Aug 10, 2022 Economic Development Partnership Board on 2022-08-10 11:00 AM

All right so at this time I will call at 11 38 a.m. Wednesday August 10th the Economic Development Partnership Board meeting. We will begin with items for consideration under heading 1 subsection A EDP 22-050 which is consider approval of the minutes of July 20th 2022. That was attached as Exhibit 2 and sent out to the board prior to today's meeting. At this time I will entertain a motion to approve the minutes as distributed. All right it's been moved and seconded at this point. Is there any discussion or suggested edits to the minutes of the July 20th 2022 meeting minutes. Hearing none I will call the vote. All those in favor please signify by saying aye. All those opposed please signify by saying nay. And the motion carries unanimously congratulations minutes. Going down to section B EDP 22-051 receive a report for discussion and make a recommendation to the City Council regarding an amendment to the Economic Development Partnership Board ordinance. That included three exhibits that went out with the pre-meeting packet including a draft red line of the EDP ordinance changes. This is something that's been discussed for quite some time. I think everyone's aware of this coming down the pipeline to make things easier but we will go ahead and let the change be presented for discussion. Thank you. Thank you for that. So without further ado we'll get started. It's working out okay. All right so what's our objective today's we want to provide the recommended Economic Development Partnership Board ordinance changes regarding the the chamber the DIT and chambers representation. So the Economic Development Partnership Board was created in 2003. As hopefully most of you know you this is an advisory board that's in charge of implementing our economic development strategies, policy guidance, making recommendations to the City Council and chamber and reviewing any prospect perspective and Senate packages and also of course making those recommendations to City Council. The current structure of the EDP board is two City Council members, two chamber board members, two top 20 taxpayers, the UNT and TWU presidents, one member with aviation experience, one member of the Denton Black Chamber and one member of the Denton Hispanic Chamber and then lastly one at-large. So this current I guess configuration of the board came about in 2017 when there was a new ordinance passed which is which essentially added these bottom positions with the black chamber and Hispanic. So what are the recommended changes so we can look here and look at the original language and then the language that we are recommending that we add is we say two members will be nominated by the Denton Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and those members must reside or work within the City of Denton and so I think the real substance of change that we're seeing here is that currently the members from the Chamber of Commerce from the City of Denton have to be sitting board members so that's really the substantial change that we're here to talk about. And I'm happy to add just if there's any clarification needed currently the other two chambers don't have the requirement that it be a voting board position. The Denton Chamber of Commerce for whatever reason in the ordinance it has to be two current sitting board members. The terms are different as far as how long someone can sit on the Denton Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors than necessarily this board. What we don't want to do is hamper the continuity and institutional knowledge of saying hey we have to leave this board if we are no longer serving on the Denton Chamber of Commerce Board. Also the Denton Chamber of Commerce is limited in how many seats per our bylaws that we can give and as we push more with our DEI committee and are trying to be more diverse in all ways as far as this big business small business it really hampers our ability to bring in new perspectives and new people to carry the load of the Denton Chamber of Commerce. So it's been discussed for quite some time and I'm glad to have the opportunity now to explain that and to say that we would like on behalf of the chamber for the chamber to have the conduits here to the EDT board just as the Black Chamber of Commerce and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce have. But they do not have to take one of the board seats which are hard to come by. Is there a motion or discussion or question? Yes Mr. Boyd. On the recommendation that's going to be struck I see that the current such member must reside or work in the city of Denton. When you say member is member the organization a member that person is selected. But with the city of Denton how many people actually live within the city limits? So you're saying if a person doesn't live within the city drawn limit, an accounting limit, a DISD limit they are not eligible to serve on this board? These would just be representatives from the Denton Chamber of Commerce. That's the same these are the same wordings in with the Black Chamber members as well. It must be reside or live in the city. It's work or live. So that member must work or live or the other Denton Black Chamber address must be in the city. I don't know I don't have the language. You don't have that many members in the Black Chamber that actually live within the tax city limits of Denton. Corent, Lulham we have members like that but not in the city. I don't think I think there's one thing this the only one we're updating is for the