Nov 16, 2021 City Council on 2021-11-16 2:00 PM

Good afternoon, welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council. It is Tuesday, November 16th. It is 2 p.m. We do have a quorum so I'll call the meeting to order. The first thing in the agenda is citizen comments. Do we have any citizen comments on the agenda? No, Mayor, not at this time. Thank you. That takes us to the request for clarification on agenda items listed on the agenda from council. Any questions from consent agenda from council? Seeing none, then that takes us to our work session, which will be item 3A. I'll call that ID 211980, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the drawing of the council districts. Mayor, Council, Ryan Adams, Chief of Staff, we do have Bicker staff here coming to us through Zoom and they'll lead you through the redrawing session. We do have Bob Heath and while you do this discussion, they are going to have a map that they will share that will be able to give you the results of any changes in real time. So I will turn it over to Bob Heath and he can walk you through the redrawing session. Thank you. Thank you. What I hope we can do today is get an idea where the council stands on a map. We have three maps that have been proposed. One is the existing map, which is in balance and has been in place for 10 years. And if the city chooses, it can continue to use that or it can decide that it wants to make changes to it. Additionally, we have two others. Councilman Beck has submitted a plan and Councilman Davis has submitted one and I thought what we might do is sort of go through each one very briefly and then get some idea if the council wants to look further at one or the other or one of the three. And if we have some idea that there's a lot of support for one of them or not so much support for another, then we can focus on the one that seems to have the most support. One thing, there has been some concern about the fact that the county has not finalized voting precincts. They are in the process of doing that. I think they will probably have that done by the end of the month. The county is having to make many changes in the voting precincts because, number one, the state, through its state house plan and its congressional plan have cut, according to our count, a total of 58 precinct cuts and those all have to be resolved by the county. Additionally, there are several precincts that were at an appropriate size when created but now have far too many voters and have to be reconfigured so that they have the appropriate number of registered voters. They're making very significant changes. We want to be in a situation where we follow the election precincts. That's probably going to be something that is partly up to the city and partly up to the county because if you take a city council district, which has about 35,000 people, and if we're trying to get it into balance, an election precinct may have 3-4,000 people. So, if you're moving a whole election precinct, that in many cases will be too big to keep you from going above the 10% deviation that we want to be sure that we are under. By 10%, that means that the difference between the smallest and the largest district does not exceed 10 percentage points. So, basically, if you're less than 5% over and others are less than 5% under, we're going to be within that. But typically, voting precincts may be too big to let us do that without potentially splitting that. And in that case, the county will probably want to come back and adjust the voting precinct. So, this is the existing plan. I'm sure you're all familiar with that. The first one that the city received, and that was at the very beginning of the process, was the Beck Plan. And we'll put that up in just a second. And can you, Jackson, can you superimpose the existing district lines on that? Absolutely. Just one second. We're going to, I think they are in red, I believe. And so you can see where it deviates from the existing plan. And we will do the same thing with the Davis Plan, which is the other one that we have. Okay. Yeah, you see those red lines, now they're black lines, that show you where the existing district are. And there's some perhaps significant changes. You can see they're in District 1, for example. It has encompassed some things that were in District 2 previously, and District 3 has gained things that were previously in 4. As far as our racial and ethnic composition of the districts, they are reflected in those numbers at the bottom. There's not a significant difference in any of the plans. That they're all about the same on that. And in this one, it has a deviation of 6.78%, which is a little under what the regular plan is, which is 7.77%. The main thing we want to do is make sure we're under 10. So while there may be some benefit in getting it a little closer to zero, as long as we're within that 10%, we're going to be okay. And then we're going to put up the Davis Plan, which came in more recently, and those will be the three plans that we have. And I was hoping we can get some idea of people really like one or of those three or maybe don't like one or some things that we can sort of see where we want to focus our attention. And this one, the existing district layers will be coming up. And this one probably follows the existing districts more closely than the back plan does. You can see sort of in the middle of the city where there are adjustments made where 1, 3, and 2 come together. Seemed on initial viewing, that seems to be the primary difference. It has a very small deviation, less than 1%, 0.66. In it, there's a little cleanup we would have to do. In fact, we would do that on any of them simply because the software that these were drawn on does not precisely match the city, but it's very minimal. It won't make any difference. Ultimately, it's just some minor changes. So I was hoping if people have some thought as to what they think might, if they're ones they particularly like or dislike, if we could get some comment on that, that would be good. Okay, is now a good time for that? Yes, please. Okay, then I'd like to start off with saying, I'd like to hear you on a couple of things. So I'll just list the questions and you can speak to them in the order you want. I thought we were just going to make suggestions on the criteria. That's what you said when you presented to us first, for my recollection, not submit wholesale maps. You spoke against that, so it seems weird to say in one meeting that we're going to focus on criteria. And then in this presentation have no map that's based on the feedback you received on the criteria, but to put forward wholesale maps which you advised against. So that's one question, speak to that. But then two also, why would you recommend drawing before the county lines? If you have a hard stance on that, I'd like you to declare a position on what you would advise us to do there. And then three, I'd like you to speak to the fact that both of these maps come from single-member district representatives and what legal concerns, because that gives me legal concerns. As an at-large candidate, it doesn't affect me, but the two plans you have before you are presented by people that are directly affected by what they presented. And that to me presents legal concerns, but I'll take your guidance on that. That's the third question. So if you could, and I think that's all the questions I have, but I'll reserve the right for follow-up. Okay, yeah, thank you, and I'm happy to address all of those, and I hope I have gotten them all, and if I miss one, let me know. First, as to advising against drawing, I don't remember saying exactly that, and if I did, or maybe it was misinterpreted, I apologize for that. Basically, what we do is we want people in drawing, and when we draw and when we look at plans to think about them in terms of the criteria, we have the criteria that have been adopted. We want to think about the criteria and conform to the criteria, which includes things like keeping neighborhoods together. Obviously, conforming to the Voting Rights Act, population balance, conforming to election precincts, if possible, which is, I think, the way the criteria are worded and using major boundaries and so forth. So we want to think about any map like that, but, you know, obviously, we're going to have to take maps and draw. Now, as to doing it before the county acts, the problem is the county hasn't acted yet. It will, I think, act by the end of the month. That's what I understand the timeline is. I have heard somebody say not before the end of the week, and others say they're looking at the end of the month, but it's a big project for them, but it hasn't happened yet. The problem with waiting too long is that we have to finish by mid-January, and typically it's sort of hard to get a lot of this done in December, when councils typically have fewer meetings because of the holidays. And, you know, because we absolutely want to finish by mid-January and have something on board. And at the end of whatever we do, I suspect the county is going to have to do something in regard to its precincts. So, if we go through today and we see what people are thinking about and what they like, that may be helpful to the county as they are going through their process to devise election precincts or resolve election precincts. And whenever we finish, and the sooner we finish, I think it works out better for the county because, as I said, I don't think we're going to be able to end up drawing plans that precisely conform to election precincts. We can do it maybe 90% or whatever, but if we have to get things into balance, and an election precinct has 3,000 or 4,000 people, as we move an entire election precinct, it's going to throw the balance off. So, probably what's going to happen is on at least some precincts, once we finish, the county is going to have to take that into consideration and either adjust its precinct or not. Now, just as a little bit of background on election precincts and conformity to election precincts, it is, I think, particularly important in Denton. Denton County is not one of the counties in the state that is a vote center county. Those counties, there are about 80 of them, are ones where you can vote on election day in any precinct in the county, just like happens in early voting. So, even if you reside in precinct 117, that's where your home is and your work is somewhere else 304, you might find it easier to vote in 304, you can do that. But Denton doesn't do that. The county requires you to vote in the precinct. So, it's helpful, and since the county contracts with the city to conduct its elections, it's helpful to have those precincts conform to the single member districts. Used to that was the law, they had to. It is no longer the law, the legislature changed that, but it's still very helpful to do it. And so I think if we have an idea, the closer we get to knowing where we're going, I think we finish earlier, we make it possible to get those lines in conformity with the precincts. And I don't think we're going to finish today, but we may have an idea and, you know, sort of push it forward today. Now, as far as the maps coming from single member district representatives, I don't see a legal concern on that. They certainly may have an interest, but they have an equal vote on the council. They are entitled to have their view and ultimately the entire council is going to have to decide, and they can accept something that a single member district representative proposes, or they can reject it. So I don't see a legal concern there. And have I answered the three questions? I think there were three. But just for simplicity for me, there's a really long answer for question number two. So really my question is succinctly, do you recommend drawing before the county? Obviously you said that, but I just want to kind of pin you down to that. You're recommending to start drawing now in advance of the county. Yes. And I think what we do is not going to be final, but if we move the process along, you know, if we come out today and it's very clear that the city is interested in one of these plans, maybe without changes or with some changes or something like that. That probably helps the county before they finish and can resolve any issues that might be there. But even if not, it moves us along so that when we do decide and if we have to come back after the county has adopted plans, like I say, it's very likely. It's not certain, but it's likely that ultimately we may have to split a precinct simply to get things into balance. So in that case, the sooner we have that done, the better and the county can respond to that. They want to get their things finalized. I know Secretary of State's told them they need to do it by December 30th or 31st. Okay, Councilman Armitage. So just first of all, I'll say that I agree that this too was my understanding of what the plan was going to be, as you just said, that it was my understanding that we came up with criteria previously and had established that. And so I'm fine with this. I'm satisfied with this process and it fits with what I understood we were going to be doing today. I was wondering, is it possible for you, you know how necessarily I have to do this right now, but during our drawing discussion, as we compare these two maps that happen to be on the table, or any other proposals to do for us a split screen, and I don't know if this is so much a question for you or our tech people, but so we can see the two of them next to each other, that would be really helpful. I realize the text would be smaller, but that would be helpful for us, and I think also for viewers at home to be able to see those together on the same screen when we're comparing different proposals. Jackson, I'm going to have to defer to you on that, who is the drawer. And just so I make sure I understand it correctly, you're asking for both of the plans to be pulled out just side by side. Yes. So sadly the capability of the software is that we can only have one plan open at one period of time I can't have like, you would think maybe two tabs and be able to pull them up next to each other because it is all synchronized to one database, and if changes are made, and, you know, one plan it affects the database and then if another plan is, you know, changed that same database just will get confused and it'll cause those problems down the road. I can have one PDF maybe of the original districts, and then the actual software that we're using to do the drawing up and I mean we have PDFs of all of the plans that were submitted thus far so I can have any one of those up next to the software that's going to be doing the drawing, but I don't think I'll be able to have two tabs. Okay, per se. Okay, so it's what you're saying Jackson that you can put two of them up but you can only draw on one. I would not even bring to up we've kind of been fighting this software for a really long time since getting here and it's it's been a blessing to get to this point but bringing up two of them sounds like a recipe for you know which one did I edit last which one of my editing. Is there a overlay? Let's say if we had the back plan up and we wanted to compare it to the Davis plan. Is there an overlay much as we have the existing council districts? Yes, absolutely. You know, the original. Starting point will obviously need to be determined, but then we can overlay whatever lines that those plans contain on top of it and then. You or the council members can decide what color they want to make those just so we're all in understanding of which one is what color. So maybe that would resolve the councilman's question is, and as we pulled them up, we had the with two councilman's maps we had the existing plan boundaries overlays you compare them to the existing one. If you know maybe we if you want to compare Davis to back, we could put one of them up and overlay the district boundaries of the other if that would work. Yeah, I mean, these all sound like helpful solutions. And, you know, I wonder also not a question for you, you know, but for our staff if it would be helpful for other council members and the public as well. Maybe maybe that's something that could be done on on our on on staffs and on DTVs and if you could easily just put up just a still picture, the city managers signaling. Councilmember armature I think the problem is, they can't dip twice from the same program and that's the problem why they can't. Yes. Yeah, yeah, they can send us. I mean, I guess we could print something off that you all could have at your at the diaspora to look at. That's what I'm thinking and maybe just to have kind of a still shot, not to make too much of a deal of it and we could you know, but at least at the very least you know if, if it would be possible maybe to email. These two both of these two council, and we could, you know, maybe put it up on the on the website, and then folks can if they want to get that juxtaposition themselves I don't know by looking at it on a phone or a laptop. I'm not able to do it here by myself, but just be helpful. But, but I completely understand that the technology on your end it doesn't allow for that at the same time that that makes sense to me. So, yeah, we will certainly email you PDFs and we would certainly expect you to put all of them up on the website. Yeah, that would be great. And if any of that if any of it's easy to do any of that, while we're having the