provide that information to council as a whole body because I know some of the council members had not received that information in the past in the direction from our office so that was provided to you in the Friday status report but beyond that if you want to get into specifics as to what was addressed in that would be more than happy to do that in a closed session well if there's a question I guess if there's a question about yes let's let's just do because I have a question if if we're even if it's even proper to have this conversation I just need to understand that before we go down that road so so it 407 we're going to go we're going to adjourn from this meeting into closed session to discuss legal matters with respect to item ID 211416 is there any other language I need to work in it to 552-071 pursuant to 552-071 consultation with attorneys so at 408 we'll go into closed session we'll get set up have this conversation we'll be right back okay it is 445 we're back on the record thank you very much for your patience everyone watching so we are on item e the third proposal we have heard the initial two minutes am I right that I'm trying to get my bearings and so I will take open the door for comments on this item from the other council members councilmember Davis thank you mayor I'm not going to pretend like there's not been controversy surrounding Chris Watson his is more recent votes on the DCTA board and I will appreciate the fact that we're thanking him for his service at the same time as we're removing the chair of the board that we have appointed him to but I find this very frustrating because I don't believe that this council has the legal authority to remove someone from this board I don't think we've been given that authority by the state legislature I think we have the authority to replace someone on the board just like we did when we put mayor Watts on the board and I'm very frustrating disappointed that this is coming forward today because all we have to do is wait a week when we already have an agenda item to make an appointment to this board and the fact that we're not waiting that week when all of these issues I just said are out there for everyone to talk about shows me just how politically motivated and frankly disappointing this action is by this council anyone else seen none okay thank you thank you so then that takes us to the yep for clarification mayor what what is in action no action no action yep sure certainly come from back thank you mr. mayor to what extent I'm not sure if this is a Mac question or not to what extent does the closed session discussion have bearing on this discussion of this item and let me let me put it into context a little better so maybe help you answer that question if there was direction in the closed session or or seeming direction it does that have an impact on this item publicly no if council wants to take direction they would have to do it publicly and give that direction publicly nothing that they said in close would be direction to the city staff as to how to proceed with this item so if the council would like to take direction on this item they would need to give council that direction in public session so I'm gonna move forward unless I mean help me I mean give me some guidance here we I think I paused for comment and then there were none and then I moved on but I'm again I get I won't go on a soliloquy I'll just say if there's if this body wants to revisit the item how do I do that if there's a I don't even know if there's an opportunity to do that how that works I'm a little I'm a little discombobulated as far as running the meeting mayor yes if you want to take and open that item for discussion you can do so if there's still council members that would like to discuss it if not you've said you're ready to move on if you don't hear anything from the council that otherwise you could move forward with the meeting yeah so I guess if there's an indication just quick and easy if there's an indication that you would like to move forward this and have that conversation you need to we'll revisit it I mean just come from back thank you mr. mayor and I appreciate that because that's that's why I I paw I requested clarification I I do support moving forward on this item Councilmember wire thank you mayor I was hanging back because I think that that most members of council know that I am interested in in serving in this position and so I would like to move forward with this item removing Chris Watts for cause and I would like to put forward myself as as a nominee to replace him okay anyone anyone else mayor pro tem Melzer yeah I'm the person who moved the resolution forward about what council what council's desires were related to them you know the major project that issue for me this isn't at all about that my concern is just that the requested action has no impact on any decisions in this area that DCA DCJ is going to take the final decisions are going to be in the next board term which is you know in two meetings instead of in one and I absolutely encourage whoever is nominated to the next term to follow this next meeting closely to be ready to permit and to familiarize yourself with the council's resolution but the requested action a week before you know the end of the term to be honest it strikes me as political and personal and I prefer our discourse to be hard on policy and not on people so I don't support this okay anyone else seeing none fails thank you takes us to our we're going to skip the closed session takes us to consent agenda so I'll take a motion but for items E and L councilor Davis I move approval of the consent agenda accepting items E and L councilor Beck I second that there's a motion by councilmember Davis second by councilmember Beck any discussion seeing none councilmember Davis I'll say you I councilmember Beck I'll say you councilmember McGuire councilmember Bird aye mayor Pro Tem Meltzer aye and councilmember Armitage on the consent agenda except for E&L how do you how say you I'm to you councilmember Armitage I can't I'm not sure they're getting volume yeah I didn't get volume until just now