Dec 07, 2021 City Council on 2021-12-07 3:00 PM

Good afternoon and welcome to this meeting of Denton City Council. It is 3 p.m. on December the 7th and we do have a quorum. I'll call the meeting to order and the first item on the agenda is citizens comments on consent agenda items. Do we have any citizen comments? No mayor, not over the phones today. Okay, thank you very much and seeing no one moving in the in the chambers that'll take us to request for clarification on agenda items listed on this agenda. Anyone have questions? Councilmember Armitage? No questions, but I wanted to pull item G as in giraffe. Just to vote no and I don't need a presentation on it. I'll just be voting no on that one. Okay, all right. Any other questions? Seeing none then that that'll move us to the next portion of our first work set work session. That's and so work session item A ID 212430 receive report hold discussion and give staff direction regarding an update to the City of Denton COVID-19 response and then just staff and no only G comes back, but there's no presentation. So we'll just vote separately and move on. Thank you mayor council Ryan Adams interim chief of staff. Just let me pull up my presentation. Okay, so this is just a another one of our regular updates on the COVID-19 pandemic. Just to give a little bit of a background. We've done this a number of times before the most recent update being on November 16th at that council meeting. We did prevent present our update went over some statistics in terms of the transmission status of COVID-19. We updated on the then then in effect order the 16th order of council and at that meeting we adopted a 17th order of council today. You'll get the same brief COVID update and we are seeking direction on how to move forward regarding a declaration of disaster and order of council as the current order and current declaration expire at the end of the month. Just a bit of an update on the COVID statistics as we brought forward to you in previous meetings. The cases had trended downward. They have more or less stabilized at this point in time. They are lower than the rates that we experienced in the early fall and certainly lower at one year ago in the winter. One of the things that's been a pretty big topic of conversations been the Omicron variant of the coronavirus of COVID-19. We did receive an update. The Commissioner's Court did receive an update from the Denton County Public Health Authority today and generally to summarize that is that the Delta variant is still the preeminent variant in Denton County. There are sporadic variants of Omicron that are being identified. I believe there was one in Houston most recently. So it is in the U.S. and it will likely spread to some degree. I do want to really reiterate that this variant is still being studied and there have not been any firm determinations about its severity or its transmissibility at this point in time. More information should be available in the coming weeks but as of right now it's just too soon to know how that might affect cases in Denton County. As far as a vaccine update, so kind of building off what we previously presented a week ago or a couple weeks ago, the FDA has approved and recommended boosters for all eligible persons 18 years or older. So if it has been the requisite amount of time since your full vaccination and you are 18 years of older, you can receive a booster and those are being administered across the county both by Denton County Public Health and private providers. The health authority and private providers are also administering Pfizer vaccines for ages 5 to 11 as well. So if you have a child 5 years or older they can be vaccinated. So one more time the graph just showing our case rate across the entire pandemic. You can see that we have shrunk in our case numbers since the fall. Our hospitalization is about the same as what we previously reported in terms of available beds and ICU beds. And if you look at the percentage of inpatient beds that are COVID related you can see that that has more or less stabilized since about early November. It's not gone down, it's not gone up, it's hovering. We do want to update you on our transmission level and how that affects CDC mask recommendations. We are still in the high level of community transmission. At this point in time our cases, number of cases and positivity rate, those things that affect our CDC transmission level have not really moved up or down, they have hovered again. And as a reminder to have the CDC not recommend universal indoor masking they say that you need to be in the moderate transmission range which is less than 50 new cases per 100,000 people over the past 7 days, an average of less than 50 new cases per day per 100,000 people. So then we move on to the declaration and order of council. So our current declaration of local disaster was extended by the council in late September and that goes all the way through the end of December. And this is a continuation extension of the original order pardon me, the original declaration that occurred in March of 2020. The declaration serves as a prerequisite for the 17th order of council and any future orders that the council may determine that they need to issue. So you cannot have an order without a declaration. At this point in time one of the questions that we've received is do we need this declaration for any grant opportunities? We have not identified any current or foreseeable grant opportunities that would rely on the existence of a local declaration. FEMA funds rely on a federal disaster declaration but nothing at the local level. If allowed to expire it can be reinstated in the future by the council. So if conditions change six months from now or a year from now that's always an option for the council to pursue at that time. So the 17th order of council that was adopted on November 16th extended the mask requirements all the way through December 31st. And just as a brief reminder the mask requirements apply to city buildings, K-12 public schools, daycares and certain commercial buildings. And as reported previously the response to this has been mixed based on observations from staff. And we attribute this in part at least to conflicts with the positions of our state and county with regard to masks. Since both our declaration and 17th order of council extended are they expire at the end of the month we only have one remaining council meeting to extend those provisions. They have to be considered at the December 14th council meeting. So the direction staff is seeking is one does council desire to extend the declaration of disaster and if so does council also desire to extend or extend and modify the provisions under the order of council. So I'll hold there. I'm happy to answer any questions the council may have. Ron I have a question. Were you able to look into the Dallas question I asked you about with respect to their council? Yes sir we were. And what is the answer? So the answer to your question is if the Dallas city council does wear masks while on the dais it's our understanding speaking with their staff that it is generally not a practice of the council to do that. Right. And Dallas county has a mask mandate. That's what we modeled our mask mandate after is Dallas county. Is that correct? We did model it after Dallas county. I'd be perfectly honest with you mayor I'm not certain of the status of what their mask requirements are at this time in Dallas county. Right. Okay. Then my direction would be to let it expire and another person had pointed it out to me I think it's significant I won't belabor the point but just simply to say that the rec center component is going to have a potential lasting effect on people so you have people and it's not it's not effective for the city right because if they don't work out if we've said we've lost 40 percent of our business they've just gone elsewhere and also you have citizens that have health issues that have to work out. You know you have diabetes you have other these other elements that require you to work out so they'll just go somewhere else so we're not beating back anything by keeping this in place. The other thing that was raised to my attention when I visited with some people that that use the center and this is probably more problematic for me we're just told we told them to go outside right and so I think it's important and I'll ask Gary for this information if it becomes necessary but I think we can all agree the court in the in the interior in the rec centers has cushioned has modified flooring to absorb the impact and less impact on joints especially for older people. Well now you're just pushing them outside to hard cement which is worse on their knees ankles joints etc etc so you have an older population exposed to elements that exposed to a greater friction on their joints that then you know so one it's not productive to do it outside because it's creating more problems as I am to talk as I talk to people then if furthermore for a community they just leave and go somewhere else so we're not beating anything back we're just making it you know we're just pushing a problem down the road so for those reasons and many more Dallas is not doing it remodeled after Dallas no other city in our county is doing it I mean it just at some point we got to understand alone we're not going to be productive and so my direction is to let it expire and move on. Councilmember Ritter. Yes I don't have any questions but I do have direction my answer to those two points of direction are yes and yes and I think we should extend them both for another month through the end of January because of where we are right now. Okay. Councilmember Beck. Thank you Mr. Mayor I think you can see from the fact that we've seen plateauing during the cold months during the gathering months that we have the advent of a particular potential additional virus variant that we would that's a merger with existing cold viruses that we would like to keep out of our population as much as we can I think taking off our raincoats is not prudent at this time even if other people are taking off their raincoats or putting down their umbrellas that just just because other people are wanting to get wet doesn't mean that we should be willing to get wet so so my direction on on both is to continue both. Councilmember Aguilar. Thank you my direction is I would prefer for staff to prepare an extension of the disaster declaration and and the 17th order of council for us to vote on at the next council meeting. Councilmember Davis. Thank you my direction is for the to allow the put the mandate in the declaration to expire no one is wearing a mask because the city is telling them to they're wearing it because their doctors telling them to or they're choosing to based on CDC advice themselves. If we do continue the mandate my direction would be to remove the K through 12 schools that's another entity of government that has already told us what how they're going to how they're going to handle their situation. We're simply dictating to someone we don't have the authority to dictate to I would also want to remove the requirement for the rec centers we have people who are not getting the exercise they need because we provide that exercise to them and we are putting onerous restrictions that some of them are now had their third shot they're going out and they're doing things and they're choosing to do those things and those folks who haven't gotten their shots are going out and choosing to do things knowing that as well. So that the personal responsibility is there folks need our rec centers they need their exercise especially during those cold months where they can't be doing it outside. We report to Melton that this is difficult and involves a lot of things that people don't like I don't dispute I'm simply going to continue to align with the Center for Disease Control that has to take all of those health effects into account. You know I'm tired of it too I don't like it but I'm going to you know do what I'm going to follow it's recommended which would suggest extending. My hope is that and here I'm speaking completely as a layperson who just watches the news is that Omicron will replace Delta and be just a mild illness. It's just a hope. Yes, I would agree with Councilmember Davis in his perception it fits along with mine. I had already suggested that I would go with the declaration ending on the 31st and I am still going to go with that but I'm more receptive to knowing that we have an opportunity to bring it back if we need to. So we'll see how it goes through the holidays if we need to bring it back then of course I'll certainly be willing to do so. Thank you. Okay question Mr. City Attorney is there anything that can be done or is there any requirements associated with the local disaster requirement? We're the only city I believe left in Denton County for sure that has a disaster requirement does that not require anything else to substantiate that it's at this point it's not a disaster. Well I guess that's that's subject to debate that last statement but yes the City Council does have discretion still to determine when the disaster ends. Okay then thank you very much Ryan. In summary I'm going to bring forward a two-minute pitch that says that we need to have a super majority requirement and hopefully that'll get traction that we need to do something to give our citizens and the rest of this council more of a say-so versus getting drug alone. So that that concludes item A takes us to item B which is ID 212087. Receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding public meeting video recording prioritization. Mayor and council Ryan Adams the interim chief of staff. Hold on presentation up. Okay so this is just a brief presentation with seeking some short direction on which public meetings we can add to the number of public meetings that we broadcast and stream. So just to give the council a little bit of background back in 2019 we presented options to supplement our DTV staff in the production of meetings and this involves streaming and recording and also making available for on demand. Our goal was to allow additional meetings to be produced. We did get our feedback and we had contracted with Swagat Productions to remotely produce so it does not involve DTV staff up to 50 meetings per year so we were able to add a number of boards and commissions who could now their meetings can be streamed and recorded. Council requested and approved an additional $6,000 in the current year budget to add additional remotely produced meetings to our current slate and so with that funding we can add approximately 20 meetings or two additional boards or commissions. So we did want to show you what we currently stream their report so these are the meetings that we produce. The first four are produced by DTV staff including the City Council meetings. The second four are produced remotely by Swagat staff and that is done through the work session room here in City Hall. Now I will note for the council that since we transitioned to Zoom meetings that could not be remotely produced so that has been done 100% by DTV staff but our goal we are refitting some of the space in the DSC the Development Services Center to allow remote produced meetings from that location so our goal is in January if we can accomplish that construction wise to begin using the remote recording technology again. So what we are seeking direction on is we do have the opportunity to remotely produce two additional boards and commissions and we are seeking direction on which boards and commission meetings to begin streaming and recording in addition to the eight that I just showed you. What we are just coming forward with something for the council to react to are the Historic Landmark Commission and the Sustainability Framework Advisory Committee. Two areas where it is either quasi-judicial as in the HLC or we had several council members independently make inquiries of whether that body can be recorded and streamed. So I am going to give you this big list of boards and commissions and what we wanted to do is we wanted to show council what is currently produced by DTV, what is produced remotely by SWAG including the two that staff is recommending and the remainder are boards and commissions that are not produced and what we are seeking is direction on if council would like to move forward with staffs two recommendations or if you would like to have an alternative recommendation for meeting production and I will note that we generally can accommodate any board or commission but if we receive an alternate recommendation from council we have to make sure that they can meet in a space where we can record and stream it. So either here in the work session room in City Hall or at the Development Services Center. And that is my presentation but I will leave this slide up for council. Thank you. Councilmember Armitage. Yes, I support the two staff recommendations, Historic Landmark Commission and Sustainability Framework Advisory Committee. I think those are excellent choices. Councilmember Davis. Thank you, Mayor. I also support the two staff recommendations. I like the criteria you use to make those recommendations, the quasi-judicial commission that has to make decisions that are based on development code and that kind of thing and then also there has been a lot of interest in the Sustainability Framework Advisory Committee so I appreciate those recommendations very much. Mayor Pritz and Meltzer. I think some day we will look back when the technology is different and go, remember we had to pick and choose. So these are good and for good reasons. I want to just tee up another thought and see if anyone likes this idea better. I agree that sustainability framework has been a lot of interest and people want to watch it. Historic Landmark, like I said, it should be all of them but I think it doesn't affect as many people. It's quasi-judicial, I get that, but it's a little more individual cases. And I wonder if CSAC, Community Services Advisory Committee, might be a better choice in terms of the number of people it impacts. Another thought along those lines would be the Bond Advisory Committee, which doesn't meet very often. I wonder if that could even be kind of shoehorned in. I don't know how often it meets, but not much. Just the impact of what they do touches a lot of people. Council Member McGuire. Thank you. I just want to throw a third voice behind staff's recommendations on that. Council Member Byrd. Yes, I would support the two staff recommendations, but I'd also like to also throw in the, if possible, I have every way we can do it, the Chief of Police Advisory Board. I think that's a very important community situation that we need to be mindful of. Thank you. Council Member Bet. I agree, I also agree with Mayor Pro Tem that I think CSAC would be a good one. My problem, I do agree with staff recommendation and in terms of prioritizing CSAC over ESFAC, the problem that I see with ESFAC is not that it's not important and wouldn't be broadly serving, but that a lot of the community input is at a pretty deep and high level. I'm not trying to denigrate anyone. If the community feels that they want that deep and high level of policy, I think that would be great, so I would still prioritize that one the way staff did, but I really do see a need for CSAC at a similar level, so if there's an opportunity for a third, or if it feels like we're not having a big audience for ESFAC or something like that, I would recommend putting CSAC in its place, but surface vote direction is for the staff recommendations. If I can also add that we continually monitor how much of our allotment of meetings is utilized, and so if there is an opportunity to add another board in, we can return to council and get further direction. Got it. Thank you. Okay. That's enough support for that. Staff's recommendations carries the day. Mayor Pro Temma, are you still on here? Is this from before? All right. Councilmember Amater. Yes, thank you. I just wanted to say briefly that I appreciate and agree with council members' additional recommendations of the community service committee and the police advisory committee. I think especially the police advisory committee, since it was created for transparency's sake, as I understand, you know, they're still being trained right now and kind of getting set up, but as that committee proceeds, I would be very, very interested to hear if there's any opening to include their meetings. Okay. That concludes item B, takes item C, which is ID 21557, receive a report and hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the city of Denton leak adjustment ordinance. Mayor, council, Krista Foster, customer service manager, and I am bringing some recommendations for change to our leak adjustment policy. Give me one moment while I can figure out how to share. All right. So first I'd like to give you a little bit of background. During Winter Storm URI, when we wanted to be able to provide some additional provisions for customers to qualify for leak adjustments outside of what we normally would do, we found that ordinance was so restrictive that getting anything like even those deadlines extended, types of leaks covered to be expanded, all of that required full action of council. So we went back even further and started looking and the language for our ordinance currently is so explicit that it disqualifies the majority of residences from being able to qualify for relief if they've experienced an unexpected leak. I'm not going to read again, same as always, I trust you guys can all do that on your own. But what we did is we looked back at the last three years. In three years, we've issued 120 leak adjustments. That's less than .008% of our customer base is what we're seeing annually with qualified leaks. We also found that more than 50% of the money that we had issued for leak adjustments were for exorbitant amounts of water loss. So for example, when I say seven customers received adjustments for greater than 250,000 gallons of water, 500,000 gallons of water is a standard water tower. So it's very hard for us to say that those customers could have no awareness in a timely manner that this amount of water loss was occurring. So we looked at several different benchmark cities to see what are other cities doing with their programs and see how do we compare with that and are we in alignment with it. So what we determined was we're not consistent with other municipalities, we are more restrictive on our timeframes, we exclude far more leaks than most of them do and we require greater water loss because we actually require them to exceed by 50% their highest usage in the last year. So we automatically basically disqualify someone if they have a leak this time of year, they're going to have to be 50% higher than their summer bills in order to qualify at all. We, again, lack that flexibility. It's difficult for customers to understand and we want to be able to expand this program to meet the needs of our community better. So what we're going to be recommending is a two-part approach to this, is one, providing ordinance that sets the framework of the expectations that we must have a program in place that is expected of us, that we must have the policy available to the public on our website and be on file with the city, that we expect the leak has to be repaired and any permits are checked and, you know, the correct inspections have been done in order to qualify for that leak. It has to have been repaired. And that the city manager would be responsible for reviewing any program changes, city council would receive advanced notice of it so that way if there was a need to have a discussion over any of the items that were in those proposed changes, it would allow for that opportunity without it requiring going through the full council process just to make a small modification to meet the needs of our community better. And then that we would also be providing you annual updates as to how the program is operating, how many adjustments were issued, what are we seeing happening fiscally with that program and how we're able to make it work. Then using an internal policy to actually define the program itself. But I wanted to make sure that if you would accept that direction, that you were very clear in knowing what is it that we would propose in that policy. So what we were looking at is allowing a customer from the time they identify a leak, 30 days to work on getting that leak repaired. Then they would have an additional 60 days to submit all of their forms and documentation. So that way it gives someone ample time to work with just life circumstances and be able to get those paperwork, those papers to us. That we would change to going from one month of coverage to two consecutive months side by side bills. So if someone were to have say a slab leak that it took a little while to identify and they lost a significant amount of water more than what they normally would during two months of that time, we would help with covering that. That we would expect it to be higher than their average usage, but we would define that. So if it's a customer with two years of history, same month, previous two years, what's that average? If they only have one month, what's that previous year? If they have less than a year, looking at six months of leak free history. And if they haven't been here for six months, holding that adjustment until we have six leak free months to see if they would in fact qualify. We would be looking at 50% of the excess usage being credited back to the customer. And with that, I would cap at a hundred thousand gallons. So if they're running a 250,000 gallon overage, we're going to cap that and say, our responsibility is we will help you for 50% of up to that first hundred thousand gallons. And then they just need to submit the ordinance required documentation and they could have an adjustment once every 12 month rolling period. So what we're hoping is that one, this will help us to get into better alignment with some of the other municipalities that we're going to increase that access to the public because right now we're just not seeing that. And this program is there to benefit our customers. We want to make it simple so that they can understand it more clearly and protect the homeowners and the water security system by looking at, you know, those repairs and making sure that they were done appropriately. So what we're doing is we're just seeking direction and approval on this two part plan. And if that is the case, then we will be coming back with a ordinance and our first draft of our internal policy. Great questions for staff. Councilmember Armitage. Yes, so just one question. But first of all, I wanted to say thank you so much for this huge need and really a big improvement over what we've got right now. So thank you so much to you and all your staff for your work on this. My question is about the 50% required increase. If you could explain a little bit more about exactly how it works and I'll add a little detail to that part of the question. And then the other just if you could speak to how that compares. I know you said that this puts us more in line with other cities. What kind of variation is there on that percentage in other cities? So my question is, so you mentioned that, you know, if there's an increase, it's just for one month, you're going to look back at, so say there's an increase for February and you're going to compare it to the previous February's use, right? And if there's an increase for, say, January, February and March, you're going to look at the previous year's January, February and March. So that part I understand. But just what I'm wondering is, are you looking at, so say in the case of the three months, are you looking to match the kind of percentage increase month by month from the January of last year to January of this year, February of this year, or are you going cumulatively to look at in those? It would be each individual month because that's where you're going to generally see the greater usage, right? You're going to see the leak occurring. And we're looking at 50% overage because basically what we're saying is if you've got a normal 10,000 gallon water bill and the leak didn't even take it to 15,000, it wasn't a significant leak. And most of the cities require an overage of a minimum of 50%. One city requires as much as three times their regular bill before they would, the regular usage before they would consider an adjustment. So, you know, all of the things that we did with our recommendation, we tried to stay toward the softer end of how we would approach that so that we could better meet customer needs. Good. Yeah. So erring on the side of generosity. Correct. Yeah. Okay. And so it is not cumulative then. It is still month by month. It would be month by month. Even for multiple months. Okay. Thank you. Mayor Proctor Meltzer. I applaud the effort to, you know, just be more sensitive and reasonable and helpful. I'm curious if you've got any insight with doing this, you know, very extensive look into the cities. If we're at .0008, is that right, three zeros? Yeah, I think it's three, yes. You know, now if we were to adopt policies like our neighbors do, what, you know, instead of 120 cases somebody would you expect and have you identified the money, you know, to do it? Yes. So what, it is difficult for us to be able to project exactly how many we may see as an increase. Right in talking to some of the peer cities, it looks like they run anywhere as a customer base percentage at about the one to one and a half, maybe 2%. And I calculated what our average adjustments would be based on what we see today. And at that rate and have gone through the budget group and they have said that it would not affect the health of the water fund, that we should be able to absorb those costs. I appreciate the diligence. Thank you. You're very welcome. Councillor Macbeth. That was my first question was that as well. So I, that was my biggest concern. So I really appreciate you doing it. It seems like we're talking, you and I are talking a lot about water fluctuations lately. So let me ask you a question on that regard. The 50% number is on the generous side, like you said, compared to the other cities based on what you told us in the