conversation again that might not be possible because of the way the program works but if that's possible that would be helpful for me. I'm guessing for you know for other council members perhaps as well, but any kind of you know what you were talking about before super imposing, you know, one on another and, you know, various other ways of comparison the split screen is just one way. So anyway, not to thank you for your time on that. And so, um, a couple other things. What, what in receiving input from members of the public. It seemed to me that that the comments fell into for the most part you know one of three categories there was, there were people who said don't change anything. And then there were a number of people who said, don't split ropes and ranch. And I'm happy to say that you know there are no, I don't see any proposals that propose splitting ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. And then there were a number of people who said don't split ropes and ranch. So I'm curious to know how those again those council members you proposed them believe that they meet each of those nine criteria and how you feel that they meet each of these criteria. So, I want to get all the questions you have for the for council. If those individuals choose to speak on that they'll motion in and speak on that the question is out there for them to prompt to consider but do you have any other questions for the expert that he can answer. Before we go on to the next speakers, no, just that I would love for you to go you know, go through each one and do that as well. Thank you. Got it. Councilor Davis. Thank you, Mayor. So, being asked to give input on the process going forward today and how we we would prefer to proceed. I also understood today to be a drawing session that we'd be looking at maps and getting getting our hands dirty with, with the maps. I'm a little frustrated. Mr. Heath, that I'm not sure we've gotten a lot of advice yet from your firm lots of data crunching and that's very helpful. But I think what would be more productive for this particular council rather than, and I say this as person who who submitted a plan, rather than using one of the two submitted plans as a starting point. I think we use the existing map as a starting point, which is one of our criteria and then have the consultant advise us as a neutral third party as to ways that map could be improved. What I heard when we decided to redistrict the other day was everything's great. We could get better. You should always try to improve upon what you have. And so I'm very okay with having this conversation today. But from where I'm sitting as a council member with a vote, but also somebody who submitted a plan. The plans are community input. I don't think they get any special vaunted status because they came from people who are sitting on the dais. I think they were submitted through, just like anybody else could submit a plan. And I would like some neutral third party advice on how to proceed. I don't think that any city council is best served by just kind of, let's chat about it for a while and see how we feel in this area. And especially this particular council, I think we're best served with some guidance and some neutral input to the point earlier about shareability. I think Brian and I both, Council Member Beck, excuse me, that we both created PDFs. I think those are probably both available. Maybe staff can can send those that also kind of address some point by point things. If that's where we get to, I'd be happy to go point by point through criteria on my plan. But I think the things that we're looking at, this council at some point has to decide how are we using these criteria? Are we, how are we balancing these criteria? Because we we know already from the consultant, we're probably not going to get out of here with a map that uses whole voter precincts. If we want a map that uses whole voter precincts, we've got to be okay with a deviation that's between five and eight percent someplace. We know that those voter precincts containing about 43,000 people are going to change around on us. So we're going to be back at this exercise at some future date. And then the final thing I'll add, just since it's been brought up about what we're hearing from public input, the majority of the public input I'm hearing is stick with the existing maps, even from people who had a little bit of, you know, why am I in this district and my neighbors in a different district? I'm in three blocks, I'm in a different district. Even those folks are telling us, let's start with the existing district. And the thing that I'm hearing the most out of Robeson Ranch, there are the folks who seem to be a little bit confused about splitting. And I don't think there's any real conversation about anybody splitting Robeson Ranch. That might have been directed, meant to be directed towards some county folks. I'll tell you what I hear out of Robeson Ranch. Robeson Ranch is concerned about ageism. Just like the folks in Deenia need to know that there's no easy sliding of one precinct over to one district or the other, because that'll throw everything out of balance. The folks in Robeson need to know that also, that there's no easy sliding over of one precinct into another district without creating major issues. For instance, if you slide Precinct 4003, mostly people over 55 over into District 4, with one of our two largest retirement home communities, then you have an issue where most people over a certain age are in a certain voting city council district. You'd have the same problem if you put them into District 2, where the other Good Sam Village is. I would question the council about thinking about this as a map exercise where we can just slide a precinct here and slide a precinct there. It's a math exercise. It just happens to be a math exercise expressed in the form of a map. So my preference would be to start with the existing districts and get some advice from the consultant about any ways we could possibly improve upon that. One thing in particular, and someone had mentioned it, obviously it's not up to us as consultants to decide what you ought to be doing. We're very neutral on that because those are policy questions that the elected officials need to decide. What I certainly want to do is to make sure that whatever you do is consistent with the law and that within the confines of the law, you can adopt a policy so long as it's legal. I think any of the three maps that we have here comply with law. They are all in population balance within acceptable deviations. Obviously, both of them are a little more in balance than the existing one. The Davis is very close to exact balance, but as long as we're within the 10%, I think we are legally acceptable. I don't think any of them pose an issue under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. I don't think that any of the three pose a problem under the Shalvy-Reno lines of cases or line of cases that deal with using race as the predominant factor in redistricting. Then it gets down to things like policy issue, well, preserving neighborhoods, for example, that you have a better feel of what neighborhoods go together. Things, as the Councilman mentioned about the ageism, that there are some communities of interest that maybe you shouldn't be splitting. I don't necessarily know what those are, but those are legitimate considerations for you, and I think those are things that are appropriate. But I think any one of these would be legally sufficient, and then it becomes a policy question as to what you want to do. As far as compliance, we can go through the criteria and go through and see how each of those comply. But basically, they're all going to, I think, meet the legal requirements. It seemed to me that the Davis Plan was closer to the existing plan, which was one of the criteria was to start with the existing plan. I don't believe that any of them pair incumbents moving people out of their districts. As far as neighborhoods and communities of interest, you are much better able to know where those communities of interest are and what they are than someone who doesn't reside there in Denton. So I'm happy to go over any of those with you, but I think ultimately it's a policy question in that any of these are okay, and you can take the existing, or if you prefer, take the existing plan, leave it exactly as it is, or make some changes to it. Say it splits a neighborhood, let's put that neighborhood together, or it splits a community of interest. We need to resolve that. Any follow up? I guess just to kind of put a bow on the direction I'm asking for. I appreciate that response, Mr. Heath. Thank you for walking through that. I think it would be helpful at some point during this conversation up towards the front for the council to identify which of these criteria we're placing priority on, because that's kind of what we're looking at, is a balance between the criteria. If it does not exist a perfect map that will perfectly satisfy all of the criteria, it sounds like we're all pretty much in agreement on the criteria that we adopted, so at some point we need to decide where we're going to place the priority on these criteria. Okay. Yes, thank you. I certainly agree with the last comment that we're ultimately going to weigh the criteria and that no map can meet them all, and some of them are in conflict. I want to address a few things that have been brought up. I certainly would not disparage an entire community as being confused. If people in ropes and ranch are concerned about an idea being circulated from somewhere about the idea of splitting ropes and ranch, I would agree nothing has come forward that resembles that, but if it did, I would be opposed to that idea. I think, you know, as far as a criteria that matters to me, I think keeping communities of interest together is a very important one. I think ropes and ranch is clearly a community of interest that should be kept together. And my reaction to the plans presented, first of all, I'm very grateful to Councilmember Davis and Councilmember Beck for being intelligent, capable members of the community who can put together some alternatives, and I think they both demonstrated that you can improve on what we currently have. They both contribute concepts that are measurably superior on the metrics. Councilmember Davis goes farther in terms of the purely quantitative side. And I would say that Councilmember Beck goes significantly farther on the keeping communities of interest together, because I also note, I mean, you know, one thing that's sort of obvious from the current and from anything that stays too close to the current on the west side is you just see this Denia being bitten off practically, you know, like a big bite around it. You know, it's like an extreme effort to kind of carve it out and separate it from the other neighborhoods around UNT. Now, you know, it's, it's, those, UNT goes back to 1890, the neighborhoods around it go back, certainly 50 years, and they have lots in common, because they've got professors and students and they're impacted by the growth trends. Similarly, you know, so, you know, I would put a priority on that I don't I don't know as much about the pecan Creek area. And I'd be very interested. I hope you do get to hear in the process from Councilmember bird. But, you know, the idea that that pecan Creek has more of an affinity to district one I think is, I'm open to hearing more about that. So if I, if I, you know, look at the fact that both improve on the current, and one goes much farther in terms of keeping very significant communities of interest together, and I'm, you know, happy to hear from the public more about that. You know that that inclines me toward, you know, starting from something more like what Councilmember back as generated but you know the members of the public are welcome to continue to offer suggestions but in terms of a direction I find that on balance, more compelling. Okay, seeing no more comments. Councilman back. Thank you Mr Mayor. So, this brought up sort of the question to me that if I if I wanted to volunteer to answer was brought up. I think to both, Councilor Davis, and my credit, I'm a to both for horns, and thereby to my own which is somewhat egotistical. The fact that we couched our plan in the form of a proposal. We just the criteria. Up front, at the beginning we established the patterns that we were trying to address. So I think, to some degree. I'm sure both of us are happy to discuss our plans, and we will, but to some degree the both of the conceptual framework I think is in our two proposals as to what was our guiding forces what we were trying to accomplish what what are the criteria we were trying to address. And, and so, just as as we've heard you know we can get better both Councilor Davis and I mathematically do equal partition maps. More balanced, better than the current status quo. A lot of that is no one's fault that's just the way the neighbors have moved in to the districts and where people live. So, the, the thing for me that was really really important was, I think what Mayor pro tem alluded to was looking at those criteria, and then coming up with a map that address those criteria. And then if anything in that process needed tweaking to to adjust it more fully. Then that's what I did. So the first thing I did was sort of get those criterias of are those communities of common interest. I'm not sure why we divide up a concrete neighbor from neighbor and they're both called concrete. One happens to be in my district. There's a there's that sort of Westgate district, whose number escapes me but it's in my proposal. Let's see. Well I won't, I won't belabor the numbers right now I don't think it's that important, but that's sort of Westgate area one. That one was those those people have more of a community of interest whether industrial or, or residential with the folks in D three. And so, you know, it made sense to restore those to give those up. Those are, those are potentially my constituents, not potentially, they are currently my constituents but it made sense to unite them with the people that were nearby industrially or, or residentially. Thank you and I was informed that's 4042 somebody looked it up for me. And then, it's clear if you just keep doing that account and Merprotem already talked about you know, taking a big bite of the apple for the DNA neighborhood in 4037. You know poor vintage is is waffling around when it's it's more similar and next door to the other districts in D four. I think when you start saying well, I'm going to make these these districts more compact, more together, bring them to common amenity use development plan, common interest history of association communities of interest in general like the, the not splitting up a community at ropes and ranch I'm completely opposed to if the county tries to split ropes and I'm I think that would be completely unfair to ropes and. And bringing in these these ideas and and so when you do that. Unfortunately, unfortunately you create a lot of positives but one thing you do do is is change the balance. And one way you can continue to create communities of interest is to block off a neighborhood like downtown and say I'm going to make changes judicious changes that that keep downtown as a community of interest. I like to then balance the equal partition. And, and I did all that purposely with Mr Heath's kinds of concept and recommendation because in my reading even before Mr Heath came on board into this discussion, you know it was clear that you know, courts tend and and good best as a recommendation for for redistricting tends to frown upon too many blocks splitting and maps, like, you know, because we, you know, we could sit there and go block by block and really just break this all up, and I've done that and I think my guess is I won't put words in his mouth but my guess is that he's done that too. In fact, I'm sure of it because that's how he came up with his, he must have done that to come up with his plan for precinct 4008. And my problem is, you know, if you've made that mathematically better in terms of equal partition will maintain the communities of interest. If you turn around and split up 4008 to maintain the community, you know you don't maintain the community of interest you, you continue to have the existing problems that you have in the current map, and you exacerbate them by splitting up 4008, and you're not dividing those like Mr Heath suggested along precinct lines, you're instead of making further divisions in the North Carol Parkway sort of neighborhood. And, you know, I think we want to minimize, at least for me, I was interested in minimizing breaking up communities of interest, while still being mathematically better. And, and so, you know, I think my my map achieves that by, you know, keeping chunks of common and community interest, common amenity and development, all in contiguous blocks within the map. And so that to answer a counselor amateurs question. That's sort of a longer winded version of what was in my proposal. Okay, seeing no other comments. Mr. Bob, can you give me. Do you have what you need to. As far as direction or no, you know, if I had some. Do you think the council has an idea of which of the three maps it leans to tard. No, and I'm speaking for myself and obviously people have disagreed with my recollection, and I'll, I'll go back and watch the tape and I'll