okay so on the on the consent on the consent agenda except for E&L how do you vote I'm gonna skip mayor Hutsmith is yes yes okay thank you I vote yes okay that passes 7-0 takes us to item E and let me get there so I can call it sorry item E is ID 2 1 2 0 1 2 consider approval of a resolution nominating members to the board of directors of the Denton County appraisal district David Gaines assistant city manager I have a very brief presentation for consideration of this item Cassey did give you this presentation at the last meeting so I won't go through it in detail and just have a couple of summary slides the item before you is is to submit the city's nomination for the board of directors at the time of posting on Friday we had received one one nomination Howard Martin and so that is is shown in in the item since posting late last night we did get another nomination from the councilmember for Brian Webb and as you can see below on the current board of directors Brian Webb is a current currently on the board of directors for DCAD so if council did choose to go forward with adding Brian Webb that would just need to be reflected in the motion itself here's the nomination process prior to October 15th is which is obviously why we are with you today nominations are to be submitted to DCAD city council can make up to five nominations so if you wanted to add another nomination that's certainly in your purview prior to October 30th DCAD compiles that list and then on prior to December 15th we'll come back and council will vote on the list of nominees for who you want to submit for for the board of directors when we get to that point on the votes you can see there that the city will have 170 votes and that's of a total of five set 5,000 votes those 170 at that point could be split in the past we have the city has cast all those votes for individuals that is it for the presentation happy to answer any questions mayor Tim Meltzer just to make sure I'm tracking so the effect of this item is to confirm Howard Martin as a nominee it's not the vote and then at the time we do vote this is all the question for confirmation we can we can take those 170 votes and cast them all for one nominee or we can divide them among the nominees it's all for discussions that is that all correct it's all correct you'll get the list of we'll get the list all the nominees will submit in the council the only the only consideration right now I think would be do you want to add Brian Webb to to with Howard Martin in the nomination or wait I thought you said oh you because he was also already he was also already nominated by someone on this in this body or you're saying yeah okay council member backs and I got email yesterday okay Adam I appreciate the clarification thank you customer back thank you so I'm a little confused now too so I'll ask for clarification and we can nominate as many people as we want and then the vote is separate I think that's what Mayor Pro Tem was asking so I mean if we wanted to nominate ten people we could the max five okay sorry I was being glib I'm sorry but we can we can nominate multiple people and all that is is a nomination and that's it the voting process would be at some future point right we'll be back in December for the vote okay then then I'd like to to move to nominate both Brian Webb and Martin mr. Martin okay is there a second yeah Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer second all right so council member back motion that we include both names seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer discussion council member am I under the understanding that although we're nominating these people we still have an opportunity to send the nominations you or is this it you won't have a nominee and I can certainly bring the timeline up it helps but you won't have a nomination to submit new nominees but there's a number of cities in DCAD sure so they're going to have a list a long list or a list of all the nominees that will come back to council at that point you can decide how you want to split up your hundred and seventy and it could be to one of these two it could be to whoever you want on the list okay any other discussion seeing none councilman back how say you aye Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer aye councilmember McGuire aye councilman Byrd aye councilman Davis aye councilmember Armitage yes Mayor Hathaway's as well passes 7-0 thank you that takes us to item L we have two recusals for the record let the record reflect that councilmember McGuire and councilmember Davis have recused and I'll call that item it's ID 212056 consider adoption of the ordinance of city of Denton authorizing the interim city manager to execute agreement between the city of Denton and didn't independent school district councilman back I move approval of this item thank you is there a second councilman Byrd I second motion by councilman back second by councilmember Byrd any discussion seeing none council back how say you aye councilman Byrd aye Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer aye okay Mayor Hutzpah says aye councilman Armitage yeah okay that passes 5-0 okay that concludes the consent agenda so now let me get my verbiage we'll go into closed session and then we'll take a break let me get there sorry got it no bear with me notice there it is okay so we will convene in closed session at 459 p.m. we will consider the following items consultation with attorneys under Texas government code section five five one dot zero seven one deliberations involving medical and psychiatric records of individuals under the Texas government code five five one dot zero seven eight five and welcome to this me back to this meeting didn't city council it is 636 we have only two items left this meeting the please note the public hearing has been postponed by staffs request so we'll only have the two we have section two until I call the first item which is oh Councilmember Byrd mayor I just want to point out I believe we have at least one member of the public who's here to speak to us on I saw Lenny McAdams and she seemed like she was here to speak to us but