other materials. But do you have a feel for, I asked you about this the other day at our meeting, but do you have a feel for what the fluctuations are in general for the average residential users just month over month? And I know for the reasons you told me, it varies quite wildly, right? Just month to month, whether it deals with watering or doing more laundry, it's very easy to see a even 20,000, 25,000 gallon fluctuation from month to month sometimes. So yeah, that's and I guess that was a little bit leading, but I wanted to say that because we get a lot of complaints for the reasons that you and I have been having a lot of discussions. And so I'm going to encourage you if we pass this and my recommendation is to move forward with your staff recommendation. But if we move forward, as soon as we actually enact this as policy, if we do, that if it's in time for this meeting on December 16th, I would love to have you include elements of that because it seems like a very pro customer friendly thing to do on top of the Idiot's Hill meeting that you're going to have. So I think that these additional signals of how much DMU is working with the customer base are really important to generate goodwill in the city. - Councillor McGuire. - Thank you. My only questions have already been addressed. So my direction is to, you know, move forward with staff recommendations to bring us in line with the policies of the more generous among our neighbors in regard to these policies. - Councillor Burt. - I also want to thank you all for being very open-ended about the needs of the customer. I appreciate the city of Bitten. That's one of the reasons I really, really appreciate living here is because it's a very pro customer. So thank you all for putting in all of that effort to make sure that our citizens needs are met. So I am also going to put in my approval for your recommendation. I think it was the first recommendation. I don't have it in front of me, but you know, anything that we can do to make sure that our citizens and our customers are feeling as though they are appreciated and they're needed and they're being helped through the city. So I'll just leave it there. Thank you. - Okay. Any other questions, comments? Mayor Pertomelter. - Yeah, I'm supportive, but it does occur to me, you know, when I think about the scale of the impact of that change going from .0008 to one to one and a half, does it have staffing implications? - I am actually looking at several alternatives for making the process far more simplistic internally. I'm a big fan of automation and the use of different automation devices. So we're looking at expanding what we've already done, which is allowed submission through a laser fish form on our website. And when those documents are submitted, using that laser fish to actually do a lot of the calculations and things. So it increases the accuracy and decreases the amount of staff time required to do it and to manage it. - I really appreciate how you're thinking this through. - All right. So you have everything you need? - As long as you guys are good with it, yes. - Great. Thank you. Appreciate it. Text item DID212477, receive porthole discussion, give staff direction regarding a request and follow-up form from a number of a second 2021 work session on the display of non-governmental relative flags at city of Denton facilities and requested options for recognition. - Mayor and council, Ryan Adams, interim chief of staff. I'll pull up my presentation real quick. - Okay. This is bringing a policy discussion back to council. We previously discussed with the council on November 2nd, our flag policy, and we received a consensus, a direction to install a new flagpole for the purpose of displaying flags of organizations or individuals or events, holidays. And while we did receive the consensus to install the flagpole, we did not receive consensus on the nature of the flagpole. So we are back today to try to get further direction from the council. And we're going to provide two options for council discussion today. And they were discussed on November 2nd. One is the creation of a free speech poll. And the other option is the creation of a government speech poll. So option one, a free speech poll is essentially where groups or individuals can request to display a flag. And that flag would be regulated on time, space, and manner of display, but there would not be any restrictions on content. So in setting up a program based on option one, staff would simply administratively approve the placement of a flag based on time, space, manner of display, things that are completely agnostic toward the content of that flag. And there would be no bringing forward to council. This would simply be an administrative action done by staff. And flags would be placed based on availability and whether we can meet the timing needs of the requester. The second option is to create a government speech poll. In this option, we still limit time, manner of display, space, but we can place restrictions on what is put on the flagpole based on what we build into the program, program eligibility. And this would be approved by council. So on a monthly basis, we would receive the requests for what content would go on the flagpole. We would evaluate it against what the program says is admissible, and we would bring it forward to council on the consent agenda for adoption. This is an option that is similar to the Boston model. However, our request is if council would like to move forward with a government speech poll, that we withhold implementing a program until we can get further clarification from a Supreme Court decision that is evaluating the Boston model, and we expect that in spring of 2022. So you have options one, free speech poll, options two, a government speech poll, which puts a little bit more content power in the hands of the council. But also with that, there are some hazards and risks on if someone can dispute council's decision. So we did provide some program details in your backup, and we have them here in the PowerPoint presentation. And you can see where both options are similar, such as in their application, and where they are different, such as in the eligibility. For instance, any flags under the government speech, any flags that are deemed to be inappropriate or offensive, or say have a commercial or advertising purpose, you know, a flag for Toyotathon or whatever it might be, those would not be approved as part of the program. In both cases, the flag would be provided to the city. It would be raised on a city business day and taken down on a city business day, and the length of display would be consistent. As I mentioned, there are risks to the government speech option. The city could face a legal challenge if a request is denied, and any request would have to have an approval, so we would have to evaluate against our program parameters. And when that does happen, there is a possibility of a misapplication of the program parameters. So what staff is seeking direction on is whether the council wants staff to proceed and build a program that we can then bring back around option one or option two. Again, if it is option two, we would like to delay until we can hear the outcome of that Supreme Court case. Council also has the option to revisit the previous recommendation, what we brought forward in June, which is simply adding specific flags to our policy that we then raise on an annual basis. So there's no application period. We simply decide as a city and you simply decide as a council what additional flags you would like flown to city facilities. And so we will, as I mentioned, take direction today, build program parameters around that, and bring that back to council for further direction and eventually approval. >> Direction for staff. Council member here. >> Yes. I strongly support and prefer the government speech flagpole model, although I certainly hope that if that's the model that's chosen, that that's not the official title of it, you know, the government speech pole, you know, the flagpole in front of City Hall and then something in the description of, you know, what it is and our policy behind it would use those terms. Yeah. So and I'll just explain briefly, you know, the reason why. Of course, input from communities and requests from communities would be essential for a council to decide, you know, what kind of flags to fly. It is our job to represent the public. That is what we do. And it's hard for me to think of anything that, you know, that I've ever done or set up on the dais that comes entirely from me and is not coming from things that I've heard from constituents. So but when we put a flag, say a pride flag, for instance, out in front of City Hall and the public knows that is coming from the people that I elected or the people who are supposed to be representing me, that sends a really strong message about whatever it is that flagpole represents, whether it's, you know, disability awareness flag or, you know, veterans recognition flag, any other kind of flags, it shows that it's coming from us. And, you know, if the public doesn't like that, then they can vote for another council, right? But we take that responsibility when we assume these seats that we represent the public and we want and I think that we should be bold in supporting, you know, who we support. I think if it's just a free for all, it not only sets us up to end up with the flag in front of our City Hall that we as a council might not feel comfortable with, council majority might not feel comfortable with, but also when there is a flag that we strongly support, it doesn't kind of have that same, carry that same weight that it's something that we decided we voted on it. So I think that we should be bold as council members and go for the government free speech poll under some other different name or just the City Hall flagpole. Mayor Pritz and Nielsen? Yeah, I'll just say my piece. I know I'm not in the majority and then, you know, with those who feel differently, you know, guide this. The mayor is also elected by the people. The mayor is responsible to the voters. The Charter clearly lays out responsibility for those kind of ceremonial and welcoming and inclusive gestures and I think that lets council focus on crafting policy, which is something that only council could do. So I prefer we stay in our lane. I'm happy for there to be a flag there to correspond with mayoral proclamations. Any others? Councilman Burke? I'll just say that I'm going to just note that I'm not particularly in favor of either one of those choices. I think that we should not put ourselves in a situation where we're always having to have a conversation about a flag knowing that, you know, there's thousands of groups out there that would, you know, like to see their interest displayed and then there's just to me, it just seems like the notation of always having to have this as part of the consent agenda, having discussions on whose flag, making decisions on which flag. It just seems like a bit much to me. So I'm going to go above and beyond anything that the city recommends and say that I prefer not to have either one. I think that our job as members sitting on that dais is, you know, to, you know, like Mayor Pro Tem just noted, we need to kind of stay in our lane and do things that are governmental related and let our community take care of the cultural type things that we have going on. We have so many activities in this community. We have so many different, you know, organizations that are very responsible to this community. So let's just let that stay over here and we do what we need to do and push the governmental processes forward. So, but with all due respect, I don't want to say that I'm not being disrespectful. I don't intend to be, but I think that there's just a fine line here. And I think it's just going to take a bit more of our time than I think it's necessary to make these decisions on a weekly, monthly, daily basis. Thanks. Thank you. Councilmember McGuire. Thank you. I'll be brief because I've already expressed the same direction in previous work sessions. I favor option two. And I also favor delaying the program until the Supreme Court decision is complete. Okay. Anyone, Councilmember Beck? I'll be brief. I prefer government option two, if that were to go ahead. Quick question. What's the, what's generally, regardless of options, just for a flag pole in general, what's the, what's the set up and take down time for, for just creating a flag, regardless of if we had the American flag on there. So just to construct the flag pole? Yeah. Just to construct the platform, the infrastructure. You know, I don't think it would be a matter of weeks. You're talking a couple of weeks. Okay. So, so then I'll, I'll support the staff recommendation for option two. Okay. Anyone else? Councilmember Davis? Yeah, I want to kind of clarify something I said the last time that we, that we talked about this. And I think it was kind of interpreted in some quarters as strong support for what is before us today as option two. And I think what I intended to say at that time was something along the lines of if there are decisions like this to be made at the city level, if this is an enterprise that we're going to be involved in, that that, those decisions lie with the council to make and not with, with staff, that I understood why staff was very reluctant to be involved in that. However, I agree with council member Byrd that I'm trying to think exactly how she phrased it just now, but leave the cultural things to the community. And the mayor pro tem said leave the policy to the city council. I'm very, very wary of this idea of government speech because the things that are affirmed and feel support in this community should not vary based on who's on the dais or what kind of city government we have or anything like that. Those should be things that are best left, in my opinion, to the community itself. And Denton is a very affirming place. So my preference would be either for nothing at all, which I don't think really solves our problem. I think we come back to this question the next time somebody sees a national movement that is putting flags on flagpoles and wants to have a flag at City Hall. I think this comes up again in the next year or so, maybe even the next six months or so. So if we are going to have a poll, I'd rather that we have a completely content neutral free speech poll. And I think the city attorney's done a good job of making it clear that if we have a government speech poll, and I think it's fair to call it that, if that's what we do, then we have to own all the consequences of that government speech poll. We are liable for whatever goes up there, for whatever we approve, whatever we don't approve. And there will be test cases. We know that there will be. A free speech poll, again, I think the city attorney's done a good job explaining the reasons why we cannot regulate that content. We can't say that it's, you can't have things that proselytize, you can't have commercial messages, all those same kind of things we're talking about in many other contexts as well. So my direction would be to do the free speech poll. Thank you. So Ryan, we don't have a consensus across any of those, so it dies for want of a consensus, but here's where to put a bow on it. Happy to, just like we did before, if there's digital iterations of things that we want to celebrate, let's work together and get those on the RETA board and make sure the wording is neutral and applies to all, but also would highlight whatever great community things are going in the interim. But that's as far as I think we, the abilities we have based on the feedback today. So thank you very much. Appreciate the feedback. Do you disagree? Is my read of the tea leaves right? I have not received a consensus from counsel, yes. Thank you. Okay. That concludes item D. That includes our work session at 3.56. We will be back for a spirited conversation starting at 6.30. Thank you very much. And welcome to this meeting of the Denton city council. It is December 7th. We do have a quorum at the time is 6.30. So I'll call the meeting to order. And the first order of business is the pledges to the flag, United States flag and Texas flag. Please join us and stand if you're able. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America under God, one and indivisible. Thank you. That takes us to proclamations of which we have one I will invite Aaron Carter down. I'll meet you. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yep. So yeah, there you go. So this is Aaron Carter. She is in charge of the Denton chamber. She's a dear friend. She's a great asset. She comes to us. How long have you been with us now? Only since July. That's awesome. Doing a doing a great job. So I'll turn it over to you. Thank you so much. Good evening, Mayor, council, city manager, Aaron Carter, Denton chamber of commerce, 401 North Elm. It is so great to be here with all of you tonight. And quickly I want to also give a shout out to leadership down 37 who is in the audience tonight and they are getting to see each of the hard work you are doing. So they couldn't have picked a better night. But every night at City Council is a great night. So thank you so much for having them. But it is my honor to be joined by the mayor and give recognition to Chief Dixon. So why don't we go ahead and have him come down so that he has to get recognized in full glory. But we actually recognized him at our September annual awards banquet. And like true fashion, he was already celebrating in Disney world with his family. I asked him, why are you not waiting until after you receive the Super Bowl award? But he said he wanted to celebrate early. So this award was sponsored by the Denton record chronicle and Bill Patterson could not be here tonight. So I'm going to read exactly what he read. So it feels just like if you had been here in person. Okay. This year's inaugural advocate award goes to an individual who has served as an advocate for the city of Denton since 2018, but has served in the line of duty for more than 23 years prior to that across the state of Texas. Understanding that leadership comes from within building a team where everyone has access to the same opportunities to advance and serve and give back this individual. Also, I'm reading this like no one in the audience knows, but it's very different reading it next to you. This individual themselves serves on the Salvation Army Council, United Way of Denton County Board and CASA of Denton County Board of Directors. As our community face crucial conversations over the past 18 months, this individual courageously stepped up to the microphone, stood steady center and didn't back down in the face of the pandemic, social justice or opportunities to speak loudly representing all members of our community. A strong business community has a strong partnership with their police department. The strongest business community sees their police department as partners in commerce, walking arm in arm to assist businesses in all needs, not just when 911 is dialed. Being an advocate is a 24/7, 365 job and a chief of police exemplifies true advocacy day in, day out. It just so happens that our very own Denton Chief of Police, Frank Dixon serves advocacy with a dose of kindness, community pride and a smile under his mask, especially tonight. I told Chief Dixon earlier today when he spoke to leadership Denton that I was going to end with a kind of a little bit of a joke and it's been very great to get to know him since I started. It's been particularly easy to find him in a crowd when I look for him because I can always find him and Deputy Interim City Manager David Gaines because I can find Chief Dixon and then I instantly find both him and David at the same time because he's so easy to spot with his height. So thank you so much to both Chief Dixon, the City of Denton, the mayor and the continued partnership the business has with the City of Denton because what we do best, we do together. Chief Dixon, you absolutely deserve this award for all of your continued work but I know it's not just you, it's your entire department. So thank you on behalf of the business community and I have your award up here. And Kendall reminded me this box opens very awkwardly and of course I did it not correctly. Okie dokie. Here you go. These people hear me talk enough. Erin, thank you so much. And like Erin said, this is not a Frank Dixon award. This is a testament to the work that the City as a whole is doing, the great men and women of the Denton Police Department in the community. We're all one community. This is not about any one individual person. This really is a testament to how great our community is together. So I just want to thank everybody for their support for city government, for the Denton Police Department and everybody that works for us. Thank you. Alright, thank you. And there are overflow seats and it's being broadcast on the televisions downstairs if anyone wants a seat and then you can monitor when your name is called to come up or that sort of thing. But we want to make sure everyone is comfortable so that is an option. And then that takes us to the next segment. So presentations from the public. We have two scheduled and the first is Eli. Alright Eli, I'm sorry if I'm doing that wrong. Eli, A-G-A-W. One more time. Okay. Then the next registered speaker is Steven Dillenberg. Yes sir. Yes sir, they have it. Yes, so distributed in advance. Name and address and you'll have four minutes. Alright. Please and thank you. Alright so my name is Steven Dillenberg. I reside at 1004 Abbots Lane here in Denton, Texas. Real quick to set the record straight. Last time I was here I asked if you would give your home address and you directed me to your financial disclosure and that was P.O. Box 1045. Is that where you reside sir? No sir, I don't live in the P.O. Box. Right. So will you give us your home address? Sure, yeah and it's on the form. I may have misspoken the form but my house is 606 Wilson Street. Everyone has to share that that's elected. The only other one was Councilmember Davis. Yours is not there at all either. Will you give us your home address? No, he has an exemption. He doesn't have to. Because he's a district attorney? I don't want to get into it but I want you to have time to speak so I don't want you to lose your time. I think it's important to set the record straight. 100%. Will you be in the same situation that we are in? 100% agree. So last time I was talking to you guys about some degradation of public trust, some issues that I've come to realize. We went over the CDC spider letter which was a group of their own scientists saying that they're a rogue interest that are directing their agency. What I gave you guys here tonight is this and that is a study from 2010 where there is a machine counting system that was developed for identifying vaccine injuries automatically within a certain HMO and at the end of that study, the conclusion was only 1% of vaccine injuries are being reported. They tried to reach out to the CDC to roll that out to the rest of the HMOs and that and the CDC stopped answering their phone calls. So that's regulatory knowledge of a deficiency in the reporting system that's putting people in danger. My personal experience with the vaccine is my mom got dose one of Pfizer in March this year and less than a week later she was in the hospital with a stroke. Her blood pressure was surging over 220. She couldn't turn on the TV and nothing the doctors couldn't figure out what was going on. They wouldn't include proximity of vaccination in her chart and they wouldn't report it to the VAERS and for all of those reasons we can see why doctors have an inherent disincentive to not report and that's putting our community at risk at large and we need to do something about that. We need to take this information from this study and roll it out in a community type scale. We need to take this type, we need to take the strong circumstantial evidence that I presented to you guys that says that there is likely a cure for cancer. The phenomena is documented, the mechanisms are documented, there are thousands of anecdotal success stories using these anti-parasitic and anti-helminthic drugs to treat all different types of cancer and we as a community have the ability to do something about that. I went to UNT, I know what our science department there is capable of, we can make this drug, we can run trials, we can use gas chromatography to ensure that everything is pure and all the results are good and these are the things that our community needs from y'all and so just for the record y'all all do have a standing oath to our federal and state constitutions is that correct? Is that correct? It's to the state but go ahead. You don't have an oath to the federal constitution? Well not to the constitution, it's to uphold the laws but you have 30 seconds, go ahead. I got it. Yep. And so I invoke those. Article 1, section 27 of our constitution says I have the right to petition you guys with grievances and they all have to answer. So 42,000 Americans have died since the last time we talked from cancer. I'm asking y'all to do something this week, please. Otherwise I'm going to seek support from the community for y'all's removal and getting somebody in here who will do something in this office because we need help. We really do. Yes sir. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. Next up is unfortunately Willie Hutzpah, I mean gladly Willie Hutzpah. Back there please that'll start the trend if you can get up there okay. Make sure you give your address. Now. I would like for the mayor to be adopted. Name and address, you'll have two seconds. I'm, when I found out what was, my name is Willie Hutzpah, I live at 623 Newton. When I found out what was happening in this voted week plan change, I couldn't believe my ears that we did all that fighting to vote freely, have a precinct, comfortable with it, knowing who you could, you would like to support and doing that only to find out that, and I started this fight when I came in 1970 and then got politically active in the 80s and I'm just taking a back that there are some on this council that have taken upon themselves to say I know but better than you and as I determined to do what I think is better, I'm not going to talk to you about it. Now I've been living here since 1970. I've ran for more offices than I think they have offices. And then when I hear certain members of this committee, the council, let me make sure I say twice, I'm concerned, not Debbie, I have an arm and toy. She doesn't fit into this category of what I'm talking about now. There was one member who didn't fit in it either, but that person sold out. Now, if I've known you that long and you don't speak to me when you come in here, something's wrong. That's okay. I know not to worry about speaking to you again. But Debbie is Debbie. Period. Either she likes it or she doesn't. That's it. Fine, I can live with that. She's my friend. So we don't agree on political issues the same. I don't care. I don't want anybody like that. But these people on this committee, on this council, how much time do I have? One minute, 30 seconds. Sanford, how much? One minute, 20 seconds. Okay, good. Okay. The older people in here get the joke. Some of them, the others don't. When you decide that you're going to decide what's going to be on the walkway, and you don't talk to anybody, the historical trail, you don't talk about that. Changing Martin Luther King Street for Martin Luther King Jr. didn't talk about that. And now you're changing where we vote. Well, I think you're just out of control. We've had several people on this council that have been out of control in the past, too. Guess what happens when you do that? When that happens, you get to see me often. I will be here every meeting talking to you. We're just like friends, and we're going to talk about things starting tonight. Watch how many people get up here and talk about this issue, and maybe that'll get your attention. Whoops, you might have done the wrong thing, but that's okay. We'll help you with that issue. All right. Thank you. All right. That takes us to our consent agenda. I'll take a motion noting only item G was pulled. Is there a council member? Council member Beck? I motion to approve consent excluding item G. Council member Davis? Second. Okay, we have a motion by council member Beck, second by council member Davis. Discussion? Seeing none, let's vote on this. No, we can't vote on the screen. Yeah, got it. Thank you. Council member Beck, I'll say you. Aye. Council member McGuire? Aye. Council member Armitter? Yes. Council member Melter? Aye. Council member Davis? Aye. Council member Byrd? Aye. And Mayor Hutchison? Aye. That passes 7-0, takes us to item G. I'll call that. That's ID 212635, consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, authorizing the city manager to execute and deliver the core scientific ink and temporary construction easement. I'll take a motion. Council member Davis? Move approval. Excuse me, I move approval of item G. Thank you. Council member Beck? I second. Okay. A motion by council member Davis, second by council member Beck. Discussion? Council member Armitter? Just going to say that I'm going to be voting no on this because of my position on this Bitcoin mining operation, of which I've been public in the past. Okay, any other discussion? Council member Davis, I'll say you. Aye. Council member Beck? Aye. Council member McGuire? Aye. Council member Armitter? No. Mayor Pro Tem Melter? Aye. Mayor Hutzbeth is an aye. Council member Byrd? Aye. That passes 6-1, takes us to our public meetings. We have two and those for watching, we're going to get these two done pretty quick. Obviously, we know a lot of people here to speak. We want to be respectful of that. So staff has adjusted their presentation accordingly so that we can get as many comments as we can in as possible for item C. So with that, I'll call the first item for public hearing. It's item 5A, Z210016A. Hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas regarding an initial zoning district and use classification of light industrial zoning district of approximately 247.78 acres. And I'll open the public hearing as well. Thank you, Mayor, members of council. Just want to make sure the presentation was being shown. As introduced, this is a rezoning application, initial zoning application for the Harris Ranch property. The applicant, David, I'm sorry, Dennis Chauvin, representing the Harris Ranch property ownership is requesting that the subject property that you see outlined here in black be zoned LI, light industrial zoning district. For you all, you probably recognize this site. It was recently annexed, the area that is in white, approximately 247.7 acres was annexed into the city. The next step in that annexation is to rezone or to zone that property. The applicant, again, is requesting a LI zoning district. The remainder of the property that is in the city, was in the city and currently is in the city, that is the HC and the MR is also included in this rezoning request to go to LI. Again, I mentioned the annexation. The property is shown here in yellow. There are existing uses on the property, primarily agricultural. There are some gas wells on site. There is a rural single family detached dwelling on site and also a retail use along I-35 Funish Road. So again, you can see the exact, the location, the property shown here in this aerial. This is a conceptual site plan, very important for information purposes only. The property is shown here. You see that there are 10 logistics center possible for this site. Again, if this was to be approved, it would be developed for light industrial use. Staff has looked at the criteria for approval for a rezoning and initial zoning application. And for our analysis, per our analysis, the proposal is consistent with the future land use map, as well as the goals and policies of the DEN Plan 2030, consistent with the LI purpose, is not expected to create significant adverse impact. Utilities and infrastructure will be extended at the time of development. Notification as required for a rezoning case were sent out, as you can see here, to properties within 200 feet, property owners, and then courtesy notices within 500 feet. As of this evening, four responses have been received. Those four are from the property owners, the Harris family. No meetings were held for this rezoning application. The Planning Zoning Commission is recommending six zero or has recommended six zero for approval of this request. Staff also recommends approval of this request to LI, and I will stand for questions. Thank you. The applicant is here and the property owner is also here if you have any questions for them. Excellent. Thank you. Questions for staff? Seeing none, Council Member Guar? My apologies for not being quick enough on that screen. A question for the applicant, and I think that this may have been touched on at the annexation hearing as well. Have there been any discussions around ... I noticed that the conceptual site plan does not include any rail spurs. Have there been any conversations about rail spurs or rail connectivity? No. Again, my name is Dennis Chauvin, HAP Associates, 1201 North Bowser in Richardson. There have not been any discussions with any rail users on the property. This is really being set up as a warehouse distribution center, which is just trucking in and out. Okay. All right, thank you. Okay. Any other questions for staff? Seeing none, this is a public hearing. Is there anyone that would care to speak on this item? Seeing no one moving. Okay. Then I'll close the public hearing and I'll take a motion. Council Member Davis? I move approval. Council Member Beck? I second. Okay. We have a motion by Council Member Davis, seconded by Council Member Beck. Any other discussion? Okay. Council Member Davis, I'll say you. I. Council Member Beck? I. Council Member McGuire? I. Council Member Armitage? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Melter? I. Council Member Byrd? I. Mayor Hutz, put the I as well. That passes 7-0. Thank you very much. Takes us to our next item, public hearing for item B, which is C, pardon me, Z210015A, hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas regarding a change in the zoning district of a class and use classification from residential rural RR to district to residential one district on approximately one acre of land. Thank you, Mayor. Tina Fergens, Deputy Director of Development Services. So I'm happy to be here before you this evening to present this zoning case. It's Z210015, which is a request to rezone approximately one acre of land from rural residential to the R1 zoning district. This property is located generally on the north side of Miller Road, about 190 feet east of Mosh Branch Road. If the property looks familiar or the area, it may be because council considered a zoning request not too long ago for a neighboring property located directly across the street and a little bit to the southeast for a similar type zoning request. The reason why the applicant is requesting this change in zoning is because they are interested in constructing a single family residence on the property. In order to be able to do so, they need a zoning district that has a minimum lot area size that syncs up with the existing configuration or size of the lot. So hence why this request is being brought before you. The Planning and Zoning Commission did consider this request and they unanimously recommended approval of that. In terms of our criteria for evaluation of approval of a zoning request. So as mentioned previously, this zoning is consistent with the surrounding developed conditions. It is not consistent with the future land use map. And I know we've had some conversations in the past about the future land use map is only one component associated with the conference of plan. In this case, this zoning request makes sense to rezone the property because of the existing developed conditions. The future land use map designates the property as business innovation, which is really seeking to allow for large employment uses, research and development, manufacturing. It business innovation does recognize that residential uses and some other commercial uses could be appropriate as supportive. However, you've given the situation that we have approximately 12, 10 to 12 residents that are currently on Miller Road. In this case, the likelihood of a master developer coming in and acquiring all of those lots and redeveloping it as a large employment uses is very, very small. So given the existing conditions, that's why staff is recommending approval of this zoning request as well as the planning and zoning commission. So I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. As I mentioned previously, the commission did recommend unanimously to approve this request. We did send out notification as required per our ordinance, and we did not receive any public comments in relation to this zoning request. Happy to answer any questions you may have. - Great. Thank you very much. So I'll open the public hearing and then I'll ask any questions for staff. Seeing none, one more time. And this is a public hearing, so if there's anyone that would care to speak on this, you're welcome to do so. Seeing no movement, I'll close the public hearing. Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer. - Yes, I move approval. Excuse me, I move approval, Mayor. - Thank you. Council Member Davis? - Second. - We have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer, second by Council Member Davis. Any other discussion? Seeing none, Mayor Pro Tem Hasseu? - Aye. - Council Member Davis? - Aye. - Council Member Beck? - Aye. - Council Member Armitter? - Yes. - Council Member Byrd? - Aye. - Council Member McGuire? - Aye. - Mayor Hutspeth has an aye as well. That passes 7-0. All right. So that takes us to item C, our public hearing on redistricting. And I'll call that item, that item is item C, ID 212738, hold a public hearing and receive comments from the public regarding proposed redistricting and plans concerning proposed new boundaries for the City of Denton Council Member districts provide staff direction regarding such plans. And I'll open the public hearing. Thank you, Mayor, members of the Council, Ryan Adams, Interim Chief of Staff. Let me cue up my presentation. This is just a brief introduction to the topic. To give a little bit of background, this public hearing and redistricting discussion is part of a review subsequent to the 2020 census that the City undertook to determine if our district boundaries were balanced now that we have new population numbers updated from 2010. A bit of the timeline, just reminding the Council that we did receive direction to proceed with redistricting on October 19th. On the 26th of that month, we adopted criteria and public input guidelines. And then on November 16th and December 6th, yesterday, we held drawing sessions and the Council discussed proposed district plans. As a reminder, we have had public input available since October 19th on the City website, and that public input closes at the end of the May today. Give a look forward of the overall timeline. We do have the public hearing today. The next action that the Council may take is final adoption of new district boundaries on December 14th. And then there is a scheduled polling location discussion that will take place in early January. Currently, there are four proposed plans submitted to and discussed by the Council, and I'm going to go through them briefly. We can pull them up at any point today. Plan A is the current district boundaries. Plan B was a submission by Councilmember Beck. Plan C was a submission by Councilmember Davis. And Plan D was a second submission late last week by Councilmember Davis. So here you'll see Plan A. These are the current district boundaries. This is Plan B. Plan C. And Plan D. So the conclusion of this public hearing staff seeks any direction the Council would like to give on what plan, if any, to include in a redistricting ordinance that will be considered by the Council next week on December 14th. If no consensus or direction is achieved, staff will simply bring forward an ordinance that does not specify a particular plan, and it can be discussed at that time. We do have Bob Heath with Picker Staff with us. He's available to stand for questions that the Council may have as his staff, and I will yield to the Council. Thank you. >> So what I want to do is ask Bob Heath to come up, and he can share any comments he has, but ultimately, just a reminder, the purpose of this is to hear from the public, and Mr. Heath has a busy schedule tomorrow. He was with us yesterday, answered a lot of questions, and so I'm going to ask him to kind of make whatever opening statements or kind of summary statements he has. Ask Council if you have any questions directly for Mr. Heath that you would prefer answered now, and then I'll ask the City Manager to note any other questions that come along during the public hearing. We can share that with Mr. Heath. He'll get us answers over the next week. For those listening, there's a public hearing today, obviously, and then there's another opportunity to speak next week. That date staff gave was the 14th, December 14th. This item will be back. That's when we'll vote, but you can still be heard that day. So today and on the 14th are both options for the public to be heard. That being said, Mr. Heath, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you, Mayor, and as you said, and I think the important thing is that the purpose today is to hear from the public, and so I'm here to answer questions, but then we'll be happy to defer to the public because that's what we're here for. I will mention that there were a couple of questions yesterday. I think Councilman Beck asked for a couple of pieces of information, and those have been submitted to the Council. Also, there was an issue raised about one of the numbers where we showed the registered voters as higher than the population in one precinct, and we looked at that, and what that is, that precinct was in Robbins Ranch, if I have the name correct. Robson Ranch, thank you. I knew when I said it, I had it wrong, so I appreciate that. But anyway, the population is taken as of April 1st, 2020. The voter data is from about 18 months later, so in between that time, there were about 254 certificates of occupancy issued for that area, new areas, so the population has increased during that period, and since in that area where people were over 55, everybody is going to be a voting age, so everybody is going to be eligible to vote, so it's not surprising that in that instance, the number of voters will be a little bigger. So yesterday, there seemed to be most support for Plan B, and I'm here to answer any questions that anybody has, and otherwise, I will defer to the public. Questions for Mr. Heath. I just note that on the agenda, it does talk about providing staff direction, but is there any direction that you need out of today, or are we really here to hear from the public? I'm sorry, I didn't hear. The agenda mentions that part of the purpose is to provide staff direction regarding such plans, but is there actually a need for staff direction coming out of today, or are we really just here to listen? Right, we're here to listen to the public, and obviously, that goes into your ultimate decision as to what direction you ultimately give and the decision you make next week. No question, but as far as direction, you need to know. Mayor Pro Tem, it's more based on the feedback that you'll be giving us today to bring back for a final vote on next Thursday. So it's really feedback regarding those plans and what you'd like to see move forward for action on the 14th. Okay, thank you. Councilmember Davis. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, City Manager, for clarifying. That was my understanding, is that we do have to provide, we have to choose tonight because a non-choice means they can't write the ordinance that we have to vote on next week. So we do have to give direction tonight, and if we fail to give direction, we've got a blank ordinance next week. Mr. Heath, could you very briefly, for the folks that are here, explain population deviation and give the numbers for the four plans that we have presented? I'm going to have to look to get the numbers to make sure that they are correct. Plans need to be in population balance to comply with the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. And what the courts have said for city council districts such as this, you can have a maximum of 10% deviation between the largest and the smallest district. So if the largest district were, say, 5% overpopulated from the ideal, the smallest district will say 4%. That's a 9% total deviation. That would be within the 10%. Now, of the four plans, the existing plan has a deviation, I think, of 7.77%. That's the one as it exists today. Is there a way to put that on the screen as he's discussing them? Is that at all possible? Yes. Thanks. The Plan B is 6.78%. What's the variance? Plan C is 6.78%. That's from Mr. Beck? Right. And what's the variance from existing 0.25%? 7.77%. So the difference is 0.25%, approximately. The Plan C is 0.66%, 0.66%. And Plan D, Plan D is 4.29%. Okay. That's okay. Thanks. Okay. So Councilmember Davis, does that give you a, okay, got it. Any other questions for Mr. Heath? Councilmember McGuire? Thank you so much. I would just love it if Mr. Heath could remind the public what our nine criteria were for drawing district boundaries, one of which was population deviation. All right. If it's all right, Councilmember, I can pull up the ordinance or resolution that was adopted. I believe I can share this as well. So I may be able to get it all on one screen. All right. I appreciate your doing that because if I were doing it from memory, I'd probably miss one. First thing that we have here is you use easily identifiable geographic boundaries to define the districts. That means we want to have roads or creeks or something that somebody can look at out on the ground and know where the district boundary is. Number two, communities of interest should be maintained in a single district where possible and avoid splitting neighborhoods. Number three, districts should be composed of whole voting precincts where practicable. This isn't always possible, although these plans A, B, and D all are composed of whole voting precincts except in D there is one place where there is a split and I understand that is to preserve a neighborhood or avoid splitting a neighborhood and also to keep the landfill out of one of the districts. Number four, to the extent possible, you base a plan on existing districts so that we recognize what's already there as our starting point. Districts must be configured so they're relatively equal in population and we've already talked about the permissible 10% deviation. Districts should be compact and composed of contiguous territory. It says compactness may contain a functional as well as a geographic component and functional compactness means areas that are alike even though they may not be as compact as we would hope. Consideration may be given to preservation of incumbent constituency relations by recognition of where incumbents live and the plan should be narrowly tailored to avoid gerrymandering and violation of Shaw versus Reno which is a case where the Supreme Court said race cannot be the predominant consideration but it must be used in a narrowly tailored way and finally the plan should not fragment a geographically compact minority community or pack minority voters in the presence of polarized voting so as to create liability under the Voting Rights Act and basically the Voting Rights Act says that protected minority groups which are basically blacks and Hispanics are the largest group here in Texas. They should have an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and elect candidates of their choice. So those are the criteria. As a practical matter you're never going to satisfy every criteria because sometimes they may contradict each other. Satisfying one gets in the way of another but those are the things that we look at and those are traditional district principles. Thank you so much. This is actually a question that I asked yesterday and was answered but it's kind of come up again and I think it would be helpful for people to hear the answer. Does anything that gets decided today cause there to be a need for people to change where they vote? The plans will not change where people vote in the sense that these basically these plans are composed of whole voting precincts so if you were voting in precinct and I'm pulling a number out of the air 117 for example and I don't think that's the number that you use but if you're in that precinct and you have a polling place there you're still going to vote in that polling place. Now it may be that that's used to be in district one and now it's in district two but you would vote in the same place. Thank you for clearing that up. It's not changing where people vote. Thank you. Any other questions? I have a couple. I just want to clarify a couple of things. The list you read is not in priority order. Right. I would put equal population and compliance with the Voting Rights Act and Shaw versus Reno because those are legal requirements. Those are the ones that need to be at the top as far as the primary considerations. Equal population. What was the other one? Compliance with the Voting Rights Act and Shaw. All right. Great. Okay. And then also the current existing map meets all the criteria. That's correct. Okay. And then the current map in your opinion is not gerrymandered. I think gerrymandering is a relative and undefined term but I would not consider it as being gerrymandered. I don't think any of these are extreme, what would say extreme gerrymandering. And how long have you been doing this? Well, the first redistricting I worked on was in 1971. Okay. I was in law school at that time. And I have been doing it every decade since. So this is, I think it's my sixth decennial redistricting. Got it. And then I want to just briefly touch on, because I think that's important after you're gone, that people understand. And you've said it before, you said it again today, none of these concepts are well defined. And so when someone would use a term, let's just grab one, reunite communities or like uses, all these kind of terms, they're nebulous and don't have a kind of a specific element or a well defined definition to them. So all those words are subjective. That's right. One person may see one area as a community of interest, another person may disagree with that. Right. And so I'm assuming you would recommend getting as much input from different people as possible to make sure that's accurate. Because if you have a smaller number, smaller data pool, is that fair to say? We certainly encourage public participation. Perfect. Perfect. Thank you very much. And so there's other thoughts I have, but I don't want to belabor the point. I want to get to, we have one more question, hopefully then we can get to the first commenter. Councilmember Armitage. Yeah, just a simple question. The other day at our work session, you provided a general objective definition of gerrymandering, kind of a standard definition. Would you be willing to just to repeat that today, understanding that it's a relative term? I think that what it is generally considered to be is something that is extremely often noncompact configuration of a district to achieve some political purpose. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Seeing none. Thank you very much. Appreciate your insight. We'll note the questions, get them to you and ask you to maybe Mr. City Manager, I mean, City Attorney, we can then kind of disseminate those in a legal status or something for Friday. I appreciate that. And I appreciate your letting me get on the road early. And I assume my person in Austin, we're not going to need his services because we're not going to need drawing. That's right. Yeah. No, we will, if there's. Right. And I can look at all the comments that come in online. Thank you very much. Yes, sir. Thank you. Safe travels. Okay. So we'll I'll just start calling. We'll alternate between there's people on the phone and there's people here in the room. So what we'll do is we'll start with this first name I have here in the room. And then for staff to know, we'll alternate to the first caller after this. But the first person I have is Danny Major. If you can come to the microphone in the back there, if at all possible. I know it's a tough route, Barry. Sorry. Thank you very much, though. And if you could get there. Thank you very much for the accommodations. If you can give me your name and address, you'll have four minutes. I am totally against the redistrict plan proposal submitted by Councilman Beck. I sent an email to all the councilman and I expressed that opinion. I did hear from my councilman, Mr. Davis, and I appreciate that reply and the information you provided. I did hear from Mr. Meltzer. All he did was send the smoke and mirrors stuff that's proposed by Mr. Beck. You hired a consultant, the consultant told you that districts are fine the way they are. Leave us alone. I do not want to be moved from district three to district four. I noticed that in the proposal that Mr. Beck made, you just blew out criteria seven. You don't care about who we voted for. How appropriate and ironic you chose Pearl Harbor Day for this discussion. What you couldn't do through election, you tried to change through gerrymandering our centrifuge. Thank you. Next is Julianne. Is it Rimsky? Is that right? And correct me one wrong. I'm sorry. Thank you. Okay. Julianne Rimsky 11904 Glenbrook Street, Denton 76207. I'm going to about my 12th reiteration of what I wanted to prepare and give today. I'm here to address my concerns and I'm going to limit it to just a couple of the points that were supposed to be the criteria as it relates to the moving of Robeson Ranch to district four. So as to have it be with another community of interest, the senior living center at Samaritan Village, I'm going to say that Ed Robeson is probably going to be pulling his hair out if he hears that because all his advertisements address the fact that Robeson Ranch is an active adult community. There's some 95 clubs and several of those provide volunteer time, time to organizations within Denton and they also provide monies to organizations within Dent. I'm not going to list the whole 95 of them. I'm just going to note a few. The after schoolers group volunteers time in the classroom interacting with students. They also provide money in the form of scholarships to the teachers and they address that to both Boorman and Gonzales Elementary. We have our own Kiwanis Club. It does what a Kiwanis Club does. Material Girls stepped up. Boy did they step up in 2020. They sewed some 5,000 masks. These masks were distributed to places like the Denton State School. As businesses and other organizations heard of the effort, they contacted. So that's how we got the 5,000 plus masks, which believe that it returned. This handing it forward, the person in charge of it did a marvelous job because one of the companies which asked for the masks said, what can we pay you? The reply was a donation to our daily bread. That brought in $5,000 to our daily bread. Another organization was the Nabisco Distribution. What they did, they provided food to our daily bread. We have a women's club that does a lot to help both our daily bread and Monsignor King. They do volunteer services there, as well as providing such things as now the Welcome Home Palace for those in the Rapid Rehousing Project. And when they found out that the Rapid Rehousing Project was having trouble getting sufficient furniture for those apartments, they started such that we are providing furniture, by redoing my guest bedroom or the like. Pickleball hosts a tournament with participants from the entire USA. What does that do? That brings in visitors with the accompanying revenue. The golf course they hosted the Division I Women's College Golf Tournament. And that's your time. I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Staff, if you could bring up the first caller and then next in the room will be Frank King Jr., but we'll take the caller first, but you can make your way down. So it'd be just a minute. Staff, if you'll be the first caller. Yes, sir. Let me get him on right now for you. Thank you. You should be there and available, sir. This is Mr. Allen. Okay. Mr. Allen, are you there? Yes, sir. Okay. If you can give your name and address, you'll have four minutes. Thank you very much. My name is Dalton Allen. I live at 150 Hobson Lane in Denton. And I wish to speak to the current redistricting plans that I've reviewed. I thank you for allowing me to speak in this manner since I'm unable to physically be there tonight. And I will not take much of your time. As I could determine, it appears that the stated reason for the redistricting effort is to reunite neighborhoods of interest and equalize population between districts. When I looked at the proposed redistricting map initially, the map that I had had no streets on it, and I did not realize that Robeson Ranch had been consolidated with District 4 and other things removed, of course. The proposed map B attempts to consolidate conservative voters by removing from District 3 and placing in District 4, thus opening up District 3 so that a more liberal vote might occur. And, ladies and gentlemen, this is gerrymandering in anyone's definition. This act really flies in the face of years of keeping the city council race non-partisan. It is not supposed to be about Democrat or Republican, rather the citizens of this city. The consultant said there's no reason to modify our current districts, although the law does give you the right to do so. But, honestly, it should be for good reasons, not political ones. We see this kind of activity in the state and federal redistricting effort, and it's wrong, but I never, ever thought it would be indentive. I'm a third generation dentonite. I never have seen it indentive in the past until this council has brought up the subject. Hopefully, this council will not be the first to step over this line. And I personally prefer no change. It's left alone. There's not unintended consequences. There's not confusion in the voting public. And the existing map meets all of the requirements of the consultants that we, the PACS, have paid for. If you must change to a different map, at least change to map 2. It accomplishes more of what your stated reasons are than any of the other proposals. I'm sure that you've reviewed this. I don't understand why the leaning is toward B. Well, actually, I do think I understand it. But that's unfortunate. But I'll leave that alone for now. I encourage you not to do this and displace the robesome voters or the remaining almost 30,000 voters that the Plan B proposes to displace. If you do, ladies and gentlemen, shame on you. I thank you for the time and opportunity to speak. I'm completed. Thank you. That takes us to Mr. Frank King, Jr. Thank you. My name is Frank King and I live at 12200 Glenbrook Street in Robeson Branch. I prefer current Plan A. I see no reason at this time for a change. Denton and the surrounding areas are undergoing a tremendous growth in population and commercial activity. I am sure the Chamber of Commerce and other Denton business leaders and civic leaders have been using their current plan to accommodate this growth. In my opinion, Plan A is the most promising plan for future growth. However, as an alternate, I would prefer Plan D as this plan also truly represent a plan for future Denton population and economic growth. So staff, do you have the next caller? Just one second. Are you there? Need just a few more seconds, Mayor. Okay, I'll come back to you. So Myrna King, if you would. Thank you. Hi, my name is Myrna King and I live at 12200 Glenbrook Street with Mr. King. Anyway, regarding redistricting, I do not think it is necessary to do anything at this time. According to figures that were presented to you by consulting firm, the population deviation is 7.7%, and that is acceptable. If you want to change the population deviation to a lower figure, go with Jesse Davis's Plan D, which lowers the population deviation to 4.02%. If you go with Mr. Beck's Plan B, then population deviation is not your goal, because it'll be raised. And I don't think that is