email you a quote. But, but just saying, I heard, initially, closer to zero in the deviation was the goal today I'm hearing closer to keeping communities intact is the goal. And that varies, you know, based on each counselor that's that's just what I'm hearing those two, those two distinctions and so I just don't, I don't know that I think I take Councilmember Davis's point you're going to. And I don't want to, I don't want to come off wrong. I'll just take other questions I don't, I'll follow up with those thoughts with you directly but I do, I do think there's some feedback. I'm compelled to share with you with this experience. So I'll get that to you directly. Are these new requests to speak. Councilmember Beck you just spoke. So, okay. Councilmember Archer. Yes. So, since direction as being asked for at this point I'm, I'm happy to give mine of the two, and thank you. Councilmember back for you know elaborating on the proposal for I should say of the three, which, including the, the current map. I think that Councilmember Becks proposal. Best does best to, to keep communities of interest together, while also meeting the other criteria and improving our numbers. And meeting the concerns that I'm hearing from the, from the community, except of course the concern about don't change anything, which, which I must say I didn't really hear a reason for that. Which is fine, but I would find those arguments more compelling if there was a reason, other than we don't want to waste time and money on changing anything which of course you have to do anyway because of the changes at the county. So anyway, I like Councilmember Becks proposal of the three, and we'll be, you know, very eager to hear any input on that from from members of the community. And if anything comes up about that proposal that that doesn't adequately satisfy. You know one of these nine criteria, then I will certainly give it a second look because I, because these nine criteria are really important to me I can say, as far as prioritizing them since that was mentioned. You know I can say, you know which of these criteria are less important to me, but there are a number of probably half of them are tied for number one for me so I'm, I'm, I'll be relieved if we don't have to do that exercise, you know and prioritize them one through nine. I will say that, you know, regarding Councilmember Davis is, you know, concern about ageism. You know, that. Well of course it is absolutely possible to bring in concerns that are not among our nine criteria, since that's not one of our nine criteria, and is not a concern to me and redistricting. I'm not interested in that. Again, I'm not saying that it's not relevant for anyone to bring that up. Anyone can bring their own criteria into it, but I'm just looking at these nine criteria. Councilman Davis. Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to come back around to address some of the things about the proposal I put forward that counselor. Councilmember Beck has addressed in his but I want to real quickly address that last little point. Ageism is real, and ageism can be brought into illegally, a redistricting process. And I regret that the people who are concerned about that haven't seen fit to send us as many emails as the folks who are concerned about ropes and ranch splitting into, which is still don't know where that came from. But that concern is out there in the community, and it is real, and the people that we are hearing from, saying to leave it alone happened to live in ropes and ranch. And so you can put those things together. The purpose of my proposal was not because I expected Council to adopt that map whole hog what I heard from Council on the night we decided to redistrict was from Councilmember McGuire, I think we can do better as far as balancing population among our four districts, as well as can improving compactness Councilmember Armitter, I'd like us to get as close as we can to that ideal zero Councilmember bird, taking a look at some minor changes, just to get us to a point where we're as close to zero as possible. Only one community of interest was mentioned that night. And that was the DNA neighborhood. This is interesting if you remember 10 years ago the redistricting process that we had I encourage any member of the public and the Council to go back and review that redistricting process. This is exactly the conversation they had. DNA had been a part of district three numerically, there was no easy fix to keep it where it was the DNA neighborhood has been separated from the other side of 35. Since I 35. Since before then, it became a major road and then in the somebody correct me if I'm wrong in the 70s, built out to about the size that it is now, and split the roads that split, and that's why you have north and south McCormick and all those things. It is not as easy as sliding one precinct over, because we feel like they are a community of interest. The reason why I balance the numbers over some of these other things are because with no disrespect meant to Councilmember Beck. What he just described is the world according to Councilmember Beck. These are things that are subject to bias, we imagine certain things to be a community of interest and so we put them together as a community of interest. Only one community of interest that we've talked about has actually expressed anything and that's DNA. So we're going to rearrange the entire city and undo these other four communities of interest, try telling district to when they were voting for Keeley Briggs and outrageous numbers with no opponent, that they were not a community of interest, try telling district three as it's been formed for 10 years, that it is not a community of interest in the way that they banded together behind political candidates by the way that they've come together in front of the council, they are also a community of interest. And so my plan balances in favor of communities of interest that are readily identifiable, that are not something that we have kind of come up with on our own. The only other neighborhood that we've talked about so far as being split is over in Pecan Creek. Pecan Creek is one of those precincts that is going to split. We will have the opportunity to more easily take a new precinct and put it down on to four or move something up into one after the county redraws their lines, we will have more granularity after the county redraws their lines if that's a concern. But what I heard the council state the night that we decided to redistrict is that we needed to fix the number problem. And that is why I put forward something that does very little damage to the communities of interest that exist. It splits 408 mostly along Carroll Boulevard, which are already separate neighborhoods and demonstrates I think that that is the kind of granularity it's going to take to get down to that kind of deviation. I think that our community is best served by not making wholesale changes to a map, based on squishy metrics, we should stick with something that is objectively. It's easy to see, it's easy to measure, it's not based on our own pre or misconceptions of neighborhoods. Sure. Thank you. So just to provide sort of my feedback and direction, I guess. My position in our last work session regarding redistricting was that we can improve our metrics on population variance and also on compactness. Obviously, of the three proposals before us one of them being the existing map. Councilmember Davis's is the lowest in population variance. Councilmember backs proposal represents an improvement in population variance over our current numbers. Well, doing significantly better than Councilmember Davis's proposal in compactness. And I think, maintaining communities of interest although Councilmember Davis's proposal also clearly is taking that into account as well. So I would favor using Councilmember backs proposal as a starting point. With the understanding that once we have updated precinct lines, we may need to make some adjustments there. And of course that that Councilmember backs correct me if I'm wrong but Councilmember backs proposal does not involve splitting any precincts is that correct. And, you know, Councilmember Davis's point is well taken that we may need to consider splitting some just some precincts in order to achieve our goals here but we certainly want to minimize that as much as we can since we don't yet have voting centers. And we want to avoid confusion as much as possible. In regard to Robeson ranch. I completely agree that that Robeson is a community of interest. I completely agree that ageism is is a concern and something that we need to address. I'm a little bit unclear why putting Robeson in, and I believe the the the other community you're referring to is good good Samaritan village in along Ryan road correct. I'm not clear on why putting Robeson ranch and good Samaritan village together in the same district would constitute ageism. If we are considering senior citizens to be a community of interest. One of our criteria was keeping communities of interest, together, and putting Robeson into a district that has a larger percentage of senior citizens and removing it from a district that includes a large university. I think does a better job than our current map of addressing the needs of that community of interest in Robeson. Thank you. Okay, so my direction is, I prefer the existing map and I prefer to forego this exercise. One understanding I'm in the majority of minority I just want to have a clear record to understand where where I stand, understanding, pressing that forward understanding there's no numbers to support that notion. I fall in under my recollection is exactly what Councilmember Davis highlighted. And obviously I have thoughts politically on why suggestions are made but that's those are my thoughts are keeping to myself but I think I have an understanding. I will say, just from a visual standpoint. I think it is, if I look at the map right I got to look at it right I hadn't seen it but my understanding is that Councilmember back draws in the landfill in the district one. I just, the visuals of that don't don't really. That's unbelievable to me, I understand it's pure and motive, but I absolutely think that that's where we get in trouble. When we start looking at things in a vacuum versus on the ground and I take Councilmember Davis's point I'll just echo what he said. From a, from an expectation expectation from a legacy from a all those points that he made I can't say I'm any better. And I'll point out, no one's talked about the voter disenfranchisement and disenfranchisement and so from staff. Once we get through this, and once we have a direction I want that staff to send me kind of based on previous voting districts who's getting moved out of where they're, they normally go because that's by default. On election day people say hey I live in this neighborhood. It for 10 years I go to this location to vote on day of, and that's on its head, if we don't follow the existing map, and I want to understand what that looks like so that I can then distance from what's going to happen when people go to vote and they can't find a location, if this council decides not to follow what I believe to be best practices number one which is following the existing map so that you displace a few voters, but you don't make wholesale changes that then displace several voters. Again, to have. And I think Councilmember Davis's point was solid, I mean, where's the consensus on what that the Councilmember backs map purports to be like communities, and I just don't, I don't know that I have the data to agree with that with his assessment on that. In addition to understanding when I got to go back to district one which I've represented for three years before I took this seat and tell them that away. Not only do we have 90% of the habitat houses. Not only do we have a cement plant, not only we have a large industrial facility, but by the, but we've now added the landfill to district one, I mean it just the, it's just a bad look. And then I'm going to ask you, Bob, if in my email as well. I'm going to ask you to give me some kind of, I want to answer to Councilmember Davis's point, either you think it's a moot and ageism is a moot, or you support it, based on something I just not right now, I'm not going to I don't want to, I don't want to take up a whole bunch of time we're running close, but I do follow up on the email and we can exchange but I just want to, I want to pin you down to a statement on that. But that's for later date. I'll be happy to do that and there was some question about questions have been posed about the 26th Amendment. I don't, I don't think I don't think those ever got to me but I'm happy to send you material on that and answer. Yeah, yeah, I'll frame it in a question, better, better narrow it better and get that to you don't want to take up everybody's time but thank you very much for that. Yeah, and I think that's just, that's my insight so if I had to default to one outside of the one that is existing. I would default default to Councilmember Davis's for the reasons he listed, as well as my individual concerns. Councilmember Davis. Thank you Mayor, two things first real quick response to the ropes and question of my thinking there. 26th Amendment of the United States says the rights of citizens United States who are 18 years of age or older to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of age. There are cases that have to do with college students being disenfranchised. I don't know that there are quite as many causes cases having to do with the elderly being disenfranchised but if it's good for college students on the basis of youth vote being disenfranchised or suppressed. It's good for the elder vote being suppressed or disenfranchised as well. The concern there is and this is why I asked early on for the census data on age by voting block or by precinct is because there are probably, we can say with some certainty, there are more people over 55 or over 65 living in district for currently than other districts outside of ropes and ranch. There happens to be a very high concentration at our two biggest retirement homes, because there's spectrum of ages that we have at the good Sam on the Montecito area and then up on Hinkle. And then there's happens to be a concentration and precinct 4003, where ropes and ranches. And so whether it is numerically valid or not, we don't quite know because we don't have the census data on age yet, but there certainly is a perception that I am hearing from ropes and ranch that this effort that this plan is an effort to dilute their vote, either as a voting precinct, as a by age, whatever. It is an effort to dilute their vote by pairing them with people who may have voted more like them in the past by people who are more like them in age, whatever criteria you want to use. And part of the reason why I'm hearing that is because of sentiments like the Facebook comment that I read immediately after we announced that we're going to talk about redistricting. Quote, let's gerrymander the F out of ropes and ranch. Lots of people in this is are familiar with the person who made that comment. And that is part of the reason why ropes and ranch people are concerned about a map that moves them from their current representative to a different one with people who are supposed to be, or imagine to be more like them. The other thing I'll point out is, if we're going to move forward with using the back map as a, as a basis as opposed to the existing map, I'll point out that's contrary directly contrary to one of our criteria. But if we're going to do that I'd like to know what the process is going forward. I'd like to start making a list of the communities of interest that I see split by the back map if that's what we're doing. I just what is what is the process going forward. Are we just throwing support behind the back map, and the consultant is going to report back on the voter precincts, or when do we start changing the lines. Okay. By report back on the vote precincts you talking about the age distribution in the vote precincts. No sir I'm referring to the boundary 43,000 people living in Denton who will be in a different voting precinct than their neighbors here pretty soon. Okay, okay. So, timestamp we have 20 minutes left in this conversation. Councilman back. Mr Mayor I just wanted to point out that we have a benefit that's coming up. Because we opened up the conversation with the fact that we're not a vote center. But one of the things that will be really fabulous is that we that our representation in Austin managed to get us to be a vote center county so I'm really looking forward to that. All the advantages, Mr he talked about all the the pairing down of confusion, all the, you know, voting where you want to where you will work or home or whatever. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to voting centers as well. I just wanted to add finally and I realized that this is something that with 20 minutes left of the discussion might not be able to take this up. But, you know, responding to, you know, the mayor's concern about the landfill being in district one under Councilmember backs proposal, I'm curious to know from from everybody at the days but especially from our rep for district one who's not here. You know what, what kind of difference that makes positive or negative. Obviously, and I'm, I'm genuinely interested in, in that, and my mind is very open. I don't want to move the landfill physically next to anyone, I feel, of course there's a lot of good that goes on at our at our landfill in terms of recycling efforts, you know, but there is also a pile of trash which we have as a city that produces trash. And so, you know, I already I feel bad for the people who live right next to the landfill. And those people are still going to live next to the landfill, you know, regardless of what district they're in so I want to protect people from, you know, environmental pollution environmental racism, and you know if it can be proven to me that having that you know that that the landfill being in district one is a problem as a form of environmental racism then I will be absolutely against having the landfill in district one. But right now I'm just genuinely, because I had not heard that concern expressed until now. Just trying to figure out the pros and the cons of that. But when I say that I like Councilmember Beck's map the best of these three. I am my mind is absolutely open into, you know, tweaking, just about anything about it, including I would be very curious to hear probably don't have time now. Councilmember Davis mentioned that his interest in if I heard you correctly, and kind of going through those nine points are nine criteria and talking about you know your concerns about how Councilmember Beck's map. You know, in your opinion doesn't adequately, you know fulfill those criteria I, I'm genuinely really interested in, in hearing that. Not just from you from anybody. But so my mind is really wide open now, it's just that that is the one that I like best now to put on the table, moving forward. Yeah, I'm interested in the mayor's point on that as well and if it's the fact that this doesn't physically move anybody. But if it's the fact that people in district one have a greater potential of being affected by what happens there, then having if it helps them have advocacy. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. 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I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. As someone that's seen so many negatives as far as it could be perceived negative or positive, but moved into District 1, I think just, again, the visuals of it. No one moves. I don't understand that. But I understand the fact that the visual-- here's the narrative. It moves from a predominantly white district to a predominantly black district on a map. And that's not good. The optics of it are bad. The fact that this council doesn't pick up on that are bad. And so that's the frustrating part for me is being--I understand the challenges very well. I'm the first one to look like me to sit in this seat, and it's a challenge. And I'm trying to bring that perspective and education to this dais, and it's rejected regularly. And it's frustrating. And so you'll hear me speak up more on these things because if I don't speak up, we get what we get. And so as a person that lives in that area, I think it's important to speak up. And I'm asking my neighbors to speak up as well so that we can try to beat back some of the misunderstandings. Okay. Bob, do you have what you need? Well, I think that's the best we're going to do. And I think next time maybe we'll be prepared to take a map and start drawing on it. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. That concludes Item A. Takes us to Item B, which is ID 212284, receive report, hold discussion, and give staff direction regarding board commission processes, inclusivity, and special qualifications. Yes, Mayor, and as a point of privilege, if it's okay, Rosa would like to share something with you after her presentation. Okay. Let me try to get here and share my screen. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Seems I always have a problem bringing this up. I apologize. So my name is Rosa Rios and I am your city secretary, and I'm here to provide a boards and commissions information on inclusivity and a couple of other issues. So to provide a little bit of background, there was a one minute pitch provided by council member, and I'm here to provide an overview of the process. The work session be scheduled to discuss the possible removal of the voter registration requirement while maintaining the residency requirements and reassess any special professional requirements for certain boards and commissions to allow. More of a diverse representation on boards and commissions of citizens that reside in the city. The purpose of the presentation is to discuss the voter registration and its requirements, which of course, can be applied to certain boards and commissions. And then, of course, provide specific qualifications for certain boards and commissions that apply to them. And of course, the possible outcome of the work session would be that if city council desires to make certain changes, there could be potential changes required to the boards and commissions handbook. The code of ordinances and or other enabling local legislation for the specific board and or commission. There are a number of factors that can be considered in the city council. The first one, the city council will make an effort to make sure that all members of the city council procedure do mandate that the nominating council member will consider interested persons on a citywide basis. As well as consider ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic levels and other factors to ensure a diverse representation of Denton citizens. And the city council as a whole will make an effort to be inclusive on segments of the community. As well as taken to consideration, that the city council will have the authority to make any changes to those requirements. And you can see here the direction that kind of just give you kind of a heads up of what we're going to be looking for at the end of the presentation. Is to kind of, you know, get an idea if you're going to want any desired changes to these requirements in the council rules. For the voter registration and the residency. The our city code does require again, the boarding commission members in addition to being qualified. In addition to the city residents in the city of Dent is required. In addition to that city of Denton residency requirement. You can see here, I won't detail them, but you can see the other requirements mandated by state law. For the recent city residency legislation, there are certain resolution and ordinances. That are applicable to of the noted boards and commissions here. The kind of mandate that, you know, the city of Dent has in place. Is for the resident of the cities, whereas for other boards and commissions, there's no specific language within its legislation. Outside of we have what we have in the city code as a whole. And of course, the direction is whether or not you desire to remove the voter registration. And you know, or leave as is. And then of course, what we would ask is that you consider making the requirements for the special qualifications. To kind of explain a little bit about what the detail it here is, you know, you'll see the several columns. Of course, the board name. The second column kind of details the legislation, whether it's local or a state requirement. And whatever the special qualifications are for that specific board. And then of course, what affect what changed, what would need to be changed locally. If you desire to make any changes. And then of course, there's a number of requirements. The animal shelter, shelter advisory committee. You can see here, there are certain requirements by the health and safety code of the state. That the four, the first four qualifications are mandatory. Whereas the last three are more mandated by our local legislation. So should you decide to make changes? It would really be to the three. And then of course, you see here the board of ethics with the requirements are. And then again, you know what? Sections of the code could potentially need changing. Should you desire to make changes? We have here committee on persons with disabilities that have a residency requirements. For any nominees that are nominated by council members residing in districts one through four. For the health and business standards commission. There are some requirements that are required. And you can see here where it says to the extent that persons are available within the city. So there's not an actual mandate for that. For the historic landmark commission. It does our code does mandate that members shall include at least one. Representative in the special qualifications that we note. For the Denton police chief of police advisory board. There's a lot of requirements that are required. And then there's other information here that they have to agree to. For the internal audit committee. Preferences given to these professions. So there's no, no mandate. So a lot of times when you don't actually mandate the special requirements are a lot easier to fail. For the sustainability framework advisory committee for members shall have the certain special qualifications. And I will say that for this committee, there's a lot of requirements that are required. For the safety of these special qualifications, so they were very easy to fill. And then, of course, for the special qualifications. We would want to know if you want to make any changes to any board or more than one. And then again, kind of in summary here. What we would need to know. Do you wish to make any changes to the voter registration requirements? And then for the special qualifications for any of the noted requirements that are required for the animal shelter commission. Because state law mandates for the special qualifications. Changes could occur only to. To that special category there. And of course, I'll take any questions you might have. And let me stop sharing my screen. Okay, if you can give your comments and then. Refer to slide nine of nine. And give staff your direction. So that they have clear direction. Thank you. Thank you. Council. Yes. So first of all, thank you for this presentation. And yes, I was the one who. Brought this forward and happy to give. My direction and eager to hear what my colleagues have to say. First of all, I think it's essential that. Members of all of our boards and commissions. We're we're specified. That we represent. That's that's who we represent. We do not represent only voters of the city of Denton. We represent people who live. That is only registered voters of the city of Denton or people, people who vote. In general. You know, we represent people who live in Denton. So for that reason, I think it's important that we remove the qualified voter requirement. And that. Allows immigrants who are members of this community involved in the community. And growing in population. Who cannot vote. Because of their citizenship. And these are voices that are welcome in our council meetings. And I think that's important. I think it's important to be considered when we look at. The census data that we think about when we. Think about redistricting, you know, we're not just looking at registered voters, right? This is who we serve. And. The way I found out about this. The registered voter requirement was when I first got on council in 2018. Somebody who I nominated wasn't able to serve because of that. And I think it's important to be considered. And I think it's important to be considered when we think about the value of. Of the United States because they've lived in Denton for so long in their citizenship. As far as the. The value of citizenship is just so outstanding to me. That person is a model of citizenship. So ever since then, I have wanted. To change that. Anyway. So as far as the items on number nine. With the. The animal shelter advisory committee. And the. Police chief advisory board. Are those, those are the only committees that have. Staff. City staff is voting members of those boards. Or committees, correct? Yes. So for the animal shelter, we do have a city official. If that's what you mean. And then the. The other requirement that we have for the. For the person who is employed by the city of Denton. So those are two people, but residency would not be required for those two people. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So residency, not required for those people, but there's. A requirement for the animal shelter advisory committee that somebody is employed by the city. And then employees of the police department. There are a number of slots in the police chief advisory board. Correct. Yes, there are some certain requirements. There's some appointees by the city manager and chief of police. Yeah. So I think that. You know, because you know, where my colleagues stand on this. I don't think that. I don't think that we're going to be able to do that. I don't think that we're going to be in a vote, serve in a voting capacity on these boards. I think that the role staff plays is already crucial. I think it's important that employees of the animal shelter. Attend meetings and, you know, and offer input and make presentations. But I think it's important. That we don't have. I don't think that we're going to be able to do that. I don't think that we're going to be able to do that. So anyway. As for. The other committees. You know, the, the, the, the one where I would really like to see a change on a board of ethics. I understand. You know, the, the, the desire to want to have lawyers on that board. And I think that the list of other preferred. Professions. Well, I understand that that's just preferred, right? It's not a requirement. You know, to me, the. It gives the impression that. People in these specific kinds of more white color jobs. Have some sort of authority on ethics that. And the kind of skill set they'd go that is involved in this, that. People in other jobs don't. That might not have been the intent. But otherwise I can't see why that would be there. So I really think it's important that we just. Do away. With that list of professions. I think that every profession I can think of, there's. Ethical conduct that goes on and unethical conduct. That goes on and unethical conduct. And, you know, depends on people. And the point of these boards and committee committees is to get members of the community. Involved in to get them to have a say. And every member of the community has an opinion. On, on ethics. So anyway, I don't think we should list any kind of preferred committees. I don't think that's a good idea. I don't think that's a good idea. I think that building standards commission. That is pretty restrictive. As far as. Having, you know, people from real estate, construction, plumbing, et cetera. I'm definitely not against having people in those. Fields on there. I just, I would rather change that to preferred. Instead of required. I would rather have people from real estate, construction, plumbing, et cetera. And, you know, I don't think we should list any kind of preferred committee. And I didn't mention this when we were talking about the audit. Committee, cause I didn't think of it, but just looking at this, preparing for the meeting for today. You know, it occurred to me that, you know, another skill set that could come into play. Is a journalist or professional researchers. People who are interested in looking at data and crunching up data. And I don't know if that's something that journalists do too. So. Might be a good idea to add that, but that's not a particularly major point with me, since those are just preferred. Professions and not required. Council member. Thank you. Yeah, I concur with a lot of the recommendations that council member Armenter just made. I would love to see a voter registration. Requirement replaced with a residency and a requirement that, that the person be age 18 or older. Which was previously addressed by, by voter registration, but would need to be spelled out. So I would love to see a voter registration. Requirement replaced with a residency and a requirement that, that the person be age 18 or older. Which was previously addressed by, by voter registration and a requirement that, that the person be age 18 or older. Would need to be spelled out. If we were to remove the voter registration requirement. As far as the animal, animal shelter advisory committee. The requirement that there be three people who are not involved by occupation or membership in any of the above categories. Does seem. Unnecessarily restrictive. Okay, so I would like to see that just that clause. Eliminated and have the remaining three people just be. Whoever anyone who's eligible to serve. Board of ethics. I was just writing. What if we just reduced the number of attorneys required to be on the board of ethics? And then one second later, council member Armenter suggested that we reduce that number from three to two. I concur with that. I do agree that there's value in having. Attorneys on the board of ethics, but. Three seems excessive. And I also agree. With the. The suggestion to do away with other professional requirements. I think that the intent of all these professional requirements was to have. An impact on. Diversity. But I think that. That has. It's had the opposite, I think of the intended. In fact. And I agree that it's a little bit too heavy on. White collar jobs. And I don't see any reason to exclude. Disabilities. As far as the committee on persons with disabilities. I think that I've run into. An issue that might be unique to my district. So