now I'm not sure where she is yeah excuse me mr. mayor if I may of course your dad is here also I did speak with miss McAdams and she's actually scheduled for next Tuesday Oh another group of people okay got it okay so the first item is ID 2 1 2 0 2 7 consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton to declare the intent to reimburse capital program expenditures of the electric utility good afternoon good evening I'm not sure where the turning point is but good evening Randy Klingle Treasury manager get my presentation here I have a short presentation this evening about our annual reimbursement ordinance that we bring to the council every year so I will cover that for you and have any questions at the end the purpose of our annual reimbursement ordinance is to allow the city to fulfill the IRS requirement for stating our intent to reimburse ourself with tax exempt bond dollars from a future sale generally we have the bond sale within 12 months of the adoption but we do like to do it before the end of the fiscal year for accounting purposes and our debt policy for the city also allows this reimbursement ordinance and the process to occur it basically gives staff the opportunity to go ahead and jumpstart some of the projects that were just approved in this fiscal year and get those started a little bit earlier than we actually have them on proceeds so most of my slide deck is regarding the capital improvement project list that is in your backup and it's just going to go in little subsections here for your slide deck we're not going to talk about each individual project but just kind of go over the total dollars in each section the first item is the geo-funded projects which are from the 2019 bond election the continuation of those programs the street improvement section for proposition 1 we have 36.6 million dollars public safety facilities for proposition 2 is at 17.9 which are geo-funded projects brings a total to 54.5 million dollars the CEO funded projects certificates of obligation in the general side we have some fleet building expansions at 4.3 we have the general government items you see there for 7.9 for totaling the general government CEOs at 12.2 the remaining items that we have are from our utilities departments the water projects are coming in at 34.9 wastewater has a lot of items on their list and so they have three slides dedicated to this and again all of these are in your backup in the full project list and I'll note that these are the budgeted items so there's nothing different here that you haven't seen before since you approved this budget just a few weeks ago. So wastewater projects are at 44.2 solid waste coming in with 2.5 million dollars for their budget this year the DME's electric projects are totaling 52.9 so in total for your project dollars this year we're looking at 200 million 892 thousand 488 dollars for your reimbursement ordinance now it's not to say that we will come back later and the notice of intent or notice of in sale and this will be reduced we don't come to you later in the year for that so this is just the budgeted dollar items without any activity yet for the year. So our next step is we will go to the bond oversight committee in February to discuss the geo funding projects then we'll come in April for the notice of intent for the CEO issued items and then in May we'll come to you with the parameters ordinance for both the general obligations and the certificate of obligations and then in that same month we should have the bond sale and then we receive proceeds that following month in the summer time most likely in June and those are all items that I have. Okay so any questions for staff? Just to clarify like for example on slide eight electrical transformer replacements all of this is bond funded correct including these dollar amounts that are here are from the debt-funded portion of your CIP project okay all right thank you yes ma'am okay any other questions for staff okay and do so any action this evening are we consider adoption of the ordinance yes okay so counselor Davis I move adoption of the ordinance thank you counselor bird okay motion by counselor Davis second by counselor member bird any discussion seeing none counselor Davis I'll say you aye counselor bird aye counselor back aye counselor McGuire aye mayor Proctor Meltzer aye counselor Armitter yes and mayor Hutzpeth as I as well that passes seven zero thank you very much thank you it's my first presentation to council in a while I did pub yesterday and of course y'all see me in the hot funds many times great job thank you thank you I appreciate it uh-huh and I will so this is our last item but I will during concluding items take a little liberty if there's anyone here that was going to speak on the public hearing or speak in a public hearing section of things we'll open the floor for that for the same four minutes or so but okay thank you so this it's ID 212035 consider adoption the ordinance of the city of Denton creating an internal audit advisory committee to advise the city council city auditor on audit activities and governance and providing an effective date hello I'm Madison Rocha city auditor I'm gonna have a very brief presentation on this item that I will share to go over the kind of just kind of the details of this very briefly so to begin the slide lists the proposed duties for the internal audit advisory committee which are also detailed in the ordinance that was provided in your backup in general the committee would be responsible for reviewing and providing recommendations to the city council and the internal audit functions direction and governance structure as well as providing advice on these activities to the city auditor my current intention is to have the internal audit advisory committee meet about quarterly to receive updates on the internal audit functions progress on the annual audit plan as well as discuss any additional items regarding regarding the department's activities procedures and structure the creation of this committee would not impact current audit reporting procedures so all audit reports would continue to be presented