the point. That's not what you want to do. But I still think that regarding redistricting, we don't need to do anything. At best, if you decide to go with Mr. Beck's Plan, you will be spending a lot of time and taxpayer money on a project that is not needed. At worst, it is a very definite effort to use gerrymandering to move Robeson Ranch into an area that you feel will be more politically effective for you, the council members who want this, and less effective for the citizens of Robeson Ranch. The people of Robeson Ranch voted for Jesse Davis, for the councilman, and I don't feel that you have the right to change that. If I had the choice, I would definitely vote no. Okay. Thank you. Staff, do you have the next caller ready? I do. I'll patch in Alexis McCall now. Thank you. Okay. Alexis, are you there? Yes, I'm here. Good evening. If you could give us your name and address, you'll have four minutes to speak. Okay. Thank you. Alexis McConnell, 6704 Lipton Drive, Denton, Texas. All right. So I'm calling today to voice my concern on the motion laid out by this council. The actions this council is trying to take is very alarming. The plan submitted by council member Beck is an obvious ploy to try and kick council member Davis off of city council. Over 500 plus citizens voted to have Jesse Davis represent them. Trying to remove the representative without allowing them to vote is an attack on their civil rights. This council should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. And while I know I'm wasting my breath even speaking on something five of you have already decided on doing, I filled my obligation to let you know that we see this move for what it is. But now I want to speak to the citizens of Denton, vote, stand up, speak out. You're not alone. These radical changes without our approval should scare each and every one of us. This council has proven time and time again that they do not stand for what the actual citizens of Denton want. They're stacking the odds in order to push their own political agendas. What is best for the city of Denton is to allow the actual citizens to vote on what they want. City council works for us. City council should be held accountable by us. If they want to redistrict the city, a new election should be held for any district that has new voters. This is not a normal zoning change. This is a strategic move. City council needs to be reminded who they actually work for. And to be clear, council member Beck, council member Metzler, council member Armature, council member McGuire, and council member Byrd, you are all derelict in your duty and of your sworn oath to the citizens of the city of Denton and our city charter and are failing to represent the wishes of your constituents and failing to uphold the local state and federal laws. You have taken democracy into your own hands by ignoring the will of the voters of Denton. And for that, you should all be removed from office. I hope the voting bodies in Denton show up at the next election and vote every single one of you out. Just to confirm, gerrymandering is altering voting boundaries for political gain and the Supreme Court has ruled this illegal for decades now. And that is exactly what you are all trying to do. Thank you. Thank you. Next. In the room, Ginger Kane, if you could come up, please. And thank you. I'm Ginger Kane, 1600 Churchill Drive, Denton, Texas, 76209. And I just want to come up here. I've looked at the maps that have been proposed. My councilperson is Brian Beck. I did have a exchange with him through email and everything. Or maybe did we talk on the phone? We might have, I think. But I really never understood the thinking behind the map that he proposed and what you were trying to explain to me. Even though that every 10 years that you have the opportunity to do something, make changes, it doesn't really mean that you should. And as my dad used to always say to me, if it's not broke, don't fix it. He was always telling me that. And it's not broke. Now, there may come a time when we need to make and look at some readjustments and things like that. But it's within all the elements. And I don't think anybody in these districts and voting districts won't changes. It seems to be, I don't know, maybe y'all feel like, well, we've got to be doing something up here. But you really don't need to be doing the kinds of things that the citizens don't want you to do. What we really want you to do is spend more time figuring out how we can get these streets finished in Denton and not have all the construction going on around here. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. And just so everyone knows, so you can fill out a blue card to speak if you want, or if you choose, would rather not speak, but have a note on where you stand, there's a white cards to fill out for that. And I did pivot years, Mayor Donnelly, so we're all good. Thank you. Appreciate you being here. And so with that, then I will take the next caller. Yes, Mayor. Up next, I will have Matilda Roach. Are you there? I am. Okay, great. If you could give us your name and address and then you can begin, you'll have four minutes to speak. Great. Thank you so much. My name is Matilda Roach. My address is 1821 Emory Street here in Denton, Texas. First of all, I just want to say that I am, I am surprised at the amount of people who don't realize that when we vote our council members, like council member Metzler, council member Armenter, council member McGuire, council member Beck, and council member Bird into office, that is the voice of the people. We're asking them to represent us. So I fully support council member Beck's map for redistricting. Sorry, I'm a little bit awkward public speaking. That combines communities of interest. If nothing else, I live in D3 and will continue to live in D3. And I will be excited to actually have a vote. Last time I didn't get the opportunity to vote. My only choice was not one that I would support. So I understand that there are many people who would like to see us held hostage by a single area. But the fact of the matter is the rest of the precincts in D3 did not vote for our current council member. So it will be nice when we finally have a voice to vote. And I want to applaud everyone who would uphold our interests and realize that respect for the voters is of the utmost importance regardless of how you may vote in any sort of in any sort of other elections. I apologize for stumbling there. But this is the voice of the people. That's why we elected these people. So I want to applaud you all. I want to thank you all. And council member Armenter, you will be missed. And I was sad to hear that you wouldn't be running again. You have been a great representative. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. That takes us to our next person in the room. That's Nathan R. Goldsmith. Good evening, Mayor. Good evening. Today I came for you this morning. It wasn't known to me until this morning that this was going on. Maybe that's a neglect of my following the week-to-week business of the administration here. The problem I have with this is I can't see the district maps. But I will point out three things on the map that concern me most. And I believe that gerrymandering has been a significant concern of what's going on with this redistricting, even in the last caller who says that her voice can't be heard because the representative that she has isn't on her political scale. That's what voting is about. Can you put the existing map on the -- I've only seen map A, but apparently there were three more maps added to this. When I came in at 1.45 this afternoon, not even the agenda was completed. So that was a little concerning to me. It just wasn't printed or something, maybe. So we'll reset the time, but we'll -- Also on the website, it only shows the current map and doesn't show the new maps. So which one is this? A. Okay. So A is current, correct? Yes. Okay. And then the proposal is B. And so on proposal B, my understanding is, from one map that I did see, was that the Apogee Stadium area was going to be dissolved from District 4 and moved into District 3. Robinson Ranch -- Robinson -- Rob -- I'm so sorry. Thank you all. Was going to be put into District 4. And then somehow or another, the people of District 2 were going to assume a landfill. And they already have it, but District 1 is getting the landfill. And so population growth, I don't know how many people live on a landfill, but that's a little concerning to me. But what really makes this a unique part is why is Apogee Stadium area being dissolved out of District 4 and put into District 3? The people there, I believe, continuously have problems with the stadium. But we also know just recently, I believe that the board had to vote and some had to excuse themselves from the vote for putting the ballot box on the university who was breeding left-agenda individuals to go vote and doing caravans around campus and having more of a ballot stuffing an election going on at that university. So to me, I'm really alarmed by this. I would read it to you. I'll post it later. But I was reading the sign out in Quaker Town of a period of time, a hundred years ago, where there was little input from the residents of the city. A little vote was done and it removed the people and the leadership of that community from the city of Denton. And I think what's happening now might be good in one side's sight, whatever they're planning, but I think realistically, we're trying to destroy the heart of Denton. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Rachel, do you have the next caller? Yes, I do, sir. This will be Barbara Rodman. Barbara, are you there? I am here. Okay. If you could, if you could give your name and address and then you, you can go ahead and start. You'll have four minutes. Okay. Thank you very much. This is Barbara Rodman at 2102 Azalea Street. And I've already posted a letter outlining my many concerns about the proposed plans, but I want to speak tonight just about one issue, which is the statement some people have made about I-35 being a barrier which necessitates Precinct 4037, otherwise known as the Deena Neighborhood, being forced into an unlikely alliance with Robeson Ranch only because we're on the same side of the street, so to speak. I've lived in the Deena Neighborhood since 1992, an area I selected because of its accessibility to UNT, where I worked for 25 years. It's affordable and diverse housing popular with students, faculty, staff, and many others. For its proximity to downtown Denton, my favorite destination for recreation, eating out, visiting the library, Quaker Down Park or the Senior Center, and most significantly, my convenient access to I-35 East and West, which allows me to move around Denton and to drive to other cities and shopping areas. And on occasion, I'll suggest to leave the state of Texas altogether. I drive on or cross over or under I-35 at least once almost every day, and it wouldn't be unusual for me to do so a half a dozen times a day. I-35 is not a barrier, either to me or any of the hundreds of students who live in the dorm on the former golf course or to the hundreds more neighborhood residents who drive or bike or walk from the residential area, crossing on McCormick or Highland Park every single day. We pass over or under the highway and really give it very little thought. Certainly not the same amount of thought I give when I have to navigate Bonnie Bray or to try and get onto or off of Fort Worth Drive, where a left turn requires taking my life into my hands. On the other hand, I've never had a reason to visit Robeson Ranch, and I don't even know for sure how to get there. My friends who live there prefer to meet downtown or in other venues when we get together and are very happy to have lunch on the square or some of the restaurants accessible to both of us. I love the Dena area and am active in its neighborhood group. Its elementary school, recreation center, and tree shaded parks are local gems. Our population is diverse and represents many ages, ethnicities, ages, income levels, styles, and sizes of homes, and value systems. I'm happy that new housing nearby will allow many other people to enjoy and appreciate an area that's provided me with so much enjoyment. And I was therefore delighted to find out that one of the plans, Plan B, for redistricting would unify my neighborhood with a similar one, the UNT neighborhood, which most of us visit daily and reflects the same diversity that Dena does. We face many of the same challenges regarding bike and pedestrian movement, aging housing, which includes many rental units, and the influence of UNT on our neighborhoods. Combining precinct 4037 with the areas around UNT would maximize minority voting powers, consolidate the district so it is more compact and defined by cultural communities, and provide a stronger voice for shared interest. I urge you to support the plan, which would strengthen and not weaken our area, Plan B. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. That takes us to Jack Fager. Is that right? I may have messed it up. Or you want me up there, right? Please and thank you. Thank you. My name is Jack Fager. I live at 10016 Hanford Drive, Robeson Ranch, Denton. In 1812, Elbridge Jerry created gerrymandering up in Massachusetts. This is tonight's subject. It's obvious to me, having done a little research, and I'm a strong student of elections, by the way. Professor Beck is a student of Mr. Jerry. Now, to educate some of you, Robeson Ranch is a community of close to 5,000 residents. By next May, the next election, we'll probably have 5,000 residents. In November 2020, Robeson Ranch voted 85% of our almost 4,900 registered voters. 85. When we first elected Councilman Davis, he was not and still isn't a Robeson Ranch resident. He was new. We elected him with more surplus votes, or in other words, more than 50%, by more than all of the other members of the council combined. Councilman McGuire, do you really want us in opposition to you in your district? I don't. Please vote against Mr. Beck's plan. Next year, there will be an election for at-large council members. If this council votes for this plan of Mr. Beck's, we will do everything we can to convince Mr. Davis to run at-large. And we will vote for him with all of our energy. I think you will agree we have demonstrated we have a lot of energy. Thank you. Thank you. And so we have exhausted the caller staff. Let me know if someone else calls in in the meantime, but otherwise we'll roll on here with Liam. Thank you. If you can give your name and address, you have four minutes. Thank you. My name is Liam Gaum Wakefield, and I live at 411 Ponder Avenue. I've come to speak in favor of Brian Beck's proposal. Although I will say thank you to the second speaker we have for enlightening me for all the charitable work that the people of Robeson Ranch do for the City of Din. I was not aware. Thank you. But I was looking at the maps. I was not aware of all the history, but I was looking at Brian's maps. To me, I've lived in 1019, 4012, and most currently, 4007. It's - I - when I - currently in 4007, I have yet to have reason to go past south of Fort Worth Drive. To me, Robeson Ranch and the areas around UNT don't really interact much with each other, although I have seen - there are things I have not seen as proven by Ms. Lipsky. So at the very least, I think if we - if we do not go with Brian Beck's plan, we should go with Jesse Davis' plan, because at the very least, it connects Denia to the rest of UNT. But - and to clarify some - clarify some points, what was the variance on Brian Beck's plan and what was the variance on the current map? Six point - someone correct me. Six point six eight is - the current is seven point seven. Okay. The other one is six point six eight. It could be off. Just Council Member Davis' is point six eight and four point four three. That's for memory, so I'm off somewhere, but I'm really close. Okay. Okay. So - and also - it has also better - it changes - instead of having district - both Brian Beck and Jesse Davis' plan, both take district two from going all the way circling around from, like, next to Corinth all the way next to Crum. It makes that more - a more compact area. I can say as someone that's lived in 4012, I had a very different experience than someone that has lived up north - north of the edge - northern bound of I-30 - the city of Denton. But I still - and I understand that changing a city council person that you voted for is rough and not pleasant experience. I would not like it either, but if we go with the current plans right now, not making a choice is a choice that is a choice in and of itself, and there can be unintended consequences from that just as much as making a choice. And - yes. That is all. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. That takes us to Lin - let's see. Linry, I'm sorry. I can't hear you. Good evening, council members and Mayor Hudspeth. My name is Linry van Zyl, 214 Parkside Drive, Denton, Texas. Let me cut straight to the chase. Plan B. This is the most racist piece of legislation I've ever seen since becoming a resident of Denton several years ago. Who thought it would be a good idea to move the city dump to the district with the biggest percentage of minorities in town while doing so, diluting the minority vote in that same district by more than 1.5 percent? Seriously, did you not consider the optics of this terrible decision beforehand? I'm ashamed as a constituent. I'm hoping you make the right decision and immediately cease this bigoted redistricting. Thank you. Let's see. Linny McAdams, please. Good evening, and thank you, Mayor and members of the city council and staff. I'm Linny McAdams. I reside at 1426 Kindolf Drive, 76205. I first moved to the Denia area in 1972, so I've been there a long time. I moved out for a short period and then moved back, and I'm there to stay. The highway, I-35, is a natural barrier. Any highway, multi-lane highway, is a barrier to get to the other side of it. That can only grow bigger as the city grows, so that communities of interest occur on either side of that highway. It happens in all cities. It's just a natural thing. But beyond that, to remove us from District 4 and put us in 3, we don't have a lot of mutual interests with North Texas. North Texas is concerned with their students. We're a family community, not the students. It's true that we go to things over there, but we go to things everywhere. That doesn't mean they have to be in our district to get to them. I am not at all afraid of the housing that might come to the south of us. Some people are worried that those will be big houses that will somehow overwhelm us, and that there will be people who don't share the same values and concerns. I contend that it's not income that says what people share and what they don't share. And if we lived a little closer to each other sometimes, maybe we would learn to share more of the values of other people. So I don't want to be moved out of District 4. I want to remain as part of a residential area. North Texas is a wonderful institution, but they have not been particularly sympathetic to us in terms of a place where we live. I don't think we can expect anything better in the future, because they have a different constituency naturally. So I urge you to either just leave it alone or choose a map that leaves us in District 4. That's where I'd like to be and like to keep my representative, which is Alison McGuire. Nothing against you, Jesse. I think you're a wonderful council member doing a good job of representing all the citizens of Denton, and I appreciate you very much. But I'm happy with what I have, and I'm happy with where I am. And I would just ask you to not make that move and have us be a small neighborhood. We've got tremendous growth to the south, and that's only going to grow more so. It's residential. That's what we are. I don't want to have to contend with a university and all the apartments and all that goes with the being of the university. It's a wonderful thing for the city to have, but it's another thing altogether to have all that in your neighborhood. So again, I would say don't move us out of District 4. Thank you. Thank you. Don Hicks, you're next, and then we have a caller that we'll take. So you can step up, please, and thank you. Are you taking the caller first? No, sir, you're first. Sorry. My hearing aid's caught. No worries. Take time. I want to be able to hear you. I'm sorry. Yes, sir. I'm Don Hicks. I live in Robeson Ranch. I sell pre-owned houses in Robeson Ranch, and I want to speak to this issue of changing us from Jesse, who we elected just seven months ago. As our precinct chairman, Mr. Fagery, mentioned, we vote. We vote strong. It's hard to understand on the face of it why the council is seriously considering changing anything dramatically and going with, I'll make it clear, Councilman Beck's plan that you can call that Plan B, but I call it Beck. It's easier to understand. Or Councilman Davis had two plans, Plan 1.0 and 2.0, and I like 2.0 a lot. But why, when you consider all the objectives that Mr. Heath laid out, is there a need for a change? Everybody before me has stated, everybody from Robeson Ranch has stated they don't want a change. And if so, go with Plan D, Mr. Davis' plan. But I would just simply say there's a lot of things that we do. As Mr. Fagery said, we're a very active community, and one of our activities is voting. And if the council supports Mr. Beck's plan, be careful what you wish for, because we vote. That's one of our activities. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Okay. Staff, if you'll bring up the caller. Are you there? Yes. Okay. If you could give your name and address, please, and then you can begin. You'll have four minutes to speak. Okay. I don't think I'll need the four minutes. My name is Chris Watts, 419 South Carroll Boulevard, Suite 1B, Denton, Texas, 76201. I won't take up too much time. As some of you may know, I wrote an editorial in the paper regarding this redistricting plan, so I won't go over that. Let me just say, I have been on council for 12 years. I've been on council with some of the members that are sitting there, and of course, I've watched some of the meetings. And what I hear, and which is good to hear, how everybody's committed to the public process, how people are committed to transparency, and how people are committed to the public, to the public input, and what does the public want? Well, I think you're seeing that here tonight, because the plan that is being proposed, really both plans, I think what we have now is sufficient. It's more than sufficient. It meets the guidelines. I think the primary proposal, Councilmember Beck's proposal, as I've read some of the responses to constituent emails that he's sent, as I've listened to the council meetings, I can't really understand the justification except community interest, keeping them together, and trying to put like kind of things together. First of all, the plan does not say, or the criteria does not say, to keep, to put community interest together. It says don't separate them. So to try to say that North Texas needs to be over here instead of over there. If you want to create districts of just homogeneity, I don't think that's really what the intent is. But all I know is there's been hundreds of emails that you all have received. You've got, I don't know how many people are sitting out there and in the overflow. The community is speaking. The public is speaking, saying, we don't understand this, we don't understand the justification for it. And I will say, I don't understand the justification for moving the landfill. I've read some of it that some of those people, in fact, I read a response today from council member Beck to someone that said, well, the landfill would be closer to the counselor for district one than it may be for district two. Well, I don't think location of where the representative is is germane to how these district lines are drawn. So if you're truly committed to public input, if you're truly committed to transparency, if you're truly committed to the public process and democracy, you're seeing it in action. And so to vote against, to vote for this plan against the community is just that. A vote against the community so that all those words that have been said in the past about commitment to the public, I think those ring a little bit hollow because there's a lot of people saying there's not a need for this. You've got the consultant saying our current one is fair and balanced. And so I have my own opinion about why this is being done. And I've stated that clearly. But I hope you do the right thing and that you listen to the public before you and you don't let your own political interests convey and guide your vote. But the community is speaking, especially one of the major communities that is being requested to move districts. How can you do that? How can you say to someone, I'm not going to listen to you. I'm going to do what I think is best because I know what's best for you instead of you. So I hope you do the right thing tonight and just keep the status quo at is. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, council for your time. Thank you, Mayor Watts. Councilman, former Councilman, Berdia Johnson signed up. I don't know if she's still here. She I think it's hard. So we'll hold that just in case she comes back. Next is Laura Van Vandrie. Am I saying that wrong? I'm sorry if I am. That was perfect. Laura Vandrie, 9613 Pebblewood Trail, Denton, Texas, Robeson Branch. And I agree with many of my wonderful neighbors here who are so brave to come out and spend their valuable time. And I appreciate the time to be heard today. And there's no compelling reason that I've heard so far to change anything. There's nothing wrong with Plan A. Just as the consultant stated that it checks all the boxes and meets all the guidelines that was set forth by the Supreme Court. And so the only reason that I can figure out that there is some proposal, this is dramatic proposal to change the redistricting is something other than the best interests of the people. So I don't see why there is this this overhaul, let's call it that, of this redistricting. I don't want to be moved to district four. Very happy where I am in district three. I don't agree with everything that Councilman Davis says, but I believe that I voted for him. And I believe he's doing a good job and has our best interests at heart. And I think at the very heart of this is representation, being heard and having the choice to choose who you want to represent you. And this plan would certainly cut to the heart of that and is against representation of the people and who we voted for. And that's just wrong. There's no reason to feel like you're busy. You know, there's no reason to justify your positions. If it does, if it's not like the young lady says, not broke, don't fix it. And so if you feel these this this urge to change, I implore you to please consider Plan D is in David. And that seems to check all the boxes. So if that plan fits all the goals that you stated that you wanted, then to ignore Plan D as in David would show us that you have another intent, again, other than representing the people doing what's in the best interest of the people and detail and doing what the people are telling you they want you to do. So as one of the other callers stated, let me remind you, you work for us. And as one of your employers, we are telling you, keep the status quo Plan A as an apple. But if you must change, do Plan D as in David. And thank you for your time and attention. Okay, Councilmember, Councilmember Johnson's is here. So, uh, give your name and address. Berdia Johnson, 1212 Autumn Oak Drive, Denton, Texas 76209. I'm here as a we the people, we the people are the people who vote, who elect and who put people in office. So when we're putting them there, I think that our point of view should be considered when you're making these decisions. That's one. Two, this is all politically based and we'll see that come up in 2022. But that's a different story. The bottom line here is this is not about us. And this is who it should be about because we are the people. Now we voted for one person, that person's in office, but yet the people are going to vote and take another person out of the office. They're not going to consider all the votes that have come in saying, let's leave this thing alone. So exactly where is the voice of the people and the people that we elected? Why are they not fighting for us, representing us and doing what they promised that they would do? There's a hole in the system when the people don't get a voice. There's a hole in the system when the manipulation is about political reasons rather than the people. Our district is fine. Leave our district where it is. One, you're taking away minority, you're 1% of that. Why? You're changing a landfill to a different district? Why? There's no reason except for political aspirations. Please leave our district alone. Give us what we've asked for because we have asked and we are the people. And we did vote. And so as the lady before me and several have said, you work for us. And if you work for us and you're not giving us what we're asking for, there's a breakdown in the system. This system is about voting. Why are we going to the polls and vote if it's not going to make any difference? Do the right thing. Thank you. I have a caller. So staff, let me know when the caller is ready. Next up, I'll have Allison Peeler Mitchell for you. Give me the name again. Her name is Allison Peeler Mitchell. Thank you. Down in front. Allison, are you there? Allison, are you there? Hi, I'm here. Okay. Yes. If you could give us your name and address and then go ahead and begin, you'll have four minutes. Thank you so much. Hello, my name is Allison Peeler Mitchell. I live at 3304 Avon Drive in Denton. And I just wanted to say a couple of things that I don't feel like have been addressed tonight. And I honestly don't know if this is the right time. Oh, I'm sorry. No, go right ahead. Can you hear me? Yes. I can hear you. Okay. Yeah. No, we can hear you. Go right ahead. Okay. I'm sorry. Did you hear the beginning? Yes. Okay. All right. I apologize. Let me start over if that's okay. Sure. Um, I, I just wanted to