we have the requirement that. And then it's the only board that has this requirement. That members appointed by or for. Representatives of single member districts. I have a. Strong personal preference for appointing individuals who themselves have disabilities. And I have struggled to find. Individuals who reside in my district. Who are interested in serving who also themselves have disabilities. I just I mean this is this is speculation but I suspect that it might have something to do with. The infrastructure in district four we have much less. Sidewalk infrastructure than other districts and we have much less. Public transit service. Than other districts and so individuals who don't drive. Probably don't choose to live in district four because it is not. A very accessible place to live for individuals who don't drive. So I would I would like to see that the requirement that. The appointees reside in the district be eliminated. And I would love to add a maybe not a requirement but a preference. That individuals who are serving on the committee. On persons with disabilities themselves have a disability. As far as health and building standards I agree with with council member. Our mentors suggestion that we were a change required to preferred. And I believe that was all of the points that I wanted to make yes okay thank you. First on eligibility I'm not as concerned maybe some others with. That were excluding people based on citizenship I see the requirement as more. Important for ease of verification. Anybody who's had to enroll a child in school you know that there's a process. You have to go through to verify that you live there with the school district. That set up to do that in a very easy way based on utility bills or leases or whatever. That's one thing but our process for a long long time has been using the voter. Registration database to verify that someone lives where they say that they live. And that they're eligible it becomes a more owners process to do it by other ways. And honestly the the instance that I recall most clearly is the last bond commission. It was made came to my attention that a person serving on that bond commission. Was a registered voter in the city of Denton but perhaps by the time their service concluded. No longer lived in the city of Denton while they were serving. And I don't say that to you they served well they serve vocally. I don't mean to impugn their service on that commission. But it is you're not going to solve the issue that I think we have. Which is making sure someone lives in the city of Denton. Necessarily by making it easier to use other forms to show that you live in the city of Denton. I think it's a verification tool that we shouldn't get rid of. On the board of ethics I found it kind of curious. We are kind of reading some intent into the reason why that ordinance is written the way that it is. The way that the reason that board is made up the way it is. There are three lawyers on there because lawyers no procedure. It's a quasi legal proceeding you go through almost like a little trial or hearing. And if you are if you come before the whole board of ethics. And you need people on that board including the three member panels that that board sometimes has to split into. Who are familiar with legal procedures because someone has to be afforded. What amounts to do process rights if they're going to be accused of an ethics violation. Lawyers aren't on there because lawyers are better at doing ethics. Opening myself up for a huge joke there right. Lawyers are on there because they know procedure and they know how to follow procedure. And that unique among all of our bodies that board has a code of procedure that it follows a procedural policy that it follows. And lawyers know and understand that. Then I also reject this idea that the required professions are the suggested professions. They're lean heavily on white collar. It also mentions tradesmen. That's not there because those people are supposed to be better at doing ethics or better at spotting ethics violations or anything like that. Those are there because those are people architects engineers teachers mediators. These are people who have to live under a professional code of ethics that to have their credential are subjected to a professional code of ethics. They were included not because they have a better idea of what ethics looks like but because they are know what it is like to live under a code of ethics and could perhaps be better executing the procedure or the the bounds that that ethics code put into place. So I would I would leave the board of ethics just as it is the committee on persons with disabilities. I think it's a better I think it's a better policy for us to be able to appoint from anywhere in the city. It's kind of it's it's an outlier. It's the only one that requires us by ordinance to appoint within our district. I think we should probably err on the side of appointing from our district. But sometimes it's just not exactly possible. And sometimes the best advocate for a particular community or particular policy area doesn't happen to live in our district. They shouldn't be excluded because of a geographic accident. And then on the health and building standards commission. Let me see. I thought we also had excuse me. I meant the animal shelter advisory committee. And the reason why I bring that up is I I also think we ought to take out that little clause about excluding people who are happen to be involved in other professions. But I don't think that's the only one that has something that works in the same way like building standards. There's a there are certain people who have to be from a certain profession. But then I thought there was a seat on that commission also for some someone who is not from one of the other professions. And then I thought HLC had something similar where it was somebody who is not because we find ourselves constantly looking for people to appoint. And well, you can't point an architect because there's already one of those on there or something like that. I may be I may be staying that backwards from the reality. It may be that just these spots come up and we need to fill them. But I thought there were other commissions that also had some restriction on the at large or non-affiliated whatever members not being from one of the stated professions or categories or residency requirements. That one is the historic landmark commission. That's a member Davis and then of course the animal shelter, which you mentioned. So I have to assume not having been here when all of those were enacted, I have to assume that those restrictions went in there because we didn't want a board dominated by residents or architects or whoever or an animal shelter board dominated by veterinarians or whatever the concern was. If we don't have that concern on one board, I think we wouldn't have that concern for any of the boards. And if a bunch of veterinarians want to take over the animal shelter board. That's fine with me. I'm going to point out some differences and also underscore a couple of points. I think that audit sustainability framework, health and buildings and historic landmark have kind of technical jobs to do. And I think that the reasons for the profession assignments are valid and they're different from some of the other ones. On ethics, I actually have been persuaded for some time by something that Councilmember Armitage said several years ago. And it stopped with me, which is that people from all different walks of life can serve on juries, on complex cases, on white collar cases, on murder cases. And I think that basically the same kind of qualifications you'd have for a jury serve for a board of ethics. Now, I have a question. I should know the answer to this, but I don't. Is there a legal council that serves board of ethics like we have in most of the boards? Yes. Yeah, okay. I thought so. So I think that covers the need to be able to have legal guidance. I have no prohibition in mind against attorney serving, but I don't see any reason to have a quota one way or the other. And on disabilities, I think there's a natural, very merit-worthy inclination to appoint people or to nominate people who themselves are disabled. I think that would happen whether you have that requirement or not. I happen to have appointed someone who has a long professional history of serving disabled people, and I think she has a lot to contribute. So I wouldn't hold it against her that she's not disabled. So I would separate myself from that one. So just to be clear, on the voter registration, you say you didn't -- I didn't get a note. Well, I align myself with Councilman Require. You know, I can't -- you know, really uncertain and troubled on that one. But bottom line, I think residents who are of age, you know, should be eligible and can be considered, in my opinion. Got it. Rose, I'll give you a heads up. After we get through the commenters, I want you to speak on that process that Councilmember Davis mentioned so that we have a feel for that. And if it is -- On the which process? On the verification process. And if that's a tool or if you're okay, I just want to hear -- have you have an opportunity to be heard after we speak on that. And that may change some direction, may not. Councilman Beck. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So since we ended there, I'm going to pick up there. And not the process, but this idea of residency versus voting. I'm really torn because there's two goals as I see them, and maybe staff or the guys can correct me. One is advice to Council, in which case I don't see any residency requirement. You can get advice from all kinds of places. I think we would prefer that advice come from locals who are familiar with the subject matter and the characteristics of Denton, but you could get advice whether you're a citizen or not a citizen. And then sort of the other function that I see is sort of a democratic voter intent, sort of spreading the democracy out across a wider cadre of representation. And if you're gauging voter intent, then I think you need to maintain those voter restrictions. But if you're just wanting advice, then I don't think it matters. And I know that that means I'm sitting on the fence, but I think it's because we're trying to put them all, all these different boards and commissions into one, one sort of category and, and something like, you know, our brand new sustainability framework advisory committee that just needs to be experts who can advise and I mean, ideally they're in Denton, but that's an advisory committee in name. And so I, you know, I think there are some like ZBA quasi-judicial ethics quasi-judicial some of these things that are quasi-judicial quasi-legal that I'm going to probably go against the dais here, or at least the trend that I see and say, that should be voter intent. I mean, in my opinion, if you're, if you have a quasi-legal function, you should probably represent the will of the voters of Denton, and because they're the ones that can make charter amendments, they're the ones that can make ballot measures, ballot initiatives. So, I mean, we're, I'm not hearing that discussion of that separation of boards and committee commissions and advisory committees, you know, in fact, the recommendation from staff was more, can we keep them all the same? So I guess in way of a question, do we have a distinction between these boards and commissions? And why is the staff would, I mean, it's just procedural that staff would like to kind of treat them all the same. It's part of the appointment process, because if you have different requirements for different boards, you know, and all of those requirements vary, it just, it does internally make it a little bit difficult internally, but of course we would work with those requirements. But I know that for these special, kind of like to talk a little bit more about the special qualifications, it really does restrict, what I found is it restricts more than nominating council member to kind of make sure that they find somebody that meets that requirement. I think voter registration, you know, whether you require it or you don't, if you do require it, then it kind of does restrict you, whereas if you don't, then obviously it's a little bit more open-ended. But of course, you know, we would defer to you. It's just so much easier if the requirements are, the standard requirements are uniform across the board, barring any special exceptions, you know, that you may want. Well, I don't want to be a problem child, but I guess my, too late. The thing that concerns me is these quasi-judicial boards and commissions, and I don't, I really do, I'm kind of falling on the side that that one, I don't want to split the baby. I'm not at house to do this, but my recommendation for those would be voter registration, an actual dent in citizenship, whereas for all the others, I think residency is just fine if it's a peer advisory position. In terms of the others, I will address some of the things that I've heard across the dais for ethics. Oh, for most of the technical ones, let me sort of lump it again because I think people made some good points. The technical ones have technical requirements and I think you should have expertise in the ones that require technical. So, SFAC, probably building standards, animal shelter, I mean I, you know, that's fine with me if it's all veterinarians that are all fauna professionals of some sort. And so, you know, I think those should still be, for ethics, I, again, I hate to be this guy, but splitting that, I think what we're really after is conflict resolution and training. I take a lot of the points on the dais that anyone can be trained in the procedure. And that's why we have the lawyer advising this board and commission. And so I split this baby is saying get rid of that requirement, but say preferred conflict resolution and ethics training in that language. Just, just because I do think both sides are right in this, the counselor Davis is right that these, these folks have specialized training in these areas and you want to get that kind of training in the mix. I would want to say preferred on that one. Let's see, disability I think I'm just, it was probably likely to be seven on this one. I, you know, that I don't think we should restrict it to someone who's disabled. I think you can be the parent of a disabled sibling, the, the family member the caregiver. I think you can be a disabled person, expert, you know, have expertise. So I think that just, there's a lot of, there's a lot to that cohort so I, I think it should come from any district with expertise in issues in regarding the disabled. I do not understand the rationale for CPA you and I discussed this several times on HLC. I guess it's for tax reasons, but we're making tax decisions constantly all the time. And I don't think any of us are CPAs. Forgive me if one of you is a CPA. But I don't, I don't see that as being necessary so I'd honestly like to drop that requirement on HLC. Just the CPA or are you talking about all of them? I don't think there should be CPA requirement on HLC. That's just, I think I'm the only one that voiced that concern. Let's see. I am fine with police chief and internal audit as they are. I think that's all of them. Did I miss one? I guess for the residency versus vote, you know, I'm going to stick with my weird position. If there needs to be some sort of weird tie and I need to come in and break, then the dais and staff can tell me, and I'll fall down on one way or the other to make this everyone's life easier. But I honestly think there should be a difference between advisory and quasi judicial. Council Member, is this further direction or questions? I just want to narrow the scope a bit so that staff can, I mean, it's already convoluted enough. So I want, I want to try to narrow the scope. So again, without going on a soliloquy, without making me raise a point of order, can you briefly help me understand the follow up? The following? Yes. Are you requesting to speak or no? Yes. Okay, then what is that? Help me understand, because I want to try to get direction. I need to narrow, but if it's going to open up a whole another line of discussion, we need to probably understand that so that we can recalculate and maybe plan that a different, have staff come back, because as you've heard, there's a million different moving parts. Yeah, it's not my intention to bring up something new, simply responding to some very good points that have been brought up. Does that change your direction? It adds to it. Yes, it adds to it. Well, if you can give your new direction to the to the city sector. Well, I want I also want my colleagues and the public to know, including those colleagues who brought up these issues. So since we're doing fine for time, I will say, well, I agree with councilmember point of order. I just want to I want to clarify. I understand we're doing fine on time. I never mentioned the time I mentioned staff getting the notes and making sure we're clear and concise. Yeah, please give me an opportunity to do that. Well, I got to finish my statement. If you'd be so kind. Thank you very much. So I think what I'm trying to do is set the scope for the conversation so that I cannot gently remind you if we get outside of that scope and you cannot be surprised when I gently remind you if I have to. Hopefully I won't. If you could give your new direction, if you have comments, we'll save those will sum up and you can have open comments. But for staff purposes to get the notes to find consensus. If you've changed your opinion, you've given direction. If you've changed those directions, let's take that on. Now, we'll come back and you can sum up and then opine as much as you want. But I just need to make sure staff gets these directions. So any change in direction? Yes. You could do that first. Yes. Thank you. So changing direction. In addition to what I said before, I agree with councilmember McGuire's point about requiring 18 years of age or older. I agree. I agree that the people of this committee on people with disabilities should be only open to people with disabilities. There is, you know, the phrase nothing about us without us is something that comes out of the disability rights community again and again and again. There is, you know, the phrase nothing about us without us is something that comes out of the disability rights community again and again and again. And I agree with councilmember back about dropping the CPA on HLC. That makes sense. And then finally, the point about the animal shelter advisory committee doing away with the clause three people who are not involved, et cetera, et cetera. That makes sense to me too. Hearing it explained that way by some of my colleagues. But I have no summation to do or soliloquies. That is all. Councilmember McGuire. Thank you. I'd like to clarify my direction regarding the committee on persons with disabilities. My direction was that there be a preference for individuals with disabilities. I do agree with councilmember Meltzer or with Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer and councilmember Beck that there may be some individuals who don't have disabilities who may have some important contributions to make. But I think that we need to be careful. This is not currently the case. But I think we need to be careful about creating a situation where to councilmember Armenter's point, there are a lot of people on that committee who have perhaps worked with individuals with disabilities in a professional capacity but are not themselves disabled. I think there's space for a few folks on that committee to be non-disabled. But I think that the committee should be a majority of individuals who are disabled. So preference was the word that I used. Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer, same thing. If you could just clarify your direction. I'm responding to helpful comments from colleagues. I'm comfortable with the direction councilmember McGuire just gave on the disabilities. And I'd be open to hearing if there is a rationale that isn't obvious for a CPA on historic landmark. But in the absence of that, I take the point that it's not obvious why that requirement is there. So I'd be comfortable with removing that too. Councilmember Davis, same thing to clarify. Yeah, I have a question for the lawyer. Yes, sir. There are some of our boards, the one that comes to mind first is ZBA, that have a body of state law that has to do with what they do and what their powers are. And a lot of that has to do with, well, anyway, there's some state law that impacts some of our boards and what they do. Are there any state requirements that make their way down to any of our boards that we need to be thinking of beyond this conversation or that, rather, that impact this conversation? None that impact this conversation. As far as the residency and the eligibility, there's nothing that state law would prevent you from doing as a council. Thank you. Councilmember Guaya. Apologies for not giving this all at once. There are so many moving parts here, but I would like to also express my support for removing the CPA requirement from the Historic Landmark Commission. Okay. So, I would suggest Councilmember Davis, is that you again, or is that a holdover? Perfect. Okay, Miss City, and you spoke on the one thing already, I think, but if you have more to add, by all means. But Miss City Manager, what I'm hearing is, I think we, similarly as last week, maybe gather notes, staff, take a look at it, bring it back to us. Obviously, we'd have to, you know, there'll be some draft language, etc. that has to be done, but clarification, come back to us via email. That way you can document what you heard. We can read it and verify that and then bring it back to you. Is that okay? Perhaps the Friday report? No, we'll discuss it tomorrow. Okay. And we will send it out, what we understood to be correct, and then we can hear back from Councilmembers. Yeah, and then forgive me, so I have to say, got distracted. So, for me, I take your point, Rosa, on the, but I think on the voter registration, I would leave that just as is. And then the other things, I am fine with the, I wouldn't want to change the discrimination, pardon me, that's my note, discrimination. I don't want to change the Committee on Disabilities. I believe you don't have to, yeah, I just, I just, I can't get comfortable with that preference. I think if you have a heart for that, you have a heart for that, and I want you to be able to serve. And I don't know how you codify preference. You know, I don't know how you enforce that. So, I don't really think it has enough teeth for me. And if it did have teeth, I wouldn't be able to support it. I take Councilmember Beck's point about the quasi-judicial boards, because there are some requirements there that could be problematic with someone that is not a citizen potentially, and so that gives me concern. It gives me concern, I don't know how it would look, but on a police board. That gives me, not that, you know, you got to kind of weigh those things. And so for me, there are just, there's some picking and choosing amongst there that I could get, I'd have to get comfortable with. And the rest, I don't think I have any preference for changes. I, you know, I see a consensus on the HLC board, so that, that's kind of on that end. But, yeah, so that, just so I'm on the record, and then you'll just, staff will email that back to us, take a look at it, and then that'll help give staff your feedback, that'll help shape the next conversation. And then City Manager and Rose, or anything else you have to add? I think we're fine, we'll pull it together, but I think she has something she wants to share with you. Okay. Man, it's great sadness that I tell you that Zee is going to retire from the City of Denton and has a great promotional opportunity. And I'm just so happy for her, but at the same time, sad for her office. She's been a great teammate. She's been kind of like my yin to my yin, or she's been the yin and yang, and, you know, she's just really complimented the office and the processes and, and, you know, I've had an opportunity to learn from her. And so her last day is going to be November 30th, so technically this is her last official meeting for the city, although she's always welcome back and volunteer. But I just wanted to let you know that, you know, she's been an exceptional, exceptional professional, professional, and we're sorry to see her go and, you know, but, you know, obviously there's just, you know, better horizons and I think this is just, you know, her one step up and, you know, we might just, you know, kind of see bigger and better things for her. Bigger and better things from her, but just sorry to see you go, Zee, and just happy that I've had the privilege to meet you and be a teammate with you. Mayor Pritz and Meltzer. Yeah, I just want to get on the record that Zee did not request or receive my permission to leave. I wish you well. Councilmember Armitage. Real sorry to see you go but congratulations. I hope you come and visit. We have some good mints over here. Coffee machine, I bet they'll still let you use in the city manager's office. Anyway, whatever we can do to get you come back. It's just so great to see you and chat with you from time to time and all the essential work you do behind the scenes just so valued. Thank you. Yep. So yeah, I would like to join in that. I mean, again, you've been incredibly stabilizing force came in in the middle of a lot helped us through a lot. So you'll be missed. I gotta break this to my four year old that comes to visit periodically it's gonna be a tough conversation maybe maybe I'll send her up here to give you the waterworks. Try to break you down but uh you know but I do congratulate you on on kind of this this milestone and for your family and all those things I know there's a lot that goes into that so. So, congratulations. Thank you very much for what you do. Okay, very good. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you, city manager. So that takes us we have two closed session items. Right. Is that no no we don't we only have one right we don't need the other one so we have one closed session item that will take up before our, and then we'll. So we'll be a for those watching will be off your screen until 630. And then, let's take a break. So, we'll meet in closed session let's say at 420, but I'll say, I will convene the closed session at 408. We will consider the following items deliberations regarding. No, that's not it. It's this one. Yes, great. So we will again at 408, we will consider the following items deliberation regarding personnel matters under Texas government code section 551.074. Thank you. Good evening welcome to this meeting didn't city council it is now 630 we do have a quorum, and we're to our regular session portion of the agenda, which will start with our pledges to the United States and Texas flag please stand and join us if you're able I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. One Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. I pledge allegiance to the Texas, one state under God, one state under God, one state under God, one state under God. So this is for everyone in the Benton 360 group so if you're associated with that and you can come on down we'll have you introduce yourselves and we have a proclamation for everyone I'll read one and then we'll make sure we're handed out so come on down. So if you want to give your just introduce yourself and whatever you want to share. Hi I'm Sarah Bradbury. I just learned a lot during this program and I'm glad I did it. I'm crystal Sager, and I was really interested on what kind of ins and outs of the city government there were and it was a very fun and interesting program so if you haven't done it, I really highly recommend it. Good evening, my name is Ron Schoenberger, and I enjoyed participating in the program. And a great deal about all the various agencies within the city. And again I would encourage people to participate. My name is Mary black right I'm from Denton, and, and I enjoyed the program thoroughly too. And so I would encourage anyone also. Good evening, Anita Martinez Strickland, I'm also been in this program and seeing stuff that is very enlightening the fire department's training center is so cool. The police department. They allowed us to see where they. I say play act I don't know what you call it. But you're able to see them shoot the guns and make sure it's not one of us. It's really cool if you have the time to be engaged and see what the city of didn't does for us as citizens. I would recommend it as well. Thank you. My name is Victoria Jones I just like to thank the city for providing us with this opportunity to learn more about how they operate. My name is Sandra Torres and I really really enjoy this program I learned a lot and I highly recommend it. My name is Beverly Brady and I'm retired I moved up to the didn't area six years ago, after I retired in Houston area. I'd like to commend the entire didn't staff that participated in this program. They did wonderful presentations, not not one was less than the most professional I've seen, and I really want to say that to the Council so they're aware of the quality of their staff and how they're representing them. It really does mean a lot. Thank you very much. And I appreciate so I can't believe it happened so fast so I was here to kick you all off and then next thing you know we're here again that's amazing. Time flies when you're having fun but thank you very much. I have a proclamation for everyone. It reads a proclamation by the mayor of the city of didn't Texas to, to all whom these presidents shall come greetings whereas didn't 360 formerly known as didn't citizens Academy is an educational program offered through different city of didn't departments that consists of eight sessions encompassing public safety, development and growth utilities and quality of life, and whereas the objective of didn't 360 is to give residents an opportunity to acquire a better understanding of their city government and services through interaction, interactive sessions, and whereas the program helps provide a better understanding of how our leaders make decisions and deliver those services that affect our every, everyday lives, and whereas didn't 360 helps to create a framework of informal informed citizens and provides the tools to become involved in the city's boards commissions committees which help shape the future of the city of didn't, and whereas the programs obtained feedback and new perspectives from these residents regarding the governmental programs and services and opens lines of communication and transparency. Now therefore I Gerard Hudson with me or the city of didn't Texas do hereby recognize the 2021 graduating class from didn't 360 and apply their commitment to didn't's betterment and the benefits it brings to its to our community, we give them a hand. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a great evening. All right. That brings us to presentations from a member of the public we have one. We have Mr. Dillenberg, if you can come down. Yes, if you're going to if you have a document, you can come down and put on a document camera here, and they can zoom. Yes, sir, I have those in. We'll take a look at those and share those. Material to what I'm talking about it's just kind of introducing myself to y'all. Okay. So take your time get set up and then once you give your name and address that you'll see the timer there you'll have four minutes. And then for the record, so I have the documents I'll look at them after you and share them with everybody. Okay, but it would be probably beneficial if you would just take one and pass them kind of down there's one for everybody. Oh, okay, I thought I thought there was along with what I'm talking about. It's okay. Okay. I think they're all I don't know if there's multiple copies, right. There are yeah each each paperclip section is copies. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. We really. Yes, okay, I'll give her one second. Okay. All right. My name is Steven Dillenberg I reside at 1004 Abbots Lane and in Texas have lived there since 2008. One thing I've been kind of paying attention one thing that has always kind of struck me is that all the members of the public are asked to give our personal information, and it seems kind of intimidating and I wondered if you guys would be willing to give you all's information, your home address. Yes, we have to when we file. And so it's all it's all public record nine, I understand it is intimidating, but a little bit. Yeah, so where would we go to access that information so you could go to the, you could go to your financial statements, so to go to the city of Denton website and then elected officials. And then there's, I forget the title but we can get something but but yeah it's it's a city like and you can, you can get to it as long as it's easily accessible online that's great. Yeah. Okay, so, um, a little bit of background on me I graduated from University of North Texas in 2010 with a degree in biology. Um, this was the research that I presented at the ecological Society of America conference in 2010. And, and while that's not really material here tonight it does kind of go into my background in electronic research and show that I presented that at a professional level. There's some concerns that I have with respect to one this mask mandate. It's based on per y'all's order the CDC recommendations, and a lot of y'all who were members of the council before this past election have information for me already regarding the CDC spider letter. So that's this document. And I'm just going to go through a couple of the statements that are in it and y'all can look at it more. We're a group of scientists at the CDC that are very concerned about the current state of ethics at our agency. It appears our mission is being influenced and shaped by outside parties and rogue interests. Going down to the third paragraph, there was a coordinated effort by that center to bury the fact that screening numbers for the wise woman program were misrepresented and documents sent to Congress, and then on page two bottom we're often directed to do things right. And why is the CDC OD turned a blind eye to these things. So in light of this and these things not being resolved. I think that we probably have a duty to the community to make sure that anything coming from the CDC is based in actual factual science and and so I know that there, there are a lot of ways that science can be manipulated. And so if you would go to this one. That's the link supporting research of benzimidazoles and cancer use, and go to the back of that page. This is a document that this is an excerpt from an article, the first one that cited, and what I'm talking about