to the city council for review and discussion and then just further proposed ordinance the committee would be composed of four Denton residents with the city auditor serving as an ex officio member resident members would not be allowed to be city employees or be related to city employees and preference and appointments would be given to individuals in related professional fields like auditing and finance public administration risk managements and those people who teach such knowledge members would be nominated and appointed by the city council with nominations being taken up in the order received from council and once appointed members would serve two years staggered terms and could serve up to three terms so that's the end of my presentation okay thank you very much questions for staff councilor vett i'm sorry council i'll come back to you councilor vett go ahead and then i'll circle back thank you mayor i appreciate that um so uh does this uh does the the ordinance is crafted include council and council's family if a council member wished to be on the committee they could i suppose nominate themselves yes and in council's um sanguine and and the other terminology uh for anyway family we'll just leave it there so i don't have to get confused in nomenclature i i guess i i like what you did with city staff and family of staff and i guess i'm encouraging us to include um council's family at least uh i can be argued into um council as well um i'm not sure we can preclude each other i guess we can do whatever we want but but um just just i i'm trying to provide that extra distance that you were clearly seeking as well um for your advisory anyway um so uh i think i thought about excluding the city council i one of the reasons i didn't is because best practices do suggest that um city council members actually be on the committee which when you removed the council audit and finance committee i i assumed that you didn't want that to be a requirement in the ordinance but i wanted to leave that room open if that was something that you wanted to do all right well i'll just leave that thought floating around the dais for a moment then thank you councilmember davis thank you could you give me just a little bit more clarity on the distinction of this citizen committee the distinction between this citizen committee and the old audit finance committee and the reason why i bring it up is we also just dissolved the airport committee the airport has a very healthy advisory board and the reason why we dissolved the airport advisory the airport committee on the council was because there's a lot of function happening at the airport advisory board i i kind of see a difference here in that i'm not sure even meeting just quarterly what practical advice or practical help a citizen committee will be providing to internal audit where the council makes the work plan that the auditor proposes the work plan the council approves the the work plan the council uh sees the final result of the of the audits and the staff response the council gives feedback to the city manager on you know that we didn't really address this part of the audit we're really concerned about that um i i'm just really feeling like this is a solution in search of a problem in that what what practical helpful role is this four member citizen committee going to provide the city that is not already being provided in kind of the committee of a whole as the committee of the whole that we do because this council has been very actively involved in giving you feedback on the audits that we get i think one of the things here is that the intention is for them to be residents who are knowledgeable specifically in auditing which i appreciate all of y'all's advice but you're generally not auditors um and so i think part of the for for me is to get advice on some of those more procedural how is the function working um and to have somebody there to be able to say well what if we reported things this way or even you know to have a body that we could go to and say well we're thinking about this scope does that sound like it matches up to things you're hearing in your community um with your knowledge of auditing as well so did that help answer your question it does i still have concerns about uh and we have committees already that that just don't meet because there's not work for them to do um and once you put a citizen committee in place it's very difficult to take one away and they're not without cost you know there's something for staff to do mostly your department but also city secretary's department all that um but i guess my question is um if if you're recommending it because it's going to add functionality or aid in in what you do in your office i'm all for it if we're adding it because we feel the need for citizen input where we got rid of a council committee that didn't really have much of a function left um that i'm not i'm not in favor of it so i believe it will add functionality in terms of just having a body of people that i can talk to about here are specific things about how audit auditing works um and as also being able to say here's how the government auditing standards work and this is how i'm applying them to my work based on your knowledge does that seem like that's actually a quality a good quality control um system because i believe so right i put into place but it helps us give that that independent perspective um in terms of that as well okay would it be helpful then to have it written into the ordinance that it's not council members i mean not people that uh i mean should we be even more specific about qualifications then for this for this board rather than yeah i mean we have in there the preference piece um we can certainly do that i mean that's fine for me i didn't want to i guess i didn't want to limit council if they were did want to be involved um but you know the other reason i that's just important to me that if they're going to be a working committee if they're going to be doing the work yeah then they've got to be qualified to do the work and it can't just be um yeah you see what i'm saying um councilmember quire