say that I don't know that I think any of these plans really address a core issue that hasn't really been addressed tonight. Um, ropes and ranch is a really small but really loud voice in our community in the city of Denton. They have a distinctly different voice from a large portion of the city. Why are they really being roped in with these four districts at all? It seems like it makes far more sense to either reappropriate one of the at-large counselor spots to simply represent ropes and independently. So we can stop worrying about whether or not they're being sufficiently spoken for as their community since they do have a, you know, a very united block interest in as many of them tonight have, have pointed out they vote. That's very important and it's very critical. Why are we not talking about creating a space for them where they have their own counselor? This could be counselor Davis. This could be, you know, another counselor when, when the next election comes, but it seems like this would be an opportunity to provide them what they need, which is an independent voice that doesn't have to get sort of mixed in with the rest of the community where it obviously has been a constant state of overlap and confusion and, you know, there's some missed, I think it's a missed opportunity there. You know, the only thing I can say about the plans that have been presented right now, it does seem like all the plans that the Davis plan does provide the closest approximation to a bit of balance between for the new districts that have been proposed. But yeah, and maybe that's a really good thing. Maybe that helps to balance the voice of Robeson with the rest of the community so that it doesn't feel so separate, but if it is, and it needs its own voice, give it to them. Why not? So I feel like there's probably, you know, an option E that should be addressed in the near future. And again, I don't know if this is the right time or if this can be, you know, what the process would look like for that, but I do think it's really important and I appreciate your time and thanks for letting me share. Thank you. Thank you. Next in the, in the audience is Andrew Rosell. Is it cool if I speak without a mask? Yes, sir. Awesome. Thank you. First, thank you for having me. Council, Mayor, my name is Andrew Rosell. I reside at 3600 Falcon Court in Texas 76210. And before I start, I just wanted to publicly say thank you for your service. I know it's not fun and even late nights like this where there might be a vocal opinion opposed to yours. It's just, I can't think of a less enjoyable thing to do sometimes. So thank you for serving in this way or city. I wrote down some of my thoughts to hopefully keep this succinct. I'm going to be echoing a lot of thoughts that have already been said tonight, some more direct than me and some less. But the impetus for the district team to discussion was the acknowledgement of a rising deviation of the overall population of Denton. Today it stands at 7.7% less than the threshold that mandates any action. So since we are not at that required level, I see no reason to make any changes, especially given the pace at which our city is evolving. Look no further than our own future land use map or mobility map to understand our limitations and understanding population trends in Denton. You can see ropes and ranch just got kicked to District 4 last census and now we're going to kick it back. I don't know if that's respectful to the citizens. We also collectively as a city thought growth was going to be happening in District 4, it's happening in District 2. In my time with six years on P&Z, I can tell you how much significant change happens in six years. And it's kind of presumptuous for anyone to sit here and think that we know the future to start realigning districts when there's not a need to begin with. However, given the initial problem was a population deviation, then the solution to such a problem at a baseline should address the specific problem. If the council determines now is the appropriate time to draw new lines, please address the problem. Draw a map that levels the population deviation. It's simple math to see that Councilmember Davis's plan provides a more effective solution to such a problem than the alternatives submitted. If knowing that Councilmember Beck's map doesn't measurably address the population deviation, the only conclusion citizens can draw from the plan supporters is a thinly veiled exercise of power. No other conclusion can be reasonably drawn given the massive changes to citizens' districts. The Councilmembers that support the Beck map are not just effectively sunsetting Councilmember Guyer's tenure on Council, they're also increasing the homogeneity of thought represented on the Council by neutering the voice of several thousand voters when combining District 3 and 4. Please sheath your proverbial political sword for the sake of casting a measured vote that demonstrates your understanding of the quickly changing distribution of citizens as we continue to break growth records. And if you feel so compelled to make a change, then vote for an actual solution and not a power grab. Thank you. Okay. Next is Jill Jester. Please. Good evening. My name is Jill Jester and I live at 2106 Longgate Drive in Southridge. I'm an attorney here in town. I've served as chair for multiple city boards and on nonprofits here in Denton. My father sat on this Council. I say this to let you know how deeply committed I am and how much I care to Denton and our community. I have not seen the value in changing our districts and our precincts when you look at the negatives that come with displacing certain groups from who they've elected. The citizens in Southridge where I live now with my husband Chris, my dog Archie, my cats Max and Jasper, we absolutely and those that I've spoken with this far do not want to be moved from District 4 and moved where the closest adjacent neighborhood of homes is quite far away. We are more similar to the other neighborhoods that are currently in our precinct. And to keep it short on time, what I'd like to say is that as a citizen, my input is to please not change the precincts as they are. Or if you do, please use one of the plans with the least disruptions to the citizens in the precincts and the least disruption of popular variance, one of Councilmember Davis's plans. At the very least, please use more time for more opportunities for input from our citizens. It seems like there's more opportunity for input when we talk about changing streets than there has been for this redistricting. And I believe I represent a group of people in our community that worked very hard to make Denton a better place and deeply care and are concerned about our community. And we're not here every meeting, but we're here when something is very important. And this is something that I believe is very important. And what I will say is you have our attention today and I've been late to the party, but we're here now. And I also want to say I absolutely respect all of you that give so much of your time to public service. Thank you. And thank you for listening. Please take it to heart. Next is next is Mayor Mike Donnelly. Trying to work here. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Mike Donnelly. I live in 302 East Crook Lane in Double Oak. I come before you this evening to speak on behalf of some friends who are City of Dent residents, specifically ropes and ranch residents, constituencies of Mr. Davis. They are adamantly opposed to Mr. Beck's plan. They wish for this council to keep the lines as they are. They voted for Mr. Davis. They want their votes respected. I heard your consultant this evening state there's no legal requirement to make a change. And those questions were asked by the mayor this evening to the consultant. So on their behalf, they wish for you to make no changes, respect their vote. They like Mr. Davis representing them and they want to keep him. Thank you. Next is Nick Augustine, please. Yes, Mr. Mayor, Council and City staff, thank you all for your time. My name is Nick Augustine. I live at 142 Quail Circle in the town of Shadyshore 76208. That means that half of my mail comes with a dentin on it because we share a zip code. I'm right against the edge of the preserve at Pecan Creek community. And in Shadyshore, I'm the Republican Party precinct chairman and as well I serve as the Lake City's area leader for all the Lake City's precinct chairman. And what does that mean? It means I can barely have time to sharpen my pencil here without getting questions about the Denton City Council. I get questions about just about every move. And I have not been here at a lot of meetings and I'm here tonight because I've been starting to get more involved as well as many others. Recently, a lot of attention came to the story reading hour that was going to be held at the North Branch Library. I got involved with that and found out how many parent groups are out there now taking active interest in what's going on in the City of Denton. And a lot of us have for a long time had our head in the sand and said, well, we don't live in Denton. We can't vote in Denton. There's not much we can do. We're going to worry about what's going on in Crum, Sanger, Argyle, all of our other communities. But we all work and Denton is the center of a lot of our lives and mine as well. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on all the issues in this redistricting. I'm still trying to find out why my town is now in precinct two and not precinct one and answering questions as to how those are even decided. But what I do know is there's a lot of people who are very passionate. I know a lot of people in Robeson Ranch. I know that they vote. I know a lot of people in Robeson Ranch live there for a reason. They move there because Councilman Jesse Davis is their representative. They move there because their friends are there. They move there because they know exactly what district they're moving into and they know their voting power. It's an important thing. Another thing going on, a lot of people have raised a lot of concerns about the legalities and there are certain things that if one of these plans move forward could trigger litigation. Could that litigation be thrown out in a motion to dismiss? You're sure right it could. But in the meantime, when litigation is filed and it has some reasonable basis at law, that gets written about. There are stories. Dallas Morning News would love to hear about all the problems going on in Denton. Denton Record Chronicle covers it. Everyone covers it. And right now, although it's a while before our next municipal elections, I will tell you, I have not done enough to work for people in the Denton elections. Now, I did block walk for Jesse Davis. I did that. I've not done enough in some of the other races. And I know right now, several seats up here, there's active groups and a lot of people. And it's not your elected officials and the people you think. It's moms and dads who are woken up by COVID. They were woken up to things going on in schools. They've been woken up to a lot. They're starting to pay attention where they used to just say, well, our elected representatives and our regular rabble rousers will take care of it. But they're starting groups all over the place. I just learned a new group of moms concerned with things with food and things triggered. The vaccine, all this stuff has opened up Pandora's box to a lot of people with a lot of legitimate concerns. And there's one woman who started this group is asking me for the names of civil lawyers. I'm a non-practicing lawyer. I don't practice, I do legal marketing and politics stuff. But I know a lot of lawyers. So people ask me, who's a good civil lawyer to file some of these suits, class action suits, all sorts of other things. People are mad and they want to take action. And when I look at this plan, while there are some reasons for a lot of the different options that are there, the safe thing might though be to leave well enough alone. Because when you keep poking the bear, the bear wakes up at some point and the bear strikes back. And I appreciate the work that this man did with studying everything and giving some really good opinions. And a lot of the opinions that were raised here tonight, again, I'm not an expert on any of these issues, but there are a lot of good opinions that I hope people are taking notes for in future discussions and future ways to continue to grow. Because as Denton continues to grow -- >> That's your time. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. [ Applause ] >> We have a couple more and then we'll take a break. So Mr. Brandon McGee, please. >> Evening, everybody. >> Evening. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Brandon Chase McGee, 1610 East McKinney Street, Denton, Texas 76209. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to address you all. It's a big deal when a regular common working man gets to address a city council. I don't know if my mama envisioned me being able to stand before a mayor and the city council to offer my opinion about someone when she sent me down here to North Texas to go to school, but here I am. I thank God for that. It's even more of a great occasion when we see our Republican county chairwoman in the House tonight to participate in these proceedings. We're so thankful that so many people are here from Robeson, and they're offering their opinions, and many of them are speaking to the idea of redistricting, how they feel like redistricting is wrong. I didn't hear any of my Robeson friends testify before the state committees about how redistricting is bad. Denton County had low, very low participation in the comments section from the state house and the state senate talking about how bad redistricting is, but it went forward. So that leads me to think that given the fact that Madam Chair is in the House that this must be a political decision. And frankly, I'm just a common blue collar worker. I'm just a truck driver. I'm not that smart. Yeah, I might have went to UNT, got a few letters behind my name, but this thing, this stinks. I rise today in support of Brian Beck's plan because as I understand, the man is a scientist. And when I inquired, the man has numbers and raw data. Data, data is a good thing. Numbers are a good thing. This is a plan that corrects some wrongs in a nice neighborhood. This is also a plan that speaks to where Denton is going to go in the future, anticipating growth. This is a good plan. I'd like to remind all you council, I want to thank you all for the job you're doing, the sacrifice you have, but I want to remind you all that you have to represent everybody. I'm so thankful for my friend from District 3 who represents Robeson. Might I remind everyone that he got very low percentage of the vote outside of Robeson? Denton is more than just Robeson Ranch. I welcome Robeson Ranch to join the larger Denton community. Robeson Ranch is what, 5,000 people? There are many apartment complexes in Denton that have that population size. I'm so thankful for the energy that they have and I hope that they will continue this and join the rest of the city in moving forward on a plan that addresses wrongs that have been taking place in the past and as we move forward together. Last thing I want to do is I want to thank you Mr. Mayor for coming to speak with our Leadership Denton class. Shout out to Leadership Denton Class 37. I'm a proud participant. You've had a very long day Mr. Mayor. You talked about where Denton is and where we need to go and shared some personal anecdotes and I'm very appreciative of those. One of those was important this morning that we went over. We learned in our Leadership Denton class that everything, all the meetings in Texas are governed by parliamentary procedures. Yes? One of the presentations we got this morning talked about parliamentary rules and I know the Chair won't understand this so this won't be any news to her but perhaps it will be to someone else. Problematary rules. They do particularly two things. They protect the rights of the minority to be heard and we've had that opportunity but they also protect the right of the majority to decide. I urge the Council to move forward with Councilman Beck's plan. It's a good plan and it speaks to the future that Denton is going to have if we all unite. Thank you very much Mr. Mayor. I appreciate it. Thank you. That takes us to the last one. Nicholas Stevens. Hey Council. How are you all doing? Very well. My address is 417 Amarillo Street. And really I'm just here as a sense of encouragement to Council because watching what's going on has been upsetting to me from a conversational standpoint. You know, in the middle of the past few hours we've had COVID denied. We've had vaccines questioned. We're talking about accusations of racism and hatred from City Council members and this is something I bring up to Council a lot. We've lost our ability to communicate with one another in a peaceful way. I'm glad that everyone here does care about gerrymandering and so I just want to approach this a little bit higher if we can when we talk about gerrymandering because it is a real issue. When we talk about people's votes being suppressed, I think in the past eight presidential elections, one political party won seven of those elections, yet only five of them were elected. We talk about the fact that for example, and I think the previous speaker touched on this, we were just gerrymandered out of District 23 with Congressman Burgess and connected to some anti-vax, anti-science fascists from Amarillo, Texas. And so what I'm grateful for though is that, especially being in District 2, I have such a brilliant Council member representing me that does care about data, that does care about science, that cares about actual information. And Council Member Armenter talked about this, I think it was yesterday during the drawing session, all we're trying to do is de-gerrymander the city. And I'm appreciative that you want to do that. That's so important. Something that some of my friends here seem to not understand and I mean no offense by that. It's as if Council Member Davis can't win his seat without ribs and ranch. I don't agree with you on much, but I respect you. I think so highly of you and your ability to listen to all people, not just the people in that neighborhood. I think pretty easily you could win that seat still. The real conversation should be why is it that Council Member Maguire is really just voting against her own self-interest of winning an election by putting a large sum of people in her district that works against her that would make her lose her next election. I think that speaks volumes of the integrity that she has, that she really cares about what's going on in the city and that she deeply actually wants to fix the problem that's been here for so long. So we've had so many people come up here today to say, you know, you work for us. Remember that you work for us. And I just want to remind you in case you forgot, Council Member Armenter, she won more votes than any other person in Denton history. So she is speaking for us. Council Member Beck, in his last election, I think ran against four other people. There was no runoff. He overwhelmingly won our district and spoke for us. Council Member Maguire went up against an incumbent that was highly conservative, highly liked in his district, and she beat him. And in District 1, Council Member Vicki, she beat an incumbent as well. And that's so important to recognize that the city has spoken and we've spoken in such a way that we trust you to do the right thing. And we're glad that you have with taking science seriously, with taking masks seriously, with taking real data into the decisions that you make. And I'm so glad I live here. I've lived here for 15 years, and this is the first time I can confidently say I'm so proud of my council that we really have a council that puts people first. So I'm just here again to encourage you, to thank you for really doing things that might be unpopular to some people, but are right for the entire city. So I encourage you to support Mr. Beck's plan, and I'm excited to continue to keep democracy alive. This might be our last barrier against fascism in this country. And I really mean that. So thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay. That's all the cards I have. Is there anyone that would speak before we take a break? Otherwise, we'll come back, take a break. I'll summarize the cards. Come on up and speak, and then we'll fill out a card after the fact. So if you can give your name and address. You have four minutes. My name is Keith Sugar Council. I live at 1326 Princeton Court. I'd like to speak to that number and this overwhelming speaking for the public and everything. Only 11%, I believe, was the actual number of registered voters in the city of Denton had voted in the last May election. So I don't think that's really an overwhelming staff. They represent the 11% that elected them. They don't represent the other 89%. So let's get those numbers straight to begin with. Gerry Mandarin, I looked this up because I didn't agree with what Mr. Hayes said. It says to manipulate the boundaries so as to favor one party or another. And we take that further into manipulate, it says to handle or to control. That's effectively what we're doing, people. Like Mr. Hutzpah said earlier and everything, when we start segregating and alienating that voted that voting district, we have expect are effectively taking control of what their one power they have is voting as a minority block. Well, I mean, why in the world? What justification can we actually tell these people, people in our in our district one and everything where I used to have a business at? How can I look at them and say that we're going to sit there and alienate them from the voting class that's given them strength this whole time? That's all I really have to say. Thank you. Yes, by all means. And then the staff can get a blue card there. And if you can give your name and address. I'm Janie Howell. I own property at 721 Woodland. And yes, I am the Denton County Republican Party chairman. However, to address Mr. McGee, I am a property owner in Denton. I've owned businesses in Denton for 40 years. This is not my first city council meeting. And I'm not here on political reasons. Earlier tonight, we heard a legal consultant informed the council that even with our growth, our existing districts are very well balanced. This is well under the 10% the courts generally like to see and none of our districts are gerrymandered. Beck's plan proposes to void the vote of 571 people. It reduces the minority voting strength in district one by approximately 1.5%. It draws the landfill from a primarily white district to the primarily black and brown district. It ignores over hundreds. Apparently, you're ignoring over 100 emails. Removing Jesse Davis from representing Robeson Ranch has almost he has almost three years of service without a vote of the citizens. I do not understand why you're doing this. It was said today that the US Supreme Court said voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around. I believe the people of Denton should not be ignored. I ask you to not vote for Mr. Beck's plan, but either stay it keep it like it is or go to plan D. Thank you. Great. So anyone else care to speak? This is a public hearing. So anyone's welcome. Just got to fill out a blue card after the fact. Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing and we'll take a 10 minute, 15 minute break. Let's call it. We'll be back at nine to kind of sum up and go to our next section of our agenda, which is individual consideration. We'll be back at nine. And welcome back to this meeting of the Denton city council. It is now nine oh two and we do have a quorum. So we will, pardon me. Need a horn. Like a bike horn or something. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we will get back started with tonight's meeting. I do need to read the white card. So these white cards are people that requested not to speak, but wanted to be heard on this item. Uh, so they wrote into the white cards. I have for the record three in support of plan B and I have 13 in opposition. So just to let you know, that's the number of people that, uh, wanted to be heard on the item, but did not want to speak. Um, with that, we need to give staff direction so that they can prepare the documents for next week. Again, there's a, this will be an item for individual consideration next week, meaning, and I don't know the process for maybe somebody from staff can help me explain the process for individual consideration to be heard. Is that simply to just sign up to speak before, um, the items called? Is that right? Okay. So you'd need to be here next week. Look at next week, next week's agenda and be here to sign up to speak before the items called. You can be heard on that again, before we vote. Uh, I will, um, take speakers to give staff direction. Council member Davis. Thank you, mayor. Thank you everyone for speaking tonight and the folks that have sent us emails, the folks who filled out online white cards, the folks that have called the folks I've spoken to personally. Um, we can't do this job without your input. And um, the, by my count, we've heard from, uh, somewhere between 220, 250 individuals with some overlaps and repeats. Um, about 50 of those folks I've spoken to in person against some overlap and repeats. So somewhere north of 250 people approaching 275 people, the thing that I hear overwhelmingly is leave it alone. I proposed what I thought was a reasonable compromise for if we have to make some changes to make changes that affect the fewest number of voters and does the least amount of harm. But at this time, because I've heard from so many people who don't want to see the current map changed, I would propose to withdraw my two proposals if council member Beck would do the same. And we could go with as a consensus choice, the map we've lived with for the last 10 years, the map that has produced five out of seven progressive council members rather than work so hard and bend over backwards to gain one more potential progressive seat. Let's go with the consensus option, the map we've all had, plan a that our consultant tells us gets the job done and that most people in Denton are perfectly happy with. Mayor for to Meltzer. Yeah, thank you. Uh, I don't know if I'm going to give final direction quite yet. I want to hear some comments, but I want to address a couple of points. Uh, one is that people make the assumption, you know, they see in the newspaper or wherever, here are these maps proposing a lot of change and there's not a lot of explanation of why. So now she'd go, well, it's not broke. Why? What are you trying to fix? There can't be a good reason. So there must be a bad reason. Well, I would suggest to you that the status quo map is not neutral. If I proposed to you tonight to take a community and attach it to a district 10 miles away that it doesn't even border in any meaningful way, you would say gerrymandering, but that's what happened 10 years ago. Some people like that gerrymander. So, so, you know, the, what you're hearing proposed are ways to undo a very, uh, manipulated current map. So that, that, that for me needs to be addressed and we only get to do it once every 10 years. So if you're asking, you know, why do anything at all? It's because it's not, the status quo is not neutral. It's highly manipulated. Uh, you have pecan Creek split across two districts and you have the whole core area, the historic area of Denton, you know, uh, around UNT split in half. And, you know, uh, I'll just, uh, share one other observation. I've been here long enough that there've been a number of situations where people are, you know, so outraged and say, it's so simple. Why can't you just do the thing that is so clear to me? And it's because, you know, uh, it's not always obvious to you that there are other constituencies too. I, I, uh, I'll tell you the, the public input that I really truly appreciated, uh, and I, and I'm sorry, I don't remember the name of, uh, of the speaker. Uh, I really appreciated that the great detailing of the wonderful contributions of ropes and ranch to Denton. I mean, it's a natural resource of giving if many people living there are in a stage of life where they can do what they choose to do. And what they choose to do is help others. It's incredibly valuable. And, uh, and, and it, and the fact that, uh, that the, that is a community that votes their impact is going to be huge, whatever district they voted, uh, because they care and they, and they speak. So, you know, I don't think that's really an issue. Uh, another thing I would address is redistricting affects the next election, not the last election, unless, you know, anybody here chooses to leave, you know, all of the single member, single district council members here are going to be here for another year and a half. I, I would be, I simply reject the idea that the council member Davis or any other council member would become less responsive to you. I, I just, uh, I assert it's not the case. Uh, I happen to think highly of council member Davis. He's actually my single member district and he's highly responsive and I don't expect any change in that. So, uh, I'll, I'll leave it at that for the moment. I'd like to hear other, other comments, thoughts. Thank you so much. Um, I have been grappling with, um, plan B and plan plan D, uh, for, you know, some time now, digging into all the various metrics, digging into all the various, um, ways of, of looking at the different factors. Um, there are of course the nine criteria which we agreed to, uh, in, in previous work session, um, one of which is, is population variance, getting population variance as low as possible. Um, but of course there are eight other factors as well. And I'm going to be frank, um, of course there are factors outside of those nine that, that I can't help but notice. One of which is what, um, these two proposed maps might do to my reelection prospects. Um, of course I have considered that and it's been acknowledged more than once in this chamber tonight that councilman Beck's map is not favorable to my reelection prospects, but this isn't about me. This is about creating