what it looks like based on all of these links that are here and I can provide you guys with electronic access to. But this chart shows that this drug by itself which is already an approved anti parasitic in humans, but this drug by itself. If you go based on this chart and a picture is worth 1000 words this drug by itself doesn't work. But if you actually read the article, three times in that article it bases that on a single outlier. So, four out of five experienced a therapeutic effect meaning their tumors decreased with all sorts all different types of cancer. And we're, we're talking about a really big deal where cancer. A drug is showing agnostic efficacy, meaning that, meaning that it applies across the board there, it's attacking and killing cancer cells, and not, and not anything else. So anyway, essentially, this is how science is being manipulated, based on one single outlier there. I'm going to take it just a second longer. You can you can summarize, you can set the timer for like a minute. Okay, thank you. So, it's important and so I apologize for going over but this is something that shows promise, and the FDA already has it approved for use in humans, up to 50 times the therapeutic dose, it was sold in Walmart through 2020 but now it's not anymore, which is also pretty concerning. And then we have talc powder, which this is baby powder, and they paid out $4.6 billion Johnson and Johnson did for this being contaminated with asbestos, them hiding that from the public, and I've got a video that I made that's pretty brief and shows kind of the outlines of those cases. They're hiding that from people continuing to sell it to the public. And this is in talc powder is still, it's showing up randomly contaminated with asbestos, it's in deodorant. It's on condoms, and the FDA is recommended against using it on condoms, but it's still being, it's still regarded generally regarded as safe. And so, for all those reasons, we kind of have some trust issues going on with these regulatory agencies, and we probably need to do something in a community scale to test and see if there's really something here because it seems like there is. Thank you very much. I appreciate your comments today. So I'm going to follow up with you and see about setting up a committee and doing something actually that would benefit our community. I mean we've got a $55 million police station that we did I think the public would like some of our funds being spent on some stuff that actually thank you very much right our health care. I appreciate I think that's pretty important. Yes, have a great evening. Okay. That takes us to our consent agenda, making sure there's there's no other callers we have. Thank you. Okay takes us to our consent agenda, there's nothing pulled I'll take a motion. Councilmember Greger. I move approval of the consent agenda as presented. Councilmember Davis. I'll second. We have a motion by Councilmember Greger second by Councilmember Davis any discussion. Okay, next item takes us to our first of three individual consent items. So, first is ID 212432 consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, Homeroom Municipal Corporation can confirming the effective period of a declared state of local disaster related to covert 19 emergency and provided ordinance of local disaster related to covert 19 emergency and provided ordinance of local disaster related to covert 19 emergency and provided ordinance of local disaster related to covert 19 emergency and provided ordinance of local disaster related to covert 19 emergency and provided ordinance we'll get there. There we go. Thank you, Councilmember Greger. I'll give you a brief update on the covert pandemic and then we'll roll right into discussion and consideration of that draft order. Just to give an update on where things are not much has changed from last week when when we presented the same same statistics, cases and hospitalizations are continuing to decline. It's starting to plateau a little bit according to Denton County Public Health as well every age group does continue to decline with that decline also slowing a bit. Nothing has changed on the vaccine front, I do want to remind the council in the public that private providers and in County Public Health are administering Pfizer vaccines for ages, for children ages five to 11 right now so that's something that they can seek out with their personal physician or within County Public Health. All you have to do is register in their portal to do that. Just a quick snapshot of our ICU occupancy. Again it's it's pretty consistent with what you saw last week with nine available beds. The seven day moving average of the percentage of patients and hospitals who are there because of covert. It continues to decline, as you can see that decline is slowing a little bit not as far of a drop as it was in the previous weeks. And our transmission level of covert 19 per the CDC is still within the substantial range, so we went over this last week for us to move into the next lowest range which would change the CDC indoor mask recommendations. We would have to see a much lower case rate than we are currently seeing. So we're still within that substantial range. And so the CDC still recommends indoor universal masking. The order in front of you tonight for your consideration is our 17th order. We are currently under the 16th order which expires on November 30. Council has the option to approve a 17th order as presented which would extend the masking requirements as they are right now through December 31. That is also the date that our emergency declaration our disaster declaration also continues through. So that can be extended through December 31. Council can also modify some of the requirements or extend it to a different date or council can take no action and the current order will expire at the end of the month. If it is extended through December 31, we would be back no later than December 14 for direction on any further extensions of the requirements and a new disaster declaration that that order can operate under. I'm happy to answer any questions that the council might have. Questions for staff. Mayor. I think I know the answer to this but you know if we did extend to the 31st and you know things continue to approve between now and then we wanted to rescind that is there anything that would prevent us from doing that. No council could rescind it at its discretion that would be an action item for council. As staff we would like council direction that you would like that to be brought back if that were the case but we will schedule another update and we have scheduled another update on the 7th so we could receive that direction then. I mean you know to be as transparent as possible my preference would be just the shortest time frame possible so that as soon as you know if there's an opportunity to go a different direction based on CDC guidance you know I think others here would also want to act on that. It's just like the time intervals are so small here so you know I'm open to suggestion about what would achieve that result of giving us the most flexibility to act in a shorter time frame you know if circumstances suggest that we do that. So it helped. No, I've stumped everyone. So I'm going to move on unless you have. Well I was kind of asking staff recommendations. Yeah yeah yeah what's the best way to accomplish that in terms of using the available time. You know in such a way that we'd be able to. Quickly if if if if warranted. Change course so our next schedule meetings on December 7th, if it council would direct staff that if our CDC transmission level changes for the better during that time. We can receive the direction to bring back an item to rescind the whatever may be on the books at the time, and that can be staff direction or council direction to us and we would keep an eye on that CDC CDC transmission level. Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you. Because we require. Thank you. This is a question for a city attorney. Are we within posting to provide direction to staff at this time to monitor the CDC guidance and bring back on December 7th or December 14th. An item to repeal the mask mandate if we if we vote tonight to extend it through December 31st. Yes, certainly you have pretty broad discretion in the posting to direct council or direct staff on what you would like to do on that. All right, then. My direction to staff is please continue. I know you already are but continue to monitor the CDC guidance regarding mask and and you know our level of transmission in our local area. And if we drop below that substantial level, then please place an item on the agenda for us to repeal any mask mandate that we might pass tonight. I don't know if that's the appropriate way to provide that direction but I understood. I'll just say I've been doing some research and it's important to note that the component I'll follow up. I'll send staff an email this week from the CDC, but I'll note that the CDC. My understanding does not track the date of onset. Why that matters is you just saw in the news about testing agencies that falsely had false positives that that then affects this number that we're making a decision based on. That's why the local control local focus on the local health department matters because they track the date of onset. So, for example, in my research, what I found out is that you can have a home test kit that someone takes home and then that agency is required to report that information. Well, if there's any lag or any latency and that that reporting that then gets reported as a new case to the CDC, they don't understand that they don't look at that date of onset. So the date of onset could be two months ago, but they're reporting it as a new case today. Then that affects the number by which we're making the decision locally with bad information. That's why the premium on local information, but I'll get all that in the email from the CDC and send it to you so that we can then so that I can know we're basing this on the wrong information and hopefully it's compelling. But if not, at least I want to share it publicly with the citizens so they understand the wording in there about local guidelines is because Dr. Richardson didn't county scrutinize it and sort by date of onset to make sure we have the most accurate information for our area, which is critical. So I'll get that to you. Thank you. I believe Councilmember Meltzer had questions for staff or direction. Well, it's going to. Councilman, I mean, that's fine. Just to me, the guidance from the CDC is very plain on the face of it. They do refer to folks to follow local guidance, but it's not like an asterisk on whether they recommend masking in public places. And, you know, I know sometimes you like to hear people's credentials. You know, the dance person I want to refer to is a BA in biochemistry and molecular biology from Washington University and MD from Johns Hopkins, a master's in public health from the Harvard School of Public Health, served as professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and was chief of infectious diseases at Mass General Hospital. That's the CDC director Rochelle Walensky and their 10,000 folks at CDC, you know, who have very heavy duty credentials that study nothing but this and put that thought into what the guidance is. So I'm so just wanted to share that information. Yeah, and I think it's important for those just not to go back and forth. I mean, again, I don't dispute anything that said I agree with that. What I what I dispute is the value of the local information and the numbers the number that's that that's the great thing. The number is to get down to 450 or 460 whatever the number is, but I would think as a as a local community we want the most relevant local number. That's based on specificity that the Denton County research is each individual case date of onset so we know when they got when they were when it started when it ended that's locally. My understanding is CDC doesn't have that level of scrutiny so regardless of the data they don't you need the most up to date information to make the most up to date decision I don't see why anyone would want because we're just trying to get to the number right the numbers 450 if the number in our local areas 450 and nationally they're not reporting that right then I think that would be noteworthy for the citizens that didn't know not disputing how they rank them. I'm disputing or I'm just trying to make sure we have the most up to date relative information for the city of Denton and Denton County versus nationwide and I think anyone can go research that news report where they were false positive reported significant number of them that would affect the CDC's numbers. I want to I want to make sure we have local information that's that's most current most up to date most accurate. I think that's that's okay. Councilmember McGuire. I move approval of confirming the effective period of the declared state of local disaster through December 31 and replacing the 16th order of council with the 17th order of council as presented. Mayor Melton. I'll second that most my councilman were seconded by Councilman Meltzer and the other discussion. Seeing none of the photo on the screen. Rachel are there any callers. No ma'am not for this one. Thank you. Yeah, well, I got it. I'm sorry. I forgot. So we'll vote again. But Eva Greco, if she wanted to speak, she gave me a card earlier. Just got buried. On this order and so if you can give your name and address. Eva Greco, 802 West Oak Street, Apartment 5 Denton, Texas. Thank you. Mayor, I definitely agree with the numbers. You know, we need the most accurate numbers locally. I myself was at the emergency room last year. In April. Um, had pneumonia and COVID. But there were not enough bed. There were no beds. I got sent home. So how accurate are your numbers? You know, you're never going to get a clear, accurate number. We are now up to 17. Okay. Nowhere in the city of Denton. Do you see this enforced in any way? Governor said we can't make it. Why do we sit here meeting after meeting after meeting? You know, voting for this. It doesn't make sense. You know that we continue. I did ask at the one meeting. Um, what is the consequence of the penalty if you don't follow this? Um, basically there. The answer basically is there is none. You cannot enforce it. Okay. But in the 16th order at the bottom of the first page, it says, part of the sentence may result in a fine not to exceed $1,000 for each violation. How can you find somebody for something that the governor says you can't do? No sense. Now you open yourself up to a lot more issues, bad issues. Um, nowhere is it being enforced. I've gone into small stores. I'm the only one wearing a mask. I wear my mask out of respect for my fellow citizens. Okay, because my mask doesn't protect me. It protects you. Um, unfortunately, I don't get the same respect from the majority of the people, you know, in this town. So I think we have more serious issues we have to think about and concerns, you know, in this town. Um, one of them being tenants rights, which is a very big, serious issue in this town. Um, but I think this just needs to, it needs to stop. I mean, 17 orders, not making yourselves look too good, guys, you know, going on and on with this. And we don't have actual information to base this on. We're getting statistics that are not accurate. And I'm a perfect example of it. It's not accurate. So that's it. And thank you for hearing me out, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, thank you very much again. Forgive me for not doing that in order. So thank you very much. Appreciate it. Okay, Councilmember McGuire, if you could make your motion again. I move approval of extending the declared state of local disaster through December 31st and replacing the 16th order of council with the 17th order of council as presented. Thank you. I move approval of extending the declared state of local disaster through December 31st and replacing the 16th order of council with the 17th order of council with the 17th order of council as presented. Thank you. I move approval of extending the declared state of local disaster through December 31st and replacing the 16th order of council with the 17th order of council with the 17th order of council as presented. The CDC looked at a series of cross-sectional surveys in the U.S. and what they found is a correlation. A 10 percent increase in self-reported mask wearing tripled the likelihood of stopping community transmission. Now, I have no illusions since, you know, we're not able in the current, you know, environment, we're not able to do enforcement. I have no illusion that everybody is doing, you know, what we've asked. But there are people who do care what people who look at the issue and put their time into it are, you know, putting forward as guidance for the community. And if that results in a 10 percent increase, we've done something good for the direction of the pandemic. So that that's that's why I bother continuing to do it. And, you know, is it ever is anything ever going to be perfect, that perfect information? I don't think anything we do here is ever perfect. So, but, you know, nevertheless, we have to do policy and life and safety matter. And this this direction has the potential to protect life and safety. Okay. Any other discussion? Seeing none, let's vote on the screen. That passes four to two takes us to our next item. I.D. two one two three nine two can consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, a home room and its home rule municipal corporation authorizing city manager to execute a contract with. Are you pulling that up? They started working on your new neighbors out there next to you. Yes, sir. Perfect. I was stressing that point. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, Jason Brown, point manager of the Denton Energy Center. Thank you all for allowing me time this evening to discuss with you our emissions re agent contract that we're seeking approval of. The emissions reagent that we use at the Denton Energy Center is called aqueous ammonia aqueous ammonia is a chemical additive required for nitrogen oxide control or knocks control in an exhaust system. Knocks control is a condition of our standard air permit at the Denton Energy Center. Therefore, the equipment cannot operate without the additive. The way that we use the aqueous ammonia is quite simple. We injected into the exhaust stream prior to the selective catalytic reduction system where when the exhaust gas passes through the selective catalytic reduction system or SCR system, a chemical reaction takes place that allows the knocks to deposit onto the SCR catalyst or media. We monitor that media by differential pressure overall performance and maintenance activities. As as we as the equipment operates and we're monitoring this these parameters routine maintenance of Lansing or cleaning refurbishment or replacement is necessary to ensure that the exhaust system is maintained to compliance standards. We do inject fourteen and a half to eighteen and a half gallons of aqueous ammonia into that exhaust stream for that knocks control. And with with that fourteen and a half to eighteen and a half gallons of injection, it requires us to have bulk storage for that emissions reagent, which is the great tank on the right side of that circle and then the the forwarding pumps that actually take the aqueous ammonia over to each one of the engines themselves. In the center, you'll see an unloading station where we actually receive tankers. And that's that's where we offload that equipment. The bulk storage capacity is twenty nine twenty nine thousand five hundred gallons or one hundred and seventy two plant operating hours. The tank is designed to store aqueous ammonia and we we receive deliveries of sixty five hundred gallons of aqueous ammonia and the frequency change base changes based on operation and consumption throughout the throughout the operating perimeters. The unloading area is one of the top top notch unloading areas that I've seen. You actually pull the tanker into the unloading area and it has its own containment in case there's a spill or an emergency that requires that tanker to be unloaded promptly. So earlier this year, as our contract was was coming to an end, we we started preparing for formal solicitations. We used a invitation for bid. We're seeking a five year total contract. It's a three year with two optional one year extensions. We sent the package packages out to fifty four prospective suppliers. We had one respondent, which happened to be the previous contracts award winner. And staff is seeking counsel's approval to award a contract with Southern ionics incorporated for the supply of our emissions reagent in the three year with an option of two additional one year extensions in the total five year contract amount not to exceed two million seven hundred ninety three thousand dollars. I'll stand for any questions that you may have. Thank you. So obviously this purchase is necessary for for TCEQ and reducing emissions of the gas plant. So I have no questions about the necessity for it. I'm just wondering if you could speak to have any guesses as to why with fifty fifty something dollars. Why we only got one bid? What was it about the specifications and the way they were written that only attracted one bid? So So currently there are are three different emissions reagents that can be used throughout throughout exhaust systems, one anhydrous ammonia, urea, and aqueous ammonia. Aqueous ammonia, there's there's two actual suppliers or or manufacturers in the U.S. There's more overseas, only two in the U.S. This is one of them. The other one chose not to bid, I'm assuming, because of the specifications. A lot of the specifications for emissions reagent isn't a farm grade fertilizer grade. So most of the emissions reagent that you that you see throughout the U.S. is a fertilizer grade. Okay, so so you wouldn't have expected more than two to qualify anyway. No, ma'am. No. Okay. Thank you. I was just going to expand on that. So on the AIS, it shows that category that we send it out to. So when we send the distribution of invitations that went out to like a janitorial category for raw supplies, so it goes out to a broad net. But there may only be a few qualified vendors. Thank you. Okay, um, Councilman Beck. I move approval. Councilmember McGuire. I second. Okay, we have motion by Councilmember Beck, second by Councilmember McGuire. Discussion, Councilmember McGuire. Thank you. I just want to thank you, Jason, for the thorough explanation. I'm sure that Councilmember Beck probably could have understood it without the thorough explanation. But but I appreciate the detail. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. Any other discussion? Seeing none, let's vote on the screen. Okay, that passes six zero takes us to our last item ID 212553. Consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton. A Texas Home Rule Municipal Corporation authorizing city manager execute a CMAR guaranteed maximum price amendment to the construction manager at risk contract with Belfort Beatty Construction LLC. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council Danny Shaw Community Services. Very excited to be here for this last step in phase four as we move into hopefully construction of phase five with approval tonight. Just want to run through the today's presentation is about looking at our guaranteed maximum price contract amendment to the CMAR agreement. Just a quick recap. Council has heard presentations throughout this project up to today, including a project review and notice to proceed approval of our management services agreement and then original approval of the contract for the CMAR. And so today we are again amending the CMAR contract. And where that puts this is in phase four. Council is considering the final exhibit with the GMP amendment and then that will move us into our construction phase. We'll issue the notice. Proceed tomorrow with the goal of substantial completion of the work in October of 2022 and then our startup. Probably in December of 2022. Just a quick recap of what the timeline looks like. Thus far again, we're about to enter into phase five with approval this evening. A little bit of information on the budget tracking, our original presentations. We did show you a budget as a summarized here with the building renovations coming in at about 6.2. The furnishing, IT, the AV and security coming in at 1.2 with some soft cost and contingencies at 1.3. And then this slide adds in some additional information. Just a reminder of the acquisition costs on the building. We did receive approval for ARP funding for this project. So additional five million to come into it to help with the construction renovation of Loop 28. So now we're looking at with the GMP amendment building renovations, our base scope at 6.1. Added scope, which means we were able to accept some of the alternates in the project proposal, including some important items like the emergency generator, the larger generator with our experience with Yuri. We know that we probably need to have that additional help in protecting the building in case there's another incident like that and also a new skin on the building, which we didn't have in the original budget. But this will help extend the life of the building long term as well as ensure that we can warranty it over time. So that's a pretty important addition to it. And so it's nice to be able to add that in. Increase the owner contingency a little bit in the GMP just to make sure we can cover any unforeseeable events. As with any renovation, there are issues that can come up. We just want to make sure we're prepared for those as well. And then there's a couple of recommendations we've included in here, obviously, to go ahead and authorize the GMP amendment today. But to also loan ODB 600K for the furnishings that are going to the building that they will fundraise for throughout the year to add back in. But this will allow us to lock in the cost that the contractor was able to get through their bid process. And that will make sure that we save those costs over time because we're locking in the lower cost right now, where the increases will be expected in the next couple of months. So that's what we're looking for. And then there's some additional soft costs for the professional fees for the project. Bring us in at just over 10 million. And so with that, I'll bring it down for Council questions. And just so you know, Chris Quadra is here and Rissa Barrett as well. If you have any questions that I am unable to answer for you. Yes. So I completely support this. This is really important. I can't wait to see this come to fruition. The sooner the better. Just one question. I totally approve of the city paying for the kitchen equipment. I'm just wondering why alone? Why can we not just give it to them since it is for this public need of providing food to people who are homeless and hungry? Okay, so that's where we are. That was based on the agreements, but that would be Council direction. Otherwise. Okay, so that and that was a number that 800 was a number, right? Based on that, that's where we are right now. Okay, so that was a number that 800 was a number, right? Based on the original budget projections after the architect finished its first design scope. It went out for some value engineering on the cost, and that was estimated. What the cost would be. We're actually absorbing some of the security cost out of that because it, you know, so we can align it with our own security systems. There's no interest being charged for them alone. No, as they raise money, they can pay us. Yeah, I would just, you know, I hope that there's could be, you know, some kind of clause in there that because I know that nonprofits even popular and beloved ones like ODB are really struggling right now. After after COVID and Yuri to keep up with previous levels of donations. So 800 K. That's a lot of fundraising. I mean, I know they're great at it. I just, I'm just wondering. And maybe now is not that you know the time for it but it but if it is possible to at this point, you know, lower that amount a little or to make me give them a range. I mean, it's certainly at the pleasure of counsel as a consensus but you know, I think when Danny refers to alone. I don't think we're going to call on the loan in a year I think we're going to allow them opportunity to, to, to get their affairs in order I think the other part of it is the idea was for them to have a buy in into this as a part of this effort, you know, to show there's a sincere ability to buy into this effort, but I think we can certainly do at the will of counsel if that's what you want to do, or we, you know, this can be alone and we can bring back updates as they fundraise throughout the year as the renovation is going to give you updated information on how the project is progressing, including what they're doing as well. One of the things that would also mention is that the fundraisers are going to be able to get back to you. So that's a good thing. is there any time limit to it? - No, and we can bring back updates as they fundraise throughout the year as the renovation is going to give you updated information on how the project is progressing, including what they're doing as well. One of the things I would also mention though is by them having ownership of the items that are inside the building, that also allows them to take them with them in the future should they not be running the program after the contract expires or some other reason that might be that. So it does have a bit added benefit that it's not city. City products, so yeah. - Yes, yes. Okay, well thank you. - Council Member Davis. - I move approval of the item, the guaranteed maximum price amendment. - Council Member Aguilar. - I second. - Okay, we have a motion by Council Member Davis, second by Council Member Aguilar. Any other discussion? Let's vote on the screen. - That item passes six to zero, takes us to concluding items. Any concluding items, Mayor Pritz and Meltzer? - Yeah, a couple, thank you, Mayor. Yesterday along with Council Member Beck and I know other council members are doing this too, I had the great opportunity to tour the Senior Center on Bell. And for those of you who are thinking about where to get unique handmade items, I stopped in at the little store and I bought this beautiful wall hanging. It's a quilt block by M.M. Fresh Hour. There are folks in that Senior Center doing all kinds of really beautiful work and you can find wonderful, unique items at popular prices. Second item I'd like to comment on, I wanna thank everybody who attended my virtual town hall last night through this Facebook Live, through my Facebook page, Paul Meltzer, Denton City Council. If you, it's recorded, it's on there. I cover Denton Council, City Council priorities, give a little update, but you'll also find in there, it's about four minutes long where I read aloud a wonderful book from the Denton Public Library called Red, a crayon story. It's a very inspiring story that talks about finding out who you really are. It's very touching and I encourage you to read it and you may have read that there's controversy around this and others, other stories like it that were to have been included in a story time and that there are threats of violence against library employees and I hope you will all take the opportunity to look at these wonderful books they've selected and show love and appreciation for library employees and denounce threats of violence against them, thank you. - Council Member Ritter. (murmuring) - To work, there we go. Thank you, thank you Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer. I second that, want to just extend gratitude and thanks to our library staff for the amazing and inclusive programming that they put on. Hugs to that and big shrugs and condemnation to the threats that they have received that members of our community also take really personally. Denton is a place for love and not hate and we have free speech here but the line is drawn at threats of violence, certainly against families, children and library workers. On that note, that event which was scheduled for Saturday, November 20th, which is Transgender Day of Remembrance where we remember transgender people who have been killed because of such violence and rhetoric. There is a alternate reading happening at the Denton Unitarian Church which is a wonderfully-- (murmuring) Okay, sorry, the Unitarian Church is sponsoring. Thank you, it's at Armadillo Ale Works during the day and at six o'clock at Fredmore Park in Denton. Outreach Denton and UNT Pride Alliance are coming together for a Trans Day of Remembrance ceremony to remember the lives of trans people lost in 2021 in very powerful ceremony. I also wanna mention finally that I found out just recently from the Denton Record Chronicle that the nine-year-old boy who recently lost his life as a result of the Astroworld event went to school in Denton ISD, Ezra Blount, and just want to extend just condolences to the family and friends, neighbors, schoolmates, teachers. All of Texas and the nation is really filling this and we would be still even if he had not been a DISD student but that just brings it that much closer to home. - Council Member Beck. - Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I'll be in attendance at the alternate reading that we heard about just a second ago so I won't belabor that. I will remind us that our brand new mountain bike trail is opening, they have a grand opening celebration at 10 so hopefully I'll be able to get on my bike right around the trail and then get over to the reading all in the space of a few minutes but I encourage people to go out to the grand opening of the mountain bike trail and I'm gonna take a moment of personal privilege and wish my daughter and my nephew a happy birthday on this Tuesday. - Thank you and so I'll say in addition to the mountain bike on Saturday as well, I will attend that but also there's the Kiwanis Turkey Roll so that's our bike rally so that'll be that Saturday as well. Then there's the, we'll be back on December 7th so we have a hard-earned break for a couple of weeks and so I would, to my peers, just a reminder so there'll be holiday schedules, people will be out town for Thanksgiving so please extend a little grace to staff and pace or kind of measure your request because of the staffing as people travel to be with their families and wish everybody safe travels, happy Thanksgiving and I kind of join as the entire council in saying our condolences to everyone at that Astroworld event especially, you know, nine-year-old that's being part of our community but the others as well so I share in that so thank you all very much and at 728 we'll conclude tonight's meeting, thank you.