thank you mayor hudspeth um i i yeah i i had seconded the motion then i withdrew my second after i heard councilmember beck's comments because i definitely interpreted city employee to include council members i mean i know i don't get paid very much but i do have you know a w-9 on file with the city um and you know i know that what you're looking for here is um folks who can give you you know real people with a technical understanding of the work that you do give giving you advice which um i'm certainly not qualified to do i i think most of us probably are not um but i you know correct me if i'm wrong but my understanding is also that part of the the um function that this serves is detecting or maybe more preventing um fraud and and corruption and i think if if that's um going to be one of the goals of um of this uh this committee then yeah we probably shouldn't allow council members to be on it because that i mean if it's going to be detecting or preventing fraud and corruption that is that seems like a conflict of interest to allow council members on it yeah i think um it would have a role in that in terms of we i would certainly want to talk to them about here's my ideas and thoughts about how to implement this fraud program that we have a long-term goal that we talked about briefly at a previous meeting october 4th i believe i don't know that they'd have an active like on the ground looking at documents and things to detect fraud role um so i hope that clarifies that yeah it definitely does yeah um if if that's if that's not so much the function that i feel less strongly about whether council members serve on it or not there's a process established for how fraud gets handled and this is not part of that is is for in terms of like if we received a fraud allegation we would not go talk to them there's a committee set up internally in the city um that handles that okay all right thank you um council member beck thank you for letting me follow up mr mayor um so from from uh mr davis's um questions it it do we have a body of risk management audit uh uh uh professionals in our in our town of 143 000 that can um meet your needs uh or is this better um set to um the the same expenditures that we might make might be better uh to to get you uh you know consultation in the larger auditor community through through you know attending a conference and birds of the feather sessions and and other things that you're already kind of doing but would it be better to to get you that feedback or is this that we we have specific items executive session issues that we would precisely need to drill down and therefore we need an some auditor community in risk management community in denton of denton citizens yeah i mean we i already we attend conferences and i am part of lots of organ well not lots of the two uh audit organizations and have colleagues that i that i reach out to for for things occasionally um i think the idea with this being resident focused would be to have that uh community input and to have people who are aware of what's going on specifically in the city um to provide input on those and as well as having that knowledgeable uh technical piece and do we feel the second part of that part of that question was is there a sufficient body of professionals i believe i mean if we throw out the city staff and we throw out council well none of us are auditors but but you know is there a sufficient body of auditors left in in town i believe so you know there's several universities um and several banks i you know i haven't reached out uh at at large to the community at this point all right fair enough thank you okay miss city city manager so i shared my concerns with uh madison about uh this uh from a standpoint of having uh citizens trying to drive uh an agenda and um however the way it was presented to me and i just want to be clear is that this is a group of professionals that would advise her and help her with the latest trends in auditing all the things that you're looking at and for me i i that gave me more comfort than at first where i and i even told her i think when you have uh citizens on a committee and they're in looking at her in charge of working on ideas that to audit in the city that would be problematic for me but if it's someone helping her a group of auditors that have that experience helping her look at the trends and how other new things that she might be able to look at that that was more comforting to me but the other was concerning okay counselor i feel like that there are some people out there that uh would fit this criteria we have a lot of businesses here in town and um you know we have that educational space uh that's out there um i don't believe that you will have trouble finding some some people to advise you on on you know on the next steps and and what to do in facilities management there's a just a lot of facilities out here we're going to have a a very large where our industrial area is growing so there are some folks out there that would be probably you know attainable to assist you in in looking at that area so i i would i i appreciate you uh reaching out uh than trying to do it all inside it looks like you're doing an excellent job but i can see where you are needing some additional assistance in that in that risk management part so i'm all for it okay uh counselor monitor uh yeah so uh number one i think this is a great idea uh and um i i have two questions um one um kind of can can you speak to uh other cities that have uh a a similar committee you know as i understand it if i'm remembering correctly um that you know this is not uh unique to denton but it's a um it's it's a practice elsewhere and works well elsewhere so i was wondering if you could speak to that and then um if you could or you can answer these in whichever order you want you know because i'm inclined to uh agree i had a similar concern about council members and council members families being able to serve on it that felt wrong to me it also felt a little redundant uh since we get to vote on uh and and have input on auditing uh issues anyway um but you mentioned i was curious because