a map that is fair, that is best for the city, that increases rather than decreases representation. Um, and for that reason, even though it is not in my personal political interest, I still support councilman Beck's proposed map plan B. Okay. Is there anyone else? Councilman Burke. Uh, thank you all for the opportunity to speak. Uh, I do also want to reiterate the, um, the, uh, the appreciative nature of you all being involved in all of this. I appreciate being a representative for district one. I just want to also say that, you know, again, we have to remember that what we're doing is going to be affecting the future of us. And sometimes we want to look back on the, on the past and, um, you know, and we can definitely acknowledge that the past, uh, has done what it was meant to do. It was meant to put, uh, an area out in district three, uh, district three that, you know, has a certain demographic out there and those folks want to be together. They are connected to one another and I can understand why they would want to be together. I can, I can appreciate that, but I do want to talk about district one though, because of my position, uh, and I'll be as quick as I possibly can. I think that if we are talking about optics again, I was hoping to have an opportunity to talk about the optics of moving the landfill over into district one and right behind there, we always talk about the black and the brown people. And so, uh, it just looks bad when we do something like that. Well, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, I hate to mention this, but guys, we're talking about critical race theory. And if we're confused about, uh, what that is, we're in it in the midst of it right now, when we talk about optics in African-American and brown people. So historically this area has been ignored, you know, all of this time, um, from these people that literally picked them up and moved them from their homes a hundred years ago. And they have been persevering and making their way up into this moment. And we're still talking about optics. That's what my problem is. Talking about optics rather than talking about the logical nature of why we need, we should do this, why we should, we should pull in the landfill. And that is because of the boundaries. There are people down there. You guys have seen that map, that thing is chiseled in, chiseled out, moved around, up and down, you know, to weed in and weed out people down that way. And then we pull that landfill in, which it's a great landfill. I mean, it's kind of like the premier landfills and it is doing a great job environmentally. Uh, we have great water, a water system, wastewater system, are all of our, uh, responsibilities to the folks that live around that place. We're talking about some high end people that's down in the Southern part of the community. Y'all live next to the landfill. And so I can, it's long, it's along with all the rest of us. I can walk to the landfill from my house if I really wanted to. So we're all here, but I don't want to talk about the landfill as though it's a terrible thing. We're talking about the landfill because of the boundaries and because of the fact that we can easily see, we can easily tell what our boundaries are. So I just want to put that out there. I don't want the shallowness of what are they going to think about us? Oh my goodness. They put the landfill in district one. Oh my goodness. When we're talking, not even talking about that, we're talking about the responsibility for our boundaries. So let's keep that in mind. Also, I wanted to remind the folks that this is not a personality contest. I am not, you know, here to talk about personalities and oh, we like this person and oh, we like that person. We can all be changed and we're going to be changed here at some point along the way. So let's move all the personality stuff in the emotional stuff aside and let's just look at the practicality of it all. So with that being said, I am going to approve of and appreciate Councilman Bick's plan. Thank you. Councilmember Armitage. So first of all, thanks to everybody who came and spoke out tonight and who spoke on the phone. Thanks to all of the emailers and everybody who has been speaking to us, not just during this redistricting process, but over the years and letting us know if you feel that your vote has been underrepresented by the way you are currently districted. So I want to thank also my colleagues here on this council, including Councilmember Davis, who even though I prefer Councilmember Beck's plan, I believe that your proposal is a big improvement on the status quo. And I really appreciate the work that went into that. I just so happen to believe that Councilmember Beck's proposed redistricting plan is an improvement even on that. But I think it's very much in the same spirit of yours in trying and adhering to our principles that we have decided on that are generic principles used to determine whether redistricting should be done and how districts can be improved to better represent the voting rights of the people who live in city. So I support the criteria decided on by this council. Again, prefer Davis's redistricting proposal to the status quo, but Beck's redistricting proposal is most successful in adhering more successfully to more of those components, especially the condensing and keeping together communities of interest, which many are split by the status quo. In all of the arguments against Councilmember Beck's plan, I have not heard any community claim that they are being divided by the status quo. Robeson Ranch, I'm sorry, by Councilmember Beck's proposal, Robeson Ranch is not being divided, and the community of Robeson Ranch, which has great voting power, great power in the community, would take its power, voting power with it into District 4, so much so, in fact, that contrary to Councilmember Davis's supposition that Councilmember Beck's plan was conceived with the hope of adding another so-called progressive council member, as Councilmember McGuire and as several members of the public who spoke out have mentioned, this council stands to lose Councilmember McGuire because of the strong voting power of Robeson Ranch, and that's just the way democracy works. If Councilmember Beck had wanted to gerrymander in favor of a progressive majority, the map would not look like this. It would look like quite a different map. That is not what this map does. This map evens the playing field. It adheres better to what our ideals are. As Mayor Pro Tem said, the status quo is not neutral and is highly manipulative. It divides communities of interest and neighborhoods, including primarily people of color who live around the landfill, whose voting power is diluted, literally divided and conquered by splitting them up into separate districts. As Councilmember Byrd explained so well, it is better for the people who live near the landfill and better for the people of District 1 who live near the landfill, the people of the current District 1, to have the landfill in that district. The status quo dilutes the votes of many lower-income residents of District 3, many of whom are tenants, with the predominantly wealthy and property-owning voting bloc of Robeson. Those are just two very different interests, and the community of Robeson has more in common with the people of District 4. So Robeson will not find its voting power diluted by District 4. In fact, I think it will be strengthened. DENIA has been tacked on to District 4 and stands out on the current map like a sore thumb. I do appreciate that both Councilmembers Beck and Davis have offered to resolve that problem. I appreciate and respect beyond words the concerns of Linnie McAdams about being lumped in with UNT. I would argue that in listening to the DENIA Neighborhood Association and their preference for being included in District 3, I hear from a lot of DENIA residents legitimate complaints about what the university is doing in the city, buying up land and also properties that belong to local businesses. I have opposed that. And you have more power to speak out against a university that you feel is not doing right by the neighborhood if you get to elect somebody who is in that same district as a university. So in closing, again, while I strongly prefer Beck's, even more than that, I would love to just add one or two more districts. And instead of at-large representation, having one or two more districts because we have grown so much in population. The reason why I am not proposing that today is because I can't. That would require a charter change. That is something that would have to come from the people and would be a vote of the people. And that can happen if that is what the people want. But for now, I strongly support Beck's proposal. >> Okay. Councilmember Beck. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I want to also applaud Councilor Davis. Having designed a map, having spent hours and hours and hours looking at it, moving the puzzle pieces, cursing the weird shapes of our precincts that we were trying to keep whole as one of our guidelines as trying to devise a map that followed as many guidelines as possible to the maximum extent possible, maximizing this really complex multi-order polynomial function. I know that Councilor Davis was doing the exact same things. Just digging in, trying to find things. And I know how much effort. And I want to applaud him for that effort. And I know that is a little bit reflexive because I know the amount of effort that you put into trying to find a compromise and trying to find a map that you felt met and matched so many of the voices that you were hearing. I guess I'm a little not disturbed, but I wish that you had stuck to your guns on either C or D simply because you spent all that time and effort trying to find -- and there's no argument that both C and D are better than A. My map is better than A. And I think you and I both did a full faith effort trying to improve the characteristics that we unanimously adopted. And it's a challenging and tough and onerous issue. So I won't reiterate some of the other issues that I heard from the dais, but a couple in particular that just really bothered me because it's exactly the opposite of the metrics I chose and the approach that I used was sort of this issue that somehow we're moving a landfill. The landfill is not moving. You don't move a landfill. We need to stop using that representation, that we need to use the word representation. And so you have to ask yourself and I've sent this to -- I've responded to nearly all of the emails and contacts that people have sent me to council, both pro and con. And you may not like my response, but I tried to explain what we were doing, what I was doing and how I constructed that map and what the goals and outlines were. And the thing that sort of -- if the landfill is not moving, and so if you look at the constituent people and ask yourself who lives around that landfill, regardless of the district, you would want -- do you want the representative of the landfill and the representative of the people around the landfill to be the same voice that it's amplified or do you want it to be diluted? And so this is one of my primary reasons for keeping the landfill with the representative of the landfill with the people -- the representative of the people around the landfill. That amplifies the voice of those people and allows it to be a powerful concern. So that, you know, you know who you reach out for for the landfill, the representative of the landfill and that's your representative if you live near the landfill. The other thing that really quite bothered me is it's honestly just false narrative and spin about minority ratios. The overall plans that we were presented, both Councillor Davis's and mine for District 1 have identical minority ratios, identical minority ratios for District 1. And overall mine improves minority ratios across more districts in Denton than does any of the other plans. And so, you know, I want to make sure that, you know, when we hear narratives like you're disenfranchising minorities, it's exactly, literally, numerically the opposite. All right? And so I think you can tell that I'm going to be -- my opinion is to stick with my plan. Okay. So, staff, you have direction and so I'll just -- this is -- yeah, so you have direction and I'm going to close this out and just say this. Trying to be as brief as possible. I think you have -- Ryan, I need you to come down and pull up that address. Please and thank you. I think what you have is a mixture of past, future, right? You say, hey, we want to -- we want the landfill to be next to whoever represents it. They're closest to it. Drive the landfill. There's no one that lives out there. There's an apartment that's going close to Wal-Mart. Then there's several acres in between that. Then there's an apartment complex and a golf course to the east of it. But no -- there's no houses out there. There's no one that lives out there. Matter of fact, part of that property is a Donnelly property which we just bought and it's going to have a giant road go through it. Mayhill is going to shift over so then you won't be able to build any houses on that open space. So that's not really practical. I'm just a graduate of Denton High School so maybe I make things too simple. I'll just tell you this. Dilute and redistribute sound the same depending on who acts as getting goored. So I just keep it simple to say currently in District 1, there's 18% minority representation. After this plan is approved by those that would refuse to listen to the citizens, it will be reduced to 17%. Ryan, if you pull up that map. Sure. I want to show you something else. If you can give it like the satellite view maybe. Sure. Yeah. I lived in the southeast Denton area for about 30 years. I'll tell you this. So if you look at those, the buildings, industrial buildings there, you see that? Just kind of if you'll zoom in on those industrial buildings. Yes, sir. That's right on the edge of the southeast Denton neighborhood. That was purchased about a year ago and all that's going to be redeveloped as apartments. Not low income apartments, market rate and high end apartments. Then across the street is the Denton Transit Center. That's going to be developed into an entertainment district of some sort, hopefully. The old Austin Baker building to the back there, that longer building kind of at the end of that lot, yes, sir. That's going to be apartment complexes. So when you talk about D1 dilution of votes, you can't take an uneducated look at it because you get it wrong. I'm educating that this all is going to turn and so now you've lowered it from 17%. This is going to develop and it's not going to look like the neighborhood and there's nothing we can do about that. That's why we have to protect the existing neighborhood and the existing numbers because growth is coming downtown and if you're ignorant to it, that's how all bad things that happened to the folks in Quaker Town were illegal. And so you have to have a vision. You have to have an understanding of what's coming. You have to protect those interests and we're failing to do that and it hurts me to my core. It's not about blame game. It's about me. If I have to be strong enough to say when I admit when I'm wrong, so do other people and you have to understand you don't know what you don't know and that's what pains me, is that we're taking a myopic look at things based on what's now because it's convenient and then we'll say we're worried about the future when it's convenient but we're not taking a holistic approach to it and it's to the detriment of the District 1 Southeast Dent neighborhood, I believe. So then I'll just point out the fact that this body removed a board chair because they were not responsive to the citizens of Denton. So I find it interesting that now the citizens of Denton have been heard and it's not always popular. I don't get to make decisions based on what I think is best. I make decisions based on the people I represent and I've heard you loud and clear and I think I empower you because you do have options. Three of us will be on a ballot in May, you have options. There's other options if you don't want to wait till May, you have options. And so I respect that and I respect the right that I don't get to make decisions independent of that and I think this this mapping process, I hear people talk about data but I've not seen it. I've not seen the research, I've not seen the reviews, I've not seen the emails, I've not seen any data and then I'll quote the consultant because I think that's important. All the terms that we hear regularly that have been bounced about, let me get there, sorry. You heard the consultant to say tonight, not well defined concepts. So if they're not well defined you have to make that simple, you have to be increasingly transparent so that people understand. These maps were created and council member Davis has removed his, council member Beck will not remove his and recommends his but here's the thing, they were all done in the privacy of their home and so that's fine. But give me the data that supports that because if you watch the city council meeting the goal was to get close to zero as possible. That's .68, that's Jesse Davis' plan. Let's say, but no, we want to move Dina, okay and I'm sorry Lenny I don't support that either but I'm using an example. So if you want to move Dina, then Jesse's plan B does that and it's lower than the 6 point something percent, the deviation rate. So it's a lower and more, closer to zero which was the express goal, moves Dina, express goal, what am I missing? You're getting everything you want in plan B but you don't want it, why? That's to be determined. I don't understand it, I can't speak to it. I'm happy to support it if there's data to go with it, if there's information. I don't have anything, we've not been provided anything. So what I've done is I've asked the expert to bring forward the map from 2000 and then look at that as compared to 2011 and see what the changes were then but I'll tell you it's interesting for me to hear that a map that's created by consultants that don't have a dog in the hunt is gerrymandered and out of whack. A map created in the privacy of someone's home with no supporting data fixes that and they have an invested interest in it, right? That's the other thing. The last time council drafted the map they did not participate, they didn't draw it, the expert drew it and interesting enough that holds now. So that to me is telling and then you talk about, I just want you to understand and visualize the size of districts, this is why I can't support it either. District 1, which I just know very well because I used to represent it, has downtown, Golden Triangle Mall, it has TWU, it has Pecan Creek, a portion thereof, it has Pecan Square, that neighborhood down University Drive by Denton Baptist Church. They're all vast, they're all massive and so to say to join like communities over that much space is not realistic. That is again a not well-defined concept. What is well-defined is the percentage of deviation which the lowest is both map B and D and so for those, I mean those are many more but really it's a citizen's impact. That's the thing that I'm most grieved about. We've heard from a number of citizens and that's being ignored and I don't think as a representative government that's good. Citizens are at the top of the org chart. I respect that. I don't always have to like it. I do what I have to do because I think that's what we're called to do as elected representatives and I think the system has failed them this time and that is disappointing. But that being said, staff has direction. Yeah but she had opportunity to speak and we've all spoken once and I'm going to conclude the item. She's happy. She can follow up with staff but I'm not going to go back around. I've been doing that so I want to be consistent in that way and not show favoritism. Point of order. We will conclude item C. Point of order. And that would take us to item. Point of order. I will hear it in just one moment. That'll take us to our individual item consideration state your point of order. So my understanding is that under Robert's rules we are to hear from those who want to speak. There's nothing precluding that and there's no rule that says that each council member only gets to speak once. I am very eager to hear what the representative from district one has to say and she is speaking not just to those of us here but to the public who is listening. People have elected her and I think we need to be respectful of that and I think we are and I think we also have to be respectful of time. Can I get a second on that? So you didn't make a motion or state your point of order. I did. I stated my point of order. Mr. City attorney, am I wrong? So procedurally she's stated a point of order. You need to rule on the order and if she doesn't agree with your ruling, then that can be appealed and we need a second. I would cite the city charter also that says that each person gets to speak once and I can pull up that provision if you want to go get it and then it's up to the chair if they would go around again. But we can not waste the citizen's time or we can either way. Move the challenge to the whole board. I don't even know what it means. I'll wait for the city attorney. And again, we have a room full of people. We have staff waiting and again, it's difficult to chair the meeting when you get attacked at all turns for trying to do what we say we want to do is be efficient in time. We all have one time to speak. I say some things that people don't like. They can say things that I don't like. I don't respond. I don't say it twice and this is how it goes. But Mr. City attorney, I'll wait for your direction. Well, I'm assuming that's the determination you've made that you've ruled on her point of order. That is right. So at this point, there's an opportunity to appeal the decision of the chair. Okay. If no appeals are made, you can move on with the business of the meeting. All right. So I don't council member. Yes, sir. I just wanted to just clarify a statement that you have to speak until I finish. We have to vote on that area. That area was in the process of being developed anyway, regardless of this particular vote here tonight. We were already in conversation about that. So just wanted to let you all know that that doesn't include what we're talking about tonight. You just added that. Thanks. I didn't see item for individual consideration. Item E is going to go first. That's ID 212663. Consider approval of a resolution of the city of Denton consenting to the creation of a Denton County municipal utility district. Number 12 encompassing approximately 1018 acres of land. Mayor City Council, Tina Fergens, deputy director of development services. So as the mayor just read, this is a request for the creation of a municipal utility district and or the expansion of an existing municipal utility district. This is a short reminder because I know this isn't something that we consider on a regular basis here before Council. A municipal municipal utility district is a district that functions as an independent limited purpose political subdivision. Essentially, it's a tool that allows for developers to be able to finance public improvements associated with the development and in this case, typically a single family residential development. The district itself has its own governing board that is elected by representatives within the municipal utility district and also I should point out that municipal utility districts are commonly referred to as muds, just given the mouthful that that it is. Municipal utility districts are muds. They're not new to Denton as we have approximately 10 or 11 of them that are located primarily west of our city. We have several that are located, predominantly near US 3 80 FM 1 56. And then we have some farther out west as the one will also be talking about this evening. In May of 2020, our city council had adopted an interim municipal utility utility district policy. Essentially, this interim policy provides a framework for staff and City Council to evaluate petitions or requests that we received related to these type of projects and allows us to be able to assess the appropriateness of municipal utility districts for our city. The framework includes purpose and intent. It has some applicability provisions, also outlined some policies for consideration associated with this and including some application requirements. But for purposes of this request, we evaluated the applicability and just the reasonableness and the ability of the cities to be able to provide utility services for this particular request being made this evening. So the Lala Ranch is an existing mutual municipal utility district that is northwest of our city. It was the existing municipal the utility district for Lala Ranch is shown in the red shaded area. So it's generally located northwest of Miller Road at Hawkeye Road. If you're familiar with that area, northwest of the even the northwest of the city of Crum. The first phase was created in 2019 through legislative action with the state legislature, hence the House bill reference. And then in 2020, the City Council granted a petition for consent to be able to expand that municipal utility district. So hence why the 656 acre district exists today. This district is solely within the city's E T J or extraterritorial jurisdiction number two. And so it's all subject to the Denton County plotting requirements. Denton County has permitting responsibility as well as the plotting responsibility within this area of our E T J. So the request that's before you this evening is specific to allow for either the creation of a new utility district and or for the the incorporation of the expansion of the municipal utility district. The petition that we have received is to allow for 1018 acres expansion. Ideally, the applicant is seeking consent from the city so that they can take their next steps and working with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which also regulates the creation of these political subdivisions within communities E T J s. So hence why they're seeking that consent from us. The area of expansion is shown in pink there, so it's essentially at the southwest quadrant of Miller Road and Hawkeye Road and extends extends down to FM 1173 on the southern border. Again, this area completely within the city's E T J Division two. So again, it will be subject to all of Denton County is plotting authority requirements as well as their permitting requirements. And then also I should point out that this area is located outside of the city of Denton's Certificate of Convenience and Necessities or CCM service areas as we refer to in short. So as I mentioned earlier, we do have some policy criteria evaluation for consideration of these requests and improve that interim municipal you did municipal utility district policy. One of the first things we look at is whether or not the city has already made plans to annex or provide municipal services to the area proposed for inclusion within the mud within the next five years. Or whether or not the property is currently included or subject to any non annexation agreements. In this case, we do not we the city do not have any plans to annex or provide municipal service to this area within our E T J. This area is also not subject to any non annexation agreements. The second applicability requirement that we use is is whether the proposed area lies within this within the city's E T J of two or more cities. In this case, it does not. Or if it's within the division two of the city's E T J, as I mentioned earlier, this is within our E T J two areas. So per our policy, because it's affirmative on the second criteria, then the city council may not and it doesn't say shall not. But it does say may not consent to the creation. Then it provides additional options whether or not we move to annex the land if it was subject to the non annexation agreement, defer it to Denton County, or we can continue to work with the applicant on any outstanding issues that prevents the city from providing consent. We evaluated this petition request in in staffs recommendation that that the city council go ahead and approve this consent request. Again, the expansion area is not within our CCN. As I mentioned earlier, this this project or this area being developed is northwest of our city. CCN is also northwest of the city of crumb. We do not have the ability or plans at this time to provide municipal services to the area and per our interlocal cooperation agreement that we have with Denton County. The county has exclusive permitting and planning subdivision authority in this area. So, um, as I always say, we really don't have a dog in the fight from from that perspective on on the plotting requirements and any permit issues like we do, um, at least on the subdivision plotting for property within our each day one area. One of the requirements associated with the creation of the municipal utility districts or the expansion is that the district shall comply with any ordinance or resolution that's adopted that consents to the creation of the district. So in this case, the resolution that is included in your packet for your consideration this evening does have some recommended conditions related to the consent approval. The first is that the property owners would seek consent from the creation of the district or the addition of the district into the existing Lala Ranch municipal utility district from the Denton County Commissioner's Court. And then all roads are required to meet our construction standards, the subdivision requirements and regulations of the governmental entity that has jurisdiction over those matters. So in this case, it would be Denton County. And then the third condition is that the property owners would obtain subdivision approval from the government entity with jurisdiction over those matters. So again, that all resides with Denton County in this particular case. That concludes my presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions that council may have. So thank you. Councilmember Davis. Thank you, Mayor. I can't identify any particular reasons at this time not to approve the request simply because it's on the