you mentioned that having council members on it is part of the is considered best practices um so that sounded counter intuitive to me but my mind is open uh you know to it so i'm wondering if you could tell me why that is considered best practices okay um i'll start with your first question so yes many other cities across the country have audit committees that they're um they're odd city auditor or equivalent reports to um i think in the friday report i presented some backup on some large texas cities almost all of them have some form of this body they're a lot of them are set up different ways so some of them are resident some of them are our council members are equivalent legislative body um or they're a mixture a couple included utility public utility boards or members and things like that um when we were kind of forming this one we focused on uh garland and lubbock because they are similar in terms of organizational complexity uh because they all they have power plants that generate electricity wastewater and water service and and similar services like the city of denton has um i think to your second point uh about best practices i think the idea is that having somebody who understands public administration helps with um understanding the uh industry environment of public government um and gives that kind of larger broader perspective of this is how the city operates um so we we did include that in some way in the preferences to include people who have experience in public administration um i will also add i don't necessarily feel strongly about leaving that open if that's the will of council we can close that and so that city council council members cannot be on the on the body so thank you for answering this question so you know having heard that uh i still feel that council members and council members families shouldn't be on it uh so i i will support gladly support this uh with that um addition to it uh and i don't know if we would need to make a separate motion you know specifying that language um how that would have how that would have to work uh but i will say that i i i don't have the concerns that you know any concerns uh about this this committee i think it's um i think it's really good for democracy it's it's really good for transparency and it will be helpful to you your office and your operations so i i really don't see any downside to it okay so i'll just say there is a majority for you for you know kind of for you that that has expressed a desire to close the loop on the city council component i'll tell you when it is it going to come back to us is that the next step um i think if we have to add that language it might have to come back but i'll defer to the city attorney we're scheduled for action tonight council could make a motion and include that as an amendment to the motion or we could come back with actual language okay next week got it well i'll just give my insight then i mean for me i think yeah if you tap into the schools that's great if you identify because i take your point about best practices to communicate with council so i think maybe that's a there's a two-step process there's a process where you get together with your uh you kind of your peers of that kind of uh knowledge base and and have that kind of fulfill that part of best practices and then maybe there's a subsequent conversation with a council member you know that you kind of identify hey i'm gonna one of us is tasked with sitting down one-on-ones having those meetings you know i'm not my main thing is when i saw it i just want to make sure it's it's not uh to council member davis's point i really see it as subject matter experts i mean we can send people to you but i just need your assurance that you're going to be selective and it's not hey this person was sent to me so i'm going to accept it it's hey send me your resume send me your cv and you don't have the the skill set that i'm looking for you know next and and you kind of are discerning about it or even if you want to take unt tw and get a master's uh level person from each of those universities obviously we can reach out and make sure you know you get a bunch of names from them to then parse through and and then maybe a an associate from nctc and so that's three people however you set it up i just need guidance from you on how to send people but i just need assurance from you however it's set up that you're going to be you know and you've already touched on that that you're going to be discerning and and make sure you you thin the herd enough to where it's it is true subject matter experts and then the the rest i think takes care of itself so i'll take your guidance on that on how to um move forward uh council member are you still you're still there is that you're well we're still in so i have council member beck that wants to speak i just want to make sure i wouldn't skip in you okay councilor bett mr can can i get you to clarify some of your ideas on on that i mean the ordinance as it stands doesn't really have a thinning of the herd component it is just sort of organized the way we do a standard committee so maybe if you could help me understand and i'm not necessarily opposed to this just it's really just general genuine question on on how because i think if we were going to have those elements in there to kemp madison more control over this committee i think whoever motions and it looks like mayor pro tem is the first in line would have to add that to their motion if i'm not mistaken yeah thank you for the question so i read it to say nominations appointment taken in order received wasn't kind of a first four in right understanding the the the qualifications they need to have so i thought it would just be here's a list of 20 number one doesn't match number two doesn't match three has a skill set i'll accept that that's how i read it just from a powerpoint standpoint i didn't i didn't you know not not saying the ordinance reads that way but that that's where i was going with it is understanding that it did say in order received but it wasn't the first four because they may not meet the qualifications am i was i