other side of crumb. The likelihood of Denton at some point annexing that mud or being particularly concerned with the quality of their streets, their infrastructure and the kind of things we might take over in the future as opposed to a mud that's just right on our doorstep that we could conceivably annex in the future. My concern, though, is I'm wondering if this is a complete application because our interim mud policy had some pretty, I mean, not exactly onerous, but some pretty complete application requirements. The only thing in our back up so far is the petition for consent. And I think one of the things that we contemplated when we passed the interim mud policy is that we would ask some pretty deep questions about traffic impact, the future growth of the area around the muds. Less important for something that's on the other side of crumb, not likely to be annexed, but at the same time it is right on our neighbor's doorstep and we're the ones with the policy. So I'm concerned also about precedent, that if we don't require a complete application from every applicant, every petitioner, that it limits our ability to enforce our own policy in the future when it does have a bigger impact on Denton. So my question is, do we have those items as required by our mud policy from this applicant or should we require those before we go forward with this request? - That is a good question and I have to defer that to our city attorney because I don't know what else may have been submitted in addition to the petition request. - And I don't think there was anything submitted other than the petition to the city. I don't think any of the other requirements that are in, or at least the preferences stated in the policy were complied with. When you look at those, those really relate to the city providing services. And so there's a question of what should be the implementation of the policy? What form should that take? Should there be an ordinance to follow up and put some of those requirements into place, which hasn't been done yet at this point? So there's not as strict a standard of maybe what appears in the policy because the policy hasn't been fully implemented at this point. But yes, certainly in those cases, and it needs to be done where there needs to be actual ordinance to follow up on the policy, to set the fees, to do all the other things that were discussed in the policy. So that's still an additional step that needs to be done. As far as this one, yeah, there's no, the requirements that you typically would see related to the city providing services and having those studies, the immediate annexation in the future, those things are not here. And so the city doesn't have those and has not requested those at this point. - Could I ask a follow up, Mayor? - Yes, sir. - What is our timeline for taking our interim policy to a, you know, an ordinance to a fully fledged policy? I'm very concerned about precedent, that this is the kind of the camel's nose under the tent where the next time we get one that does have a big impact on the city, you know, there's pushback from the developer saying, well, the last guy didn't have, the last three or four guys didn't have to do a traffic impact analysis. We're not paying for one. So do we know the timeline on when that will be in ordinance? And do we know the response that we're gonna give those developers when they come to the city and say, the last guy didn't have to do this? - So in terms of the timeline associated with revising the policy, we have not established one internally. If that is a priority of council, then that's something that we can obviously begin working on per your direction. The, I understand your concern regarding, you know, if this one comes through and only had to submit the petition request, then others that may come forth. I know we have some others that are currently under review by the city and evaluating very, very specific items related to those particular requests so that we can adequately evaluate them. This policy, in my opinion, probably does need to have a second revisit associated with it just because of the requirements that are associated within it and to determine whether or not those criteria are still applicable for our consideration. I know it was recently adopted given, you know, last year, but now that we've had the opportunity to evaluate this proposed request as well as some others that have been submitted, it may be worth a second look at that policy just to look to see if what we included within it is still appropriate or if anything might need to be amended. - Thank you. That's a really good response. I would say just from one council member's perspective, I can't elevate to the status of a council priority, but I would say I know our staff is very diligent in reviewing these and I think that we would all appreciate just continuing that diligence and it varies from project to project, but that the precedent when you apply for a MUD at the City of Denton is that you can complete a very complete analysis of what you're putting on our doorstep. - If I could add, David Gaines, Assistant City Manager, we have had the previous conversation with council about the tourist policy, the PID policy, and the MUD policy was contemplated in that, a formalizing that, so that's already been direction from council to bring that forward. So we have been targeting the first quarter of 2022 to come back and have that conversation with council comprehensively, including the MUD policy. So that has been direction that council has given us. - Okay. Council Member Beck. - Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I want to reiterate that if Councilor Davis hadn't brought it up, I was concerned as well that we sort of have a procedural workflow issues that sort of is not aligned with where I kind of thought we were going. Councilor Davis said that much better than I just did. The other element that concerned me, so in addition to doubling down on that, as I understand, and this is where you can educate me, because of crumb size, it doesn't have the lack of certain kinds of ETJ or lack of ETJ altogether because of the size, it doesn't have the ability to have these sorts of policies like we do. But at the same token, crumb is a couple of miles away or even bordering us. So in terms of good neighbor relationship to a neighboring municipality, how does crumb feel about this MUD that's on their west side within half a mile of them? Have we addressed that just from a good neighbor sort of standpoint? So I have not had any conversations with the City of Crumb. Scott, have you or Mack? And specifically on what's before you today, I don't know crumb's specific position. I wouldn't want to speak to that. I will say that crumb has been supportive of the MUDs in their area and ultimately providing fire protection service and some benefit to them. So I think they're looking for this. This, of course, is right on the fringe of their one mile extraterritorial jurisdiction. For us, it's our five mile. And I think, you know, from that standpoint, we have very limited authority in Texas law, A, and then B, the reality of where that would be annexed or who would annex that at a future date if that answers that. But that's the specifics to crumb. Can I restate? So for my clarity, so there hasn't been a specific discussion about this, that your feeling is likely that they're positive, but without a specific discussion? We've had conversations with crumb. There are any number of MUDs that are going around crumb and crumb is overall supportive of the MUDs that are going around them. This specific, because it came in some time ago and then there's an addition, I just haven't had any conversations of late with crumb regarding this specifically. And so again, I apologize. I don't mean to be pedantic, but I'm just trying to establish because I'm not quite sure I understood the answer. So you have had other discussions about this MUD in particular, just not this topic. Correct. And at that time, they were supportive of those other issues related to this MUD? They were overall supportive of the MUD, yes. And so in regards to this concern that Councillor Davis and I, he reiterated, or he said so much better, that timeline is early spring. So this timeline for this item is imminent, is tonight. So is there an issue, I guess I'm getting at, delay? Is there any impact from delay to align with the workflow question that we had earlier? And I might let Max speak to that as far as the timeliness of how it is that we have to provide a response to the petition. Yes. So when this petition is submitted to the city, the city has 90 days to provide a consent or to not provide consent. If we don't do so within 90 days, then a petition can be, a subsequent petition is submitted to the city requesting that we provide water and sewer service to them. That has not been done yet at this point. So we're still in that period of time. The 90 days is lapsed, but we haven't begun the 120 days to enter into an agreement or try to negotiate an agreement to provide water and sewer service. If that 120 days lapses without an agreement being made to provide that sewer service from water service, they can then petition the TCEQ to go ahead and involuntarily against, without the city's consent at all, to create that MUD district. So just to give you an idea time-wise, after the first 90 days, we still have not received a petition for services out there. So that would kick off another 120 days to do that process. And if nothing was done after those 120 days, then they could go to TCEQ at that point and request the TCEQ create the MUD without the city's consent. Okay. And where are we in the first 90 days? We're past the first 90 days. Yes. But the second 120 days has not been triggered yet because we haven't received that second petition. Okay. All right. I'll reserve for now. Thank you, Mayor. For Tim Meltzer. Thank you, Mayor. So I want to make sure I get this straight. If we, if we give consent today, which I was actually prepared to do because we're not really in a position where we're looking to provide sewer and water, you know, it's beyond our service area. But if we do that today, then it happens. If we don't give consent, more time will pass. We're still not going to end up agreeing to provide sewer and water. And then the TCEQ will green light it becoming a MUD without our consent. But they end up with the MUD. So it's kind of same outcome only later. This is all kind of a question. Is the MUD that would occur with our consent different than the MUD that would occur after some period of time without our consent? I wouldn't suspect it's any different. In this case, no. Typically, sometimes you'll see an agreement of sorts between the city and the MUD in an exchange for our consent. In this, we do have a few conditions that we'd be putting on it. There's three conditions that the city would ask to be put on it. And we would not have those same conditions necessarily placed on it. But there aren't any in this case. Right. So let me, if I can press this a little further, Mayor. I'm just kind of thinking my way through it. If we said no and the clock started on the longer process, and we said no because we didn't want to create a precedent that we don't like. And by the way, excellent point on Councilmember Davis's part. But if we then on parallel path did the follow-ups that we have already committed to do to firm up our policy and our requirements, and then during that period of time, we arrive at what we ultimately want to be our standard practice, can we then go back and for whatever value it might provide, go back to the applicant and say, we now have a process we're open to reconsidering? Yeah. Now you're pushing the limits of our MUD knowledge, but my thought is that no, we would not be able to go back, but we can check on that. Okay. And if we say no without knowing the answer to that, if we say no to consent, the end result is going to be the same as if we said yes. It will just be later. So if we say no today, there might, you know, we'll find out, there might be an opportunity to go back to them with a better process later anyway. If not, same result as saying yes tonight. So I really appreciate the good thinking of the group, and that's a reason for me to move the aisle. I'll move the aisle. Scott? Just one point. Ultimately, I think we can postpone this one week, bring it back next week. That would give us an opportunity to do some of the homework with legal, as well as try and visit with CROM and make sure we're there at on this. Okay. I didn't realize we had that wiggle room. I didn't realize that the timing would permit that. I don't know. And again, it's fortunate for us that we have another meeting next week. So I think the one week probably doesn't create any more issue than it is. And I look to Mac if -- No. It could be postponed to next week or even into next month. And does that require a motion? So if I may, Mayor, let me go ahead and move that we postpone this item to date certain, which will be the June -- excuse me, June, December 21st meeting. No, 14th. Okay. I got the month and the date now. December 14th. And Mayor, let me just make sure -- I believe Councilmember Davis brought up an interesting point which was asking about where we are on the interim MUD policy. I think it behooves us to get busy on the MUD policy itself from an interim to a final so that when we have another one of these MUDs coming through, we're not having to look in between the lines. And so I would ask that staff look at that more quickly so that if another one comes up, we're not facing the same situation. And so everyone in Council is aware, we've really been working through MUDs with any number of them and really adapting the policy to this, again, being in our E.T. state, J2, and then really the remoteness of where it's at and how that's played out. But absolutely, thank you. Okay. Great. We have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer to postpone to a date certain December 14th. Is there a second? Councilmember Armitage. Oh, no. Just I had my -- I was in line to speak before Councilmember -- before Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer. Okay. Well, let me find a second and then there will be discussion. Is there a second, Councilmember Guare? I second. Discussion? Councilmember Armitage? Yeah. So obviously in terms of time, you know, we're in quite a bind. The concerns expressed by Councilmember Davis were my concerns coming into this and it seems like at least everybody who's spoken so far has those same concerns. I was excited about the higher bar that we had developed for MUDs and there seemed to be, you know, in that discussion it was -- staff made it clear that there was real urgency in revising our MUD policy because of all of the interest in developers and creating MUDs in these areas. And so I was just surprised that, you know, to find that we don't yet have that infrastructure in place, that checklist in place, I'm -- you know, that said, you know, obviously we have these time concerns. I seconded Mayor Pro Tem's move to deny because of -- and I appreciate his pointed questions about how much of it -- you know, would this make a difference? The answer made sense to me. I'm certain that within -- in an extra week more can be done to, you know, get more information but a traffic study, you know, can't be done in a week. There are other elements of this higher bar that we had discussed that just can't be done in a week. So I would rather postpone than vote now. But I am not likely to approve it when it comes back to us next week unless there's -- you know, staff has done the impossible during a week and I would not expect -- and I will not be upset with staff for not having done all these things in a week that could really -- sorry, I accidentally turned my speaker off. So anyway, I will vote yes to this move to postpone. But I am definitely just leaning towards a no. Okay. So we have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer, seconded by Councilmember McGuire to postpone to a date certain December 14th. Any other comments? Seeing none, Councilmember Bec, I'll say you. Aye. Councilmember McGuire. Aye. Councilmember Armitage. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Meltzer. Aye. Councilmember Byrd. Aye. Councilmember Davis. Aye. That's with an aye, passed 7-0. Thank you, staff. Takes us to item A, which is DCC 210001, consider approval of resolution of the City Council of the City of Denton, Texas, approving a certificate of design consistency for a mural entitled Time and Space. Okay. Apologies. Let me get this started. So good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. Cameron Robertson, Historic Preservation Officer and Principal Planner for the city. So tonight I'm going to be discussing DCC 21001, a proposed mural for 101 West Hickory. So located in the Denton Square District overlay, 101 West Hickory is at the southwest corner of Hickory and Locust, just north of Walnut. The proposed mural is entitled Time and Space and is proposed for the south rear facade along West Walnut Street and along the southern portion of the east facade, just along South Locust Street. So the photos show the south and east facades of the building. As you can see of the rear facade, the wall is essentially flat and featureless except for a central entranceway, mechanical equipment and a metal canopy constructed in the facade is also constructed of concrete paneling. On the east facade along South Locust, there are two discernible facade sections. The southern portion of the facade is primarily comprised of red brick with concrete panels. The facade is highlighted with concrete detailing, brick medallions and pilasters. So this is the applicant's proposed mural, Time and Space. As previously stated, the mural is proposed for that rear facade and would wrap around to the side along the east facade. As provided in your exhibits, the mural's design as provided by the applicant draws a connection between space and Denton's history over time. So there are five criteria that the new murals located within the Denton Square District must comply with, but I'm going to be covering just the last four. So criteria states that the mural must be compatible with architectural and aesthetic components of the building or structure on which it is installed. So as shown on the previous slides, the mural on the rear facade does provide some visual interest due to the lack of architectural detail, but as that mural wraps around to that eastern facade, the mural does detract from the architectural detailing such as that brick medallions and that concrete detailing. The proposed mural overall is not compatible with the neutral aesthetics of the surrounding buildings and the architectural character of the building itself. Criteria three states that the proposed mural cannot detract from the district's character and cannot be detrimental to the public. Though it is not detrimental to the public, the proposed mural does not align with the character and the history of the square. Both facades are highly visible from South Locust, which is a primary gateway to the district, and the mural itself seems to be more representative of the individual business. Criteria four states that the murals may not cover more than 25% of the total area of the facade fronting the square, as you all have seen on the previous slides and on the photos shown, this criteria is not applicable. Criteria five states a mural must not be painted on existing unpainted brick or stone surfaces, as shown highlighted here in red. The mural is proposed to be painted on concrete surfaces. So the proposed mural does not comply with the design standards for the murals in the Denton Square District, according to DDC subsection 4.10.78. And I am happy to take any questions, and the applicant is here as well if you have any questions for him. >> Great. Councilmember Davis. >> Thank you, Mayor. Could you go back to slide 5? I'm sorry. I know you just closed your presentation. >> Okay. No worries. >> And while you're bringing it up, my question primarily is, so it complies with all the other criteria except for pretty much the ones listed on slide 5. Is that correct? >> That is correct. >> My question is this. The question of compatibility with character and whether it detracts from the character is in keeping with the kind of the aesthetic we're going for in a historic town square. Fairly subjective. How does staff go about evaluating that? I mean, it's kind of like asking, you know, what is art or what art is appropriate for a particular place? And how does staff evaluate that? >> So, staff, as you see the criteria, this is exactly how we're going through it. We're looking at the broader picture of the district. We're looking at the criteria provided in the DDC, and we're trying to make the best judgment possible based off what we're provided. But I agree it is subjective. >> Okay. So, I mean, guess, is it the -- is the proposed theme, I guess, kind of the thematic elements of the mural that are not consistent with a -- in staff's opinion, are not consistent with a historic, you know, 1890 to 1920 kind of a downtown? Or what -- what exactly is it about the mural that's not compatible with the aesthetic downtown or detracts from our historic downtown character? >> So, with it being the gateway into our district, having kind of this space and time theme, we -- with staff and looking at the criteria, it doesn't seem -- it seems to be more complementary of the business itself. It's not really complementing this historic downtown area. So, when you're driving into South Locust or from south to north on South Locust, you know, that's going to be one of the first things that draws your eye. And if you've never visited Denton, you know, or you've lived here your whole life, it's kind of, okay, well, what does that story of that mural tell? When you're looking at other murals potentially in the district, you know, with, you know, the motorcycle or theme on 122th Locust or the elephant playing piano on Cedar Street, you kind of have that connection of music with Denton and kind of that fun atmosphere. You kind of have that western theme that you've seen. And some of these murals also in the district were implemented before this overlay was implemented. So, that was staff's analysis was looking at it from not only just the building itself, but having to look at it from the broader aspect of the district. >> Sure. Thank you. And, you know, I'm going to kind of respectfully disagree with the recommendation. Kind of as a matter of opinion, I think the kind of a far out spacey theme says just as much about Denton and the folks that inhabit it as a nice brick facade. And I appreciate that they're not putting the mural on the facade, but I happen to appreciate the way that they've blended the masonry elements and then they've got these stucco elements that are just kind of meh, and they're putting something kind of cool on there. So, respectfully disagree with the staff's recommendation on that part. >> Councilman Brett. >> Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And, again, for the second item, I share Councilor Davis's concerns and questions. If -- and something you just said prompted my initial question here, and that is, if the murals that predate our plans were to be added now, would we have approved them? >> I cannot say. I would have to review each mural individually, according to our DDC. >> Because I guess my question goes to we have a history of having murals on the corners of our squares, some of them quite outlandish in aesthetic and color, and I will only speak for myself that I kind of dig them. So, you know, it definitely made my kids go to the square and recycle records and things like that more than they would have otherwise growing up here. And the long-term residents, I encourage you to tell us how you feel about those murals. But I guess the real issue is the applicability of the guidelines. And so this is why I know that we have to be careful of regulating content. I put that in the questions to staff. And so I guess I had a secondary question of the -- if we had a space scene, but it was actually the real sky ephemera of the actual stars, and staff provided -- or the western sky as an addendum, those would still be stars and space and sky, and yet that might be more acceptable. So I guess my question on that regard is, too, I feel like we're getting real fine here. And I guess I'm going to -- I'm kind of anticipating leaning against the recommendation of staff and just be more accepting of that. But I guess do you happen to know if the applicant would be interested or accepting of a space scene that was kind of more in tune with what staff feels might be acceptable for the DSD? I cannot speak for the applicant, but I know he is here, and he could answer that question for you. I'm the president and CEO of Freeplay, Incorporated. The exact alignment of the stars, we'd be open to any suggestion. If I can paint this ugly wall, I would be happy to. That's actually -- I mean, our biggest motivation is it's kind of an eyesore, and it backs up to an alley that has a really eclectic kind of building situation, and I want to make it look cooler. So that's the goal. But, yes, we're absolutely open to input, and we'll -- I mean, whatever it takes to kind of get this -- I'm here to do it. So I guess -- are you about to speak, Scott? Otherwise, I'll give my direction on that one. Yes, and maybe this will simplify. Ultimately, staff didn't necessarily make a recommendation. We were just evaluating criteria, so it is, you know, very subjective. The reason that it comes to council, and the very reason that we put it in that way, is for council to make the decision. So, again, if the bulk of council is satisfied, content with what it is, we're just bringing forth the information. So Cameron is working through what it is that the code requires us to do. We bring it before you, and then ultimately you can make the decision. Well, I guess if -- I will do -- these nuanced ones suck for you guys. I'm sorry. If you and the applicant might come up with a plan that does not regulate the content but matches the aesthetic while achieving the space-time goals of the applicant, I would love to see both stakeholders satisfied. But if that isn't the case, then I'm going to probably align with Councilor Davis and disagree with staff on that one. And I don't know that we should put staff in a position to ultimately make the design. I'm happy with whoever the artist is and whatever that they're providing. We're truly just looking at what the standards are, and primarily those standards were put in place that the facades of the building on the square proper, as well as those that are just natural brick today, could retain that way. And so again, I would hate to have staff put in a position that all of a sudden they're doing design work on somebody's private building, and just my preference not to do that, if that's acceptable. In that regard, then I guess I will completely side with Councilor Davis and respectfully disagree with the recommendations. And it's not a recommendation. That's right. Yeah. Thank you. Councilor Arnter. Yes. So I'm relieved to hear that. I am going to move to approve this mural as is. And can you go to the slide that shows the number four that with the photo from the different angles? Sure. No problem. Let me share that real quick. Oops. Sorry. Okay. Thank you. So I just want to, in a sense, this ordinance puts Council in an awkward position. It's an awkward position for staff to be in, too, for anyone to be in, of deciding kind of whether something matches or not when you're not talking about your own living room, you know, but public space, right? Now, I'm relieved that we're no longer kind of talking about making it more of a dent in sky theme, you know, or something like that, or working out some sort of compromise, because, you know, the cliché is true that we all live under the same sky. So and I just want to show that, you know, in this slide, the sky, the actual real sky, the natural sky, is a bright blue and white. Of course, it changes at different times of day that is really well matched by the blue and white here. So it complements the actual sky that has always been here, even before this building was ever constructed. You know, so I think that we, and architects, I mean, I'm not an architect, but you know, but I know that when they build and an artist, when they design, they're not just thinking about the human-made environment and being compatible with the human-made environment, but being compatible with the environment in general, which includes both human-made and natural elements. And I think that this does this in such a cool way that fits. And I made the same argument about the mural on the side of Andes, you know. It's hard for me to think of something that wouldn't. So anyway, I strongly approve of this as is. And I think that, you know, in the future, we should just, you know, be careful with just trying to, you know, tell artists, you know, what they should and should not do. So I appreciate, you know, staff saying we don't want to get involved in that. And I appreciate Council Member Beck saying, okay. Then we'll just go back to having it as is. I agree with him that it's cool. And I think it's beautiful. And I think it is highly compatible with the space. Okay. So I just want to, I want to add a timestamp here. I get it that we want to talk as much as we want, but it's 10.30 almost. Staff's got to be right back at eight in the morning. We've made a commitment and done well on time. And we still have three more items. I would just ask us to hit the basics. People will know you support it when you vote yes. And then you can also feel free to ignore me and string the meeting out as long as you want. I understand that as well. I'm just making a timestamp notice that it is super late and staff has to be right back. And it's been a very long day. And I'm trying to be considered of their time. And at the same time, not put rigid constraints on people because that doesn't work either, just trying to make a record so that people understand where we are. Mayor Proctor Meltzer. Yeah. Thanks, Mayor. I'll try to just say things that haven't already been said, would probably feel different if it was on the side facing the square. The fact that- Excuse me. I think there might be a point of order here. Are we in, have we done a second on this before we have a discussion or are we still in a question phase? I'm kind of confused where we are. I thought Council Member Armitage moved and I didn't hear a second on it for us to go into any kind of discussion on it. You're correct. I didn't acknowledge her movement in her conversation. She just noted that, but I did not want to truncate the substantive dialogue because I didn't ask for a movement. It was just offered. It's there, but I'm not recognizing it because we're still talking. So we're still in the question and answer phase? That is correct. With that. Okay. All right. I'm sorry. I'm willing to make my comments after the motion and as part of the discussion, either way. Council Member Davis. I'll second the motion. Thank you. Mayor Proctor. Yeah. Thanks. So try to be brief. It would feel different if it was on the side facing the square. It's not. The way that it is on the side, where it's interpenetrated with, so you kind of see the kind of historical style and with this as like a thing underneath it, I think is cool. It's weird to have to vote on what's cool, but I think it actually, you know, just my honest opinion is a great introduction to the square. It says there's something really lively and innovative and cosmic here beneath this historical style facade. So I'm going to be voting yes. Okay. Anyone else? Council Member Burke. Yes. I'm going to be voting yes, but I do want to remind us of a time when we, I don't know if you all remember when we, the proposition came up to paint the old Opera House purple. And that was the biggest thing that was going on at the time. And everybody was all up in arms with that whole entire building being painted purple. And then also remember the time when Andy's came up for this exact same thing. But what I do want to also put in, in, you know, in our basket is that I can imagine us doing this exact same thing when it comes to these flags. That's not just trying to step back, but just trying to, you know, kind of put everything in perspective here is that we're going to decide and pick and choose and then we want them to use this color and we don't want them to use this color and can we do stars and can we do this and do that? And not allowing this gentleman to come to us with what he wants on his building. So, you know, just to put that all in perspective, I will go with Councilman Davis. I think that he put it best that I'll just want to agree with this opportunity here. So I want him to do what he wants to do. I think it's going to make for the more eclecticism of, is that a word? Eclecticism of the community. And so I'm all for it. I think it is great. Okay. Councilman Davis. Thank you, Mayor. I'll be very brief. I just want everybody to be really clear and I think everybody has said something, some version of this, but I want to be very clear for staff. This is, I think, employing and complementary to the criteria in the overlay. The overlay is doing exactly the job we asked it to, protecting the historical character of the architecture, not painting over the bricks, and just putting the artistic element onto the stucco surface or the concrete surface. So the overlay is working perfectly in this regard and I don't want anybody to have a misimpression about that or a future applicant to think, you know, it's wheels off, the overlay doesn't matter. We're doing it within the criteria we've got. Okay. Anyone else? Seeing none. We have a motion by Councilmember Armitage, a second by Councilmember Davis. Councilmember Armitage, I'll say you. I approve. Councilmember Davis. Aye. Councilmember Betz. Aye. Councilmember McGuire. Aye. Mayor Franti-Melzer. I am thanking you to the applicant for bringing some more vitality to the square. Councilmember Burt. Aye. Mayor Hutspeth is a reluctant aye. It's a little big for me, so I'm not crazy about it, but here's what I'd ask staff to do in all sincerity. Please take a look at that intersection, right, because if he's going to put that mural there, then people are going to want to walk cross, take pictures, not pay attention to cars, that sort of thing, right, and not that that's a super busy street, but it is a street that people drive the wrong way all the time, and you can sit there and watch it happen all day. So we have to address that intersection from a pedestrian standpoint because they're going to be looking forward at something and not paying attention to the car coming the wrong way down the street that would potentially put them in harm's way. So we just need to acknowledge that, hey, there's just going to be this thing in a way and it's a traffic impediment, and let's get in front of that. Thank you. Takes us to item B, which is ID 212149. Consider approval of the resolution casting votes for membership to the board of directors of the Denton Central Appraisal District, providing an effective date. Good evening, Mayor, Council, Cassie Ogden, Director of Finance. I'm here to get council direction on your vote for the board of directors for the Denton Central Appraisal District. You may recall we had nominations in October where two members were, or two candidates were nominated, and then again on November 12th, council was provided an informal staff report with the candidate bios. So just way of brief presentation. This is just a reminder from the October presentation, just of the board of directors' role. Again, the directors do not set the values, they really set the budget and hire the chief appraiser. You can see the chart of the current board of members. So in total, all votes for all tax units equal 5,000. The city of Denton has 170 votes. So we've kind of gone through this nomination process during this last couple of months. Again, the city did nominate Brian Webb and Howard Martin on October 12th. The DCAD compiled the list of nominees and sent us a total of 17 candidates. And with that memo in exhibit two, as mentioned, Brian Webb did indicate he does not want to be reappointed. And now we're here to get direction on your vote. You may cast all of your votes for one candidate or split the 170 votes among multiple candidates. And with that, I'll take any questions. Yeah, I just have a question about confirming the make-up of the group. What's the make-up? Is it all male, female, female? Do you know the make-up of the current board? I guess that's on the slide you presented, right? Is it Charles Stafford, David? Yes, that is the board. Got it. Yeah. I hope we -- I know that Ann -- and I'm going to say her name wrong -- I won't butcher it. But she's from Denton, and I think it would be a good representative there to diversify that board a bit and give it a new look. And again, it's a Denton person. So we'll see. There's a movement. So we'll see where he's going and if I can support that. Mayor, put him out there. That's a valid consideration. I'm going to put forward the candidates that I had in mind and we'll see how the conversation goes. I move that we divide the vote 85 for Howard Martin, former assistant city manager of Denton, and 85 for Rick Wolfock, who's served in a number of capacities in the community. Okay. Is there a second? Councilmember Davis? I'll second that motion. Okay. Councilmember Armitage? I have the same concern as Mayor Hussbett, you know, looking at the list of male candidates and, you know, wondering about the larger makeup. I would certainly be open to, you know, hearing of any nominees who are women or would provide any other kind of diversity to this board of directors that does not seem all that diverse to me. Okay. Yeah. And I'll just say, I mean, I think the bio I have here, you know, she's and being from Denton, her service on the United Way Board, and she had 27 years with TI and is leadership roles and seven years as executive director, TI Foundation. I just think it's just, yeah, it's important. So I'm not going to support this, not that those, obviously I like Howard a lot. Wolfock I'm sure will be great. I'm just not going to support this slate and I just wanted to express why. Any other comments? Seeing none, Councilmember Bec, how say you? Okay. Councilmember McGuire. Aye. Mayor Hutzpeth is a nay. Councilmember Davis. Aye. Mayor Pro Temelter. Aye. Councilmember Armater. No. Councilmember McGuire. You already took my. I didn't hear. I didn't catch what you said. So I'm sorry. I didn't hear it. So I got it. Thank you. Councilmember Burke. That fails four to three by my math. Did you hear the same thing? Okay. So I'll take a new motion, Councilmember Armater. I didn't make a motion. Yeah, I'll do it. We nominate Howard Martin and Anne. Please help me articulate her last name. I'm going to butcher it. Yes. And Anne. Sorry. She's listed as number 11 on the candidate list. Okay. Thank you. Is there a second? I second. Okay. Councilmember Burke, thank you. So we have a motion by Mayor Hutzpeth second by Councilmember Bird for Howard Martin and Anne. I'm going to take a shot at it. And so have a motion second. And so we'll vote. Councilmember Beck. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, did you have a number distribution in your motion? I did not. Fair point. So I would say half each, I guess, if that's customary. So thank you for that. So amend my motion to mean that there would be half, the votes would be split evenly between Howard Martin and Anne. And do you accept that amendment, Councilmember Armater? Yes. Yes. Oh, Bird. I'm sorry. Bird. Oh, yes. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. City Attorney. Okay. Then we're all square, I think. Yep. And so Councilmember Beck, thank you again. I say you. Aye. Councilmember Guare. I'll vote aye to this one as well. Okay. Councilmember Armater. Yes. Mayor Portemelzer. Aye. Councilmember Davis. Aye. Councilmember Bird, did I see you already? Aye. Okay. And Mayor Husspeth is aye as well. That passes 7-0. Thank you. Takes us to item C, ID 212664, consider adoption of ordinance of the City of Denton and Texas Home Rule Municipal Corporation, authorizing the city manager to execute a contract with Presidio Network Solutions Group, LLC. Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Let me get this prepped for you. Good evening. I'm Curtis Conrad. I'm the Enterprise Infrastructure Manager for the city, and I'm here to present to you a purchasing contract related to some of the core technology we use here in the City of Denton. The Technology Services Department maintains two data centers that house redundant systems to support all the city's business applications as well as public safety and the utility departments. Each of these data centers is connected to over 40 city facilities through a large fiber network provided by the city's fiber department. The infrastructure utilizes hardware and software from three major technology companies, Cisco, Dell EMC, and VMware. Our goal with this RFP was to establish a contract with the vendor to help us manage, support, and grow this complex environment to support the city's technology needs over the next five years. Okay. This is a breakdown of some of the expenses for the projected equipment replacements, construction projects that have been announced, and some of the early projects that are in planning. We've also included professional services for those projects that will require outside resources. So within the construction projects, we noted potential construction projects. These are projects that are in early design phases, so we don't know the full cost or the technology needs for these areas. Now, the junction is actually a project that has just recently moved over into a working project that we're actually actively working to outfit as they will be getting that facility ready. The other projects are projects that we're planning to support over the next five years, and we know that there will be others. So through the RFP process, Presidio Network Solutions Group was selected and is being recommended for approval. And now I will take any questions you might have. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So one of the things that concerned me is that, not concerned me, but that I had a question about is a lot of it, we seem to have basically camera and storage and there's a few server nodes and services that seem, and so I guess I was a little unclear from the presentation. Hope you can enlighten me. So the levels of off-prem and on-prem services that are being covered by this proposal, and the reason I'll put into context the reason I bring that up to help illustrate your answer is because we know some of these cycles can run to three years instead of five to seven, like we'd really like, because that's just the cycles of these kinds of things sometimes. And so there's a lot of really excellent reasons to have it on-prem, but considering the tight cycles and the fact that you're going to upgrade in potentially the middle of the contract, I was curious if you'd looked at off-prem and cloud services for some of these elements as an effort to sort of leapfrog over into the full contract at the next cycle. Does that make sense when I'm asking? We definitely look at the hybrid of being on-prem and as in the cloud as well for economical reasons as well as trying to maximize the storage for whatever the camera or data storage that we need. So any projects that we have listed, when we actually get to the area that we'll be defining what we're going to do and how we're going to go about that, we will be looking at the options we have. Should we put more in the cloud this time? Should we keep some on-prem? And what's the best solution for it to meet the business needs as well as the cost of all this? Because it is very expensive type equipment. Recently we have been moving more of our file shares and things to the cloud where we're really kind of more of a hybrid. We're keeping those active files and those active systems locally and starting to keep some of that historical type data back up in the cloud. It's a lot cheaper than the disk space that we would have to buy to house in one of our data centers. So we use a hybrid approach to what we're doing. So that hybrid approach is built in to this RFP in this model or this is all just physical servers? Again, this is just a contract that we would use to utilize for any type of replacements that we have through a project in the future over the next five years. So we have not built in any certain expectation into this contract. We leave all that to when we actually define out what that business requirement is going to be. So this just gives us the option that if we still want it all on-prem, we have that option. If we want to go to the cloud, then we have that option as well to make the best use of cloud in the future. Perfect. That's exactly what I was concerned about. Sounds like you have it well in hand. Thank you. Any other questions for staff? I'll take a motion. Council Member Beck? Motion to approve. Thank you. Council Member Davis? Second. Great. Motion by Council Member Beck, second by Council Member Davis. Any other discussion? Seeing none, Council Member Beck, I'll say you. Aye. Council Member Davis? Aye. Council Member McGuire? Aye. Council Member Armitage? Yes. Mayor Fulton Meltzer? Aye. Council Member Byrd? Aye. And Mayor Hutz with his ayes. Well, that passes 7-0. Thank you very much. Thank you. That takes us to our last item, ID 212609. Consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton authorizing the City Manager or designee to enter into a development agreement between City of Denton and VV 52 Denton LP. I'm trying. Let me, where did it go? It was here earlier. This is my first time. Okay. I'm sorry. No, where did it go? There's your own. We did this earlier. Good evening. Drew Huffman, Assistant Director of Parks and Recreation. We're here for a Parkland Dedication presentation. I'll try to make this short and sweet and fun, right? That's what we have to do with parks. So this is Vintage Village Parkland Dedication. I'll show you the site location. It is at Vintage and 377, right here in this area. If you can see my mouse. The dedication details. So according to our current park dedication development, this subdivision only owes us a little less than an acre and $34,000. So dedication and acre development fees is $34,000. They are giving us just under 25 and a half acres, so 24.25, excuse me, 0.4 acres. Very, very nice little piece of land, trees, two ponds. There's already some wildlife trails in this area, and a few wildlife were there whenever I visited just a couple months ago. So benefits to the city. So this is part of our open space preservation. This will give us a neighborhood park for our 10 minute walk campaign in this area. The residents that have been there quite a while off of Vintage Boulevard do not have a park at this time, and this will help us with that 10 minute walk in that area. And also, we'll have possible, well, we will, as it lies right now, future connections to Bonnie Bray and the future Southwest Park. And so this also does fit in with our master plan that we'll be finalizing and bringing to you next month. And this falls into our Denton 2040 plan. So, without any further ado, if we have any questions. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember McGuire? Thank you so much. Can you speak to the status of the gas well that is on? Yes, ma'am. That gas well, the developer has capped that gas well and is going away. Excellent. Thank you so much. Councilmember Beck? I move approval. Okay. Councilmember Armitage? I second that. Okay. Motion and second. Discussion? Seeing none. Councilmember Beck, House, are you? Aye. Councilmember Armitage? Yes. Councilmember McGuire? Aye. Mayor Plotin-Melter? Aye. Councilmember Davis? Aye. Councilmember Byrd? Aye. Mayor Hudson-Spathisai as well. That pass is 7-0. Thank you. Thank you. That takes us to concluding items and Councilmember McGuire, you are going, are you, is now a good time or? I mean, I'm prepared to speak about the changes to DCTA. Sure. I know it's late. If you all want me to power through and just, okay. I did have a presentation to share. If, yeah, Fryden could pull it up or something. We're going to pull it up for you. And I'll kind of, there's a lot of text on it and I'm not going to actually read all of it. That's just to remind you what to talk about. Yeah. You don't have to read it. So obviously, this past Thursday, the DCTA Board of Directors met and made quite a lot of decisions that are going to be impactful for our community. I'm going to start with just a brief sort of update, just three slides kind of updating on the state of ridership right now and then I'll go into the changes that were approved by the DCTA Board. So if you could go to the next slide there. So the upshot of that first slide is just that GOZONE is heavily utilized. It's very popular. Wait times are a bit longer than we would prefer. I would add to the operational challenges and acknowledgement that there have been some safety issues. There were, as of three weeks ago, there were at least 10 accidents that have been reported. No serious injuries with any of them, but it is an issue that needs to be addressed. Moving on to the next item. This is the dashboard showing GOZONE data. Takeaways are GOZONE is especially popular in Denton. One thing that you probably can't tell from this view is that GOZONE is especially popular around the UNT campus. Several members of the public and members of this council have asked me about this dashboard and making this available to the public. That is in the works, but there is a licensing issue that's being worked through. So it might be a month or so before this is available to the public, but this will be on the DCTA website eventually. If you go to the next slide, please. This I thought was very noteworthy. As of October, the combined ridership of Connect Service and GOZONE has now exceeded pre-pandemic Connect ridership levels. Some noteworthy details. I think we are at approximately 30,000 rides per month with GOZONE, and that is more or less the capacity of the service. If demand for GOZONE continues to rise, we are going to have to expand the contract and pay more money for that contract, whereas, of course, Connect's costs are fixed and there's a great deal more capacity available on Connect Service. Moving on to the next slide, these are the changes that are effective as of December 24th of this year. And I would like to note, I just learned yesterday, I got confirmation from DCTA's attorney that there are no layoffs planned as a result of the elimination of these three routes, which is very good news. The three routes that are being eliminated are Denton Connect Route 1, which, yes, I'm bummed about. That's my route, but the data just wasn't there to support keeping it. Same with Lewisville Connect Routes 21 and 22. So now we're going to move on to the changes that will be implemented between January and March of 2022. The goal is to implement these changes as quickly as possible because we are struggling to provide on-time service because of a shortage of drivers and the proposed route schedule and fare changes are designed to relieve some of the pressure on the Connect Service right now that is causing delays and depressed ridership because of the delays. And note that there are no changes planned for the UNT service at all. So moving on to the next slide. The gray line is the current Denton Connect Route 2. The light blue line is what the route will change to at some point before March of 2022. And we'll just burn through these pretty quickly. The next slide is Denton Connect Route 3. You can see it's being shortened significantly. There's a little loop being added kind of between 288 and Mayhill that will cover a lot of those agencies like the County Health Department, MHMR, Serve Denton, which are going to no longer be served by Route 4. They will now be served by Route 3 instead. Moving on to Denton Connect Route 4. You can see Route 4 is going to be shortened significantly. Very significant changes to Route 4. Denton Connect Route 5. This is a new route on the next slide here. Does not bury any relation to the old Denton Connect Route 5. It's a new route. That's what it's going to look like. Denton Connect Route 6. You can see the gray lines are where some service is being cut out. Denton Connect Route 7. You can see the loop around the university is being eliminated because the university is served by a lot of other services. The next slide has a lot of text on it. I hope you like my little corrections. Graphic design is my passion. To summarize this, most routes will be starting later and ending earlier and will be running more frequently. This is because of significant changes in ridership patterns that we've been seeing across the transit industry, but especially in Denton. There really is no longer a morning rush hour and an evening rush hour. Ridership is peaking in the middle of the day now. It really makes a lot of sense to trim off the first and last hour of service. Next slide includes proposed changes to pricing. Currently, GoZone is under a promotional rate of $0.75 per ride as a flat rate. Of course, Connect and A-Train, it's a $1.50 fare. I think it's very noteworthy that the consultants from VIA acknowledged that the current pricing schedule is the opposite of what is considered best practice in the industry. It was never intended to be permanent, of course, and so the proposal includes possibly at some point in the future reducing or eliminating fares for fixed routes, raising the base rate of microtransit to $1.50. It will be $1.50 in all of the GoZone areas that are not served by Connect Service, so Louisville, Highland Village, Castle Hills. That will be $1.50 per ride for GoZone. And in the Denton Connect Service area, it will also be $1.50 per ride for GoZone if users are connecting to, for example, the Downtown Transit Center or other heavily utilized fixed route hubs because we want to encourage people to use GoZone to get to and from fixed routes as opposed to using them instead of fixed routes. For those users who choose to use GoZone in place of fixed routes, they will be charged $0.50 per mile. And then the last slide here, I crossed out all of the options that we did not go with. The net position impact to DCTA as a result of continuing the Denton Connect Service in modified form will be $1,019,290. We are approximately $4 million over projections for sales tax revenue for this year. So sales tax revenues are going to more than absorb the impact of the decision to keep the Connect Service. There we go. That's it. >> Okay. Thank you. Let me pivot this back. Okay. Thank you for that. Any other concluding items? I'm getting my screens coming back. Councilman Beck. >> Just a question. Regarding that last slide, that was a one-way direction of information, is that correct, Mr. Mayor? >> Well, you can give any feedback. I have feedback so by all means. >> Okay. Exactly. You anticipated my question. So as a way of floating this to the mobility committee and questions in similar nature, one thing that was brought to our attention just yesterday was the AWS outage and inability to utilize GoZone and considering that we're using it as a fundamental component of our infrastructure, I would like if the mobility committee would interact with DCTA and inquire about failover and high availability responses. And we saw with Curtis earlier, you know, this issue of on-prem services and off-prem services and what is DCTA's response to this since it is such a fundamental part of our infrastructure. And then more locally for us, my second thing I would like the mobility to discuss with city manager and DCTA is perhaps there on May Hill, we stopped just short of Ryan. Is there any expectation that we will be forcing pedestrian traffic up and down McKinney by doing that? And I don't know if that answer is a city manager question, traffic analysis locally, a DCTA question. And I know we already have pedestrian traffic up and down McKinney. That's the whole point of the sidewalks. But I just want to be mindful of what are the ramifications of enhanced pedestrian traffic to and from Ryan and Ashley Oaks because of the stoppage and what is not our responsibility but what is something that the city might want to keep its eye on as a mobility question in response to those DCTA changes. And I'm not sure we're on the equation that is that a DCTA thing or is that a city thing, but that's why it flowed. Okay. Any other comments for concluding items? Then I just want to give a reminder for council, the criteria manuals are coming back next week. Staff is only presenting the significant changes only. So if you have detailed questions or anything that's not or want to know what significant changes looks like, please get with the city manager staff and have those conversations in advance of the meeting because they they're only going to talk about targeted items with respect to the criteria, criteria's manual. If there's also been updates in the Friday reports, if you need those dates, staff can provide those to you as well. I want to thank staff if for those that did not know staff hosted the state of Texas is attorney general offices opioid conversation here recorded it for them and we we they've we have a settlement that's come in. Maybe you can put something in the Friday report about how what's going on with that amount is and so those will continue to roll in continue to utilize those dollars. But I thank staff for kind of taking that initiative getting those things done. Then for those watching salvation army wise, we're going to support them ringing a bell that's all day on the 10th. So staff will be there throughout the day fire department later part of the day with a truck. So I'll be there at 10. Just please that so that's Walmart on University Drive. So we're going to city didn't we're going to ring the bell all day on the 10th at the Walmart on University Drive. And then for DCT update I think thank you for that. I hope we can do that regularly. But I'll say this I am concerned about UNT their new contract doesn't come up till 2025. If they're manipulating the go zone service I'd like to hear something what we're going to do about that from either a geo fence to a to something to push those students to use the bus service and not monopolize the go zone. I couldn't imagine paying more for the go zone and not charging UNT more if they're the the the the resource heavy resource user something has to be done to create either offense or charge them more to make up for those costs. I would think really in the key thing I hear you say though that I'm going to focus in on is the trips grants because the fact that sales tax is better doesn't mean that the DCT gets to keep more of our money. And that's the way the matrix works. And so I'm really going to be passionate about making sure that trips grant right now we get about 1 million back. But we're giving them 14 million dollars a year this year and it's only going to go up. I expect more of that to come back to us and not get sucked up in usage costs because we need to use that money for sidewalks etc etc. And I just think we pay them too much. And then safety. I just want to say I mean as much as as many challenges as the via drivers do present. I think it is great from a safety perspective. If you have to look at the news and look at people that have been attacked by assaults by Uber or Lyft drivers. There's no regulation there. So having that regulation I think is important especially for college kids and Denton residents in general to make sure they can stay safe. And so I appreciate that service just need to tweak it a bit as you've indicated. Mayor Pritz and Meltzer. Yeah just briefly since folks are weighing in on the great update that Councilmember McGuire provided. I'll just highlight just one point said almost in passing. I just I just want to underscore how significant it is that for years ridership of public transit has been declining. And this is the first time that's not the case. By by bringing a combination of services. You got promotional pricing in there. There's lots to be worked out but that's massively significant and to me a goal worth funding. Okay anyone else? Okay then we'll conclude the last meeting 1103. Thank you.