wrong in how i read that so i think the idea was that the council wouldn't in this current version of the ordinance the idea was that the council would nominate and then in the order that those were received they would be brought up for appointment we had a previous version of the ordinance where basically the city auditor would be responsible for nominating um i was advised that that might not be advised the best idea um but i'm open to that if that that more aligns i think with what you're saying about kind of making sure that the qualifications are there yeah that that was the way i read it is you know so i i understand there may be some legal issues to massage there but that's how i always interpreted when we had the conversation because you know we from when it originated was that you would take kind of the the lead on uh that because again it's for your benefit it's you know so that's that's that was my look at it but um let's see counselor back you yeah i just want to i i agree that it sounds like you're agreeing we were agreeing that that's something that had to be crafted in there to to let if this is for you to benefit you then i i agree some some level of feedback some mechanism but i wouldn't i i'm not hearing the mechanism being stated and i and i guess i'm you know uh i'm not thinking of one off the top of my head so i i guess i'll wait for mayor pro tem's yeah mayor pro tem yes thank you uh so uh first of all when i offer my motion uh i i my intention is to exclude council members along the city employees and their consequent whatever that language is uh and on this issue which i think is a very uh pertinent discussion uh what i would suggest is there is a there is already a vetting process you know whenever you have appointments to boards and commissions and i would just uh include uh in the ordinance that the city auditor would participate uh in the vetting for professional qualification i think that that would cover it so uh if you're prepared mayor i'm happy to offer the amendment yes sir yeah and actually and a little more ramp up uh i think you know madison if you need uh and would benefit from kind of a kitchen cabinet a sounding board and some uh professional expertise i think it's a terrific way for there to be you know kind of citizen oversight and contribution and and for sure the expertise is in the community whether we're capable of recruiting those people to show up that's another question we'll we'll find out i'd probably suggest that you know you come back to us in in a six months or a year your discretion to say is this experiment good not good change you know that having been said i move approval of the ordinance uh amended so as to exclude council members and people related to them uh in the same fashion as city employees and that in the uh vetting of nominees that the city auditor will participate in the vetting as to uh professional qualifications okay thank you well said council member bird great um matt you you're tracking with us yeah we got it okay great so we have a motion by council we have a motion by mayor pretend melter second by council member bird any other discussion councilor davis thank you mayor let me really brief i'm gonna vote for this because democracy is good so this involvement is good there's nothing wrong with with what we've put together but i'm going to put a brief cautionary tale out there because doing in the context of a nomination wouldn't be appropriate based on you know individuals and names connected when we created the board of ethics there was an impression among some members when the board first convened that they were going to be the new watch dogs for the city they were going to be sleuthing out crime they were going to take this big active role and part of that was based on the nomination of those individuals and their expectations based on their nominators the cautionary tale is this this is not sleuthing out crime finding fraud turning over rocks this is helping madison do the job of the city auditor so when we make our nominations i hope i don't have to repeat the cautionary tale and hurt somebody's feelings in the context of an actual name being in front of us we're looking for professionals who can help with the function not be watchdogs and sleuths for the city thank you any other discussion okay um i'll just say if it's whole numbers less than 10 i'm your guy above 11 and above i'm out mayor pro tem how say you put that down points well taken councilor davis aye okay councillor burke aye councillor bett aye councillor mcguire aye councillor armater yes okay and mayor hutsworth is an aye and who am i missing council member davis is thank you council member davis i know i was missing one thank you said pass a seven zero thank you very much great job okay uh so that concludes our agenda like i said the public hearing was moved so i'm gonna open some space so if there's anyone that wants to speak you have uh what is it four minutes is that right to to speak during concluding items we can't respond because it's not on the agenda but why not take care of those that are here hey billy in the back if you uh could you record this this is the first time we've had the uh what do you call it blessing to to have uh mr willy hutsworth here addressing since i have to sit in this seat it was better when mayor watts was sitting here but by all means name and address you have uh four minutes to speak depending on how it goes thank you mayor and city council my name is willy hutsmith i live at 623 newton gerard used to be my son he cannot come to sunday dinners anymore well no his mama keeps saying yes he can anyway i have three items that i want to discuss with you one is i cannot for the life of me understand why those of you voted to put that four plex number one where it's going to be we already have problems getting out of that area and that is really going to be a problem so for the next few meetings i'll be up here trying to get clarification as to what was the reason for that and i asked what if it was in your neighborhood right but by your entryway to where you you're going in and i know where most of you live i don't think it'd go away why do you think it was good to put it there next there's an eyesore in our neighborhood well there's several i want to speak to the ready mix eyesore a group of us have started to work on putting a mural on that brick wall brick structure that they have out there separating the concrete from the neighborhood we're working trying to get our neighborhood together when gerard was the council person there not to give him any credit for doing something but he was active and he was into everything then birdie came and then she did a good job you don't have a good job now so i'll be addressing that one too so and the third one is i'm going to start a movement to change loop 288 to martin luther king jr uh just because i think it needs to be recognized that little overpass that they you passed not you but the council passed a while back is not a good representation of what that man went through and did for me and just everybody and i know there's a lot of opposition but as you well if well know if you know anything about me and my history i'll just take on opposition i'm telling you i'm going to start working to get that through at a change to martin luther king jr i think it'd be a great addition to our city and then we'll speak to what i think he he represents for us all thank you for giving me the opportunity at the times mixed up i appreciate it yep thank you okay okay anyone else care to speak that was here uh okay great well thank you all so that takes us to concluding items council any any items member to answer yes uh those of you maybe didn't hear the earlier item our first responders have been a big part of vaccination efforts in the county and are gearing up to play an even bigger role in both testing and vaccinations in denton and all the while they are themselves taking huge risks of infection in their daily duties and too many are paying the price so i just i want to acknowledge and thank them for their service as we stare this thing down in our community and if you're still on the fence about getting vaccinated if our first responders are willing to come to you to do this i hope you'll recognize their everyday bravery and accept their offer thank you um anyone else concluding items councilor amater yeah uh so um my audio was uh off on this on the city end so i didn't get to hear my fellow council members uh input on my uh proposal on remove and replace on dcta i look forward to watching the video um i will say you know i was surprised to hear that there uh apparently there wasn't consensus um and uh so anyway it was i i was surprised by that um if there was consensus and that was misrepresented um then i i hope that um there will be an opportunity uh to to uh bring this back to the table um because uh you know bus bus drivers jobs are on the line bus riders are on the line our bus system is on the line um and and i want to make sure that we have you know the true voice of of the consensus of council on this one again i i didn't get to hear what transpired so that may have happened um but i i will be watching and listening to that video carefully okay anyone else okay i'll just i'll just say a couple of things so friday is walter eagleton's birthday he now lives overseas but great member of the community so i want to wish him happy birthday early uh the your your beautiful event is at east side that's on sunday and so that's kind of all day those it's a designed around cancer survivors and so that's a great event if you're if you're out and about near the square and then i'll be facing probably one of my uh toughest interviews in the morning on the morning of next tuesday i have some ferocious two-year-olds that are going to let me have it i know second graders pardon me that are going to i'm going to face down and and uh try to explain what we do and so that'll be a lot of fun and so i appreciate that invitation uh to go talk to the second graders and and then um from a there's a couple events so please see the city website and you you'll get a calendar in the mail and our newsletter but there's a lot of great things coming on we have the stream clean coming up we have the trunk of treat and then you know we have the tree giveaway there's some really great things going on so please check those calendars too many to mention um and then i i do want to say um miss city manager i i wanted to talk about the uh and i'll circle back with you on the on the utility uh transition and and kind of see if we if we need to authorize funds to make sure that you know that existing entity if there's some question if they're going to transition the data i just really want to make sure if we have to spend money to make sure a third party gets that information inputted versus our customers have to input that you know i just if that if that existing company drops a ball i want to talk to you about if maybe we can put something on the agenda to authorize spending to uh make sure that's covered not set you know i understand staff's concern about the existing vendor but it just we had such a bad experience last time i want to try to make it a good good good experience on this transition um councilman beth you yeah thank you mr mayor mr mayor's praising of some of the events and and new items reminded me that staff has put together an excellent first step at our city sidewalks map and plan they're only expanding this but i would say i i'm i don't think it's unreasonable to say that probably at least 30 of the questions of council are what about these roads and sidewalks and so i encourage everyone who's watching reviewing the transcripts to go check out this new site it's only going to get better i really appreciate staff putting this together i think it's going to solve a lot of problems so thank you staff great yeah that's a great point on that and the the other about sharing your your story about vaccinations to to mayor pro tem's point about making sure we're we're educating and sharing our stories so great great stuff on the website okay well if there's nothing else okay we'll conclude tonight's meeting 720 and it is still october 12th so thank you