the the overall chamber. Right. The other two policies are staying the same. We're not updating those am I correct? That's correct. Well I'm saying that's when regulation in this ordinance that the Black Chamber members and his Senate chamber member must reside in the city. Or work. Or work. Must reside or work in the city of Denton. This being a city of... That member or you say that member? Yes according to the ordinance. I'm not arguing it away I'm just saying that's how it's worded. That they reside or work. Whoever is appointed on this board needs to either reside or work in the city of Denton in order to be talking about the city of Denton's actions. If that's the case I need to submit my resolution today because I don't live in the city of Denton. I live 10 yards in Corent. So according to this I shouldn't be on this board as of today. Do you work here? No I don't. You volunteer somewhere. We'll consider that work. No but you're right I'm just talking. Assume assumptions you know. I get a little confused with assumptions. That will probably have to be something that one of the city attorney addresses that's not something that's under my purview. Councilmember Davis. Yeah. One of the reasons why I like the change of discussion today is because it mirrors what's already in place for the other two chambers. Does the other two chambers have the requirement you're talking about? The member has to reside or work in the city. That's the only qualification that's currently on the other two chambers. So this language would be duplicating that. It's not changing it. That's what's already in place. It's mirroring it and copying it for Denton Chamber if that makes sense. So I don't think what's proposed is any change to the black chamber and Hispanic chamber but the same broader requirement on the Denton Chamber if that makes sense. Why does he have to live in the city? And back to my point I need to then excuse myself. Well so that's so outside of this order for what's already in place is an issue that you're talking about. So what's the current policies in place? Maybe we need to because we do want retired people because that's a lot of wisdom for our city. We need to address that somewhere in our policies because work or have worked or retired we need to add that wording from our policy. That's actually a very good point. For this specific issue we're lining it up so all three chambers are the same. But for our policy I think we should put on our notes to maybe come back around and check that. Can we take a recess for five minutes? Is that meaningful to everyone? Are there any objections to a quick recess? And not to be adversarial but for this item or for what he's talking about? I need to discuss something with staff and with the chair. I will say I think that Mr. Gore your point is heard and that is something that you know can be addressed. It's not something that can be voted on today because it has to be published in the agenda so much ahead of time etc. I think it's part of the conversation that's something that can be continued and I don't know if that has to do with the break that we need but I know that we can't vote on that change today. It's just part of a conversation that we're having regarding the proposed change. Is that right? Councilmember Davis? I agree with that and then just one thing I'd like to kind of put on the record before we take a break is the language and the ordinance regarding qualification and nomination and appointment. If these organizations nominate a person, the City Council approves and appoints that person and the ordinance says that person shall serve at the City Council's pleasure. So which is common language right? So I think questions of qualification and who's to be on the board and who's not to be on the board are to be determined by the City Council. Now could somebody else bring something else up later on about that? Sure, but I think the ultimate decision about does someone meet the qualification in the ordinance is the council when they appoint, when they accept the nomination from the organization to appoint them. I just want to put that on the recording on the record. I think that maybe what we can do is request that be added to the next agenda that it be researched and looked into as far as where the requirement comes from if that's a requirement for all city boards. Is that a requirement just for this board and what kind of leeway the City Council has for the appointments? Does that sound acceptable to the City Attorney representative and the rest Mr. Gorey and the rest of the board? Right now it is 1150. We will reconvene at 1155 for a short break. Thank you everyone for your patience. Thank you everyone for your time. I certainly appreciate everyone and everyone's transparency and input. At this time we are going to conclude today's meeting because of the advice of the City Deputy Attorney that we may have lost form. This is something that's going to be further researched and looked into by the City Attorney's office today and as soon as there's a determination or suggestion of change or what have you we will let everyone know as soon as possible but because of the Open Meetings Act, because of other regulations that this work could run afoul of, it is on the City Attorney's office advice that we conclude today's meeting. I would ask that Councilmember Davis and Mayor Huxford would you mind staying just for five minutes for a quick conversation regarding this matter, the potential vote that didn't happen on the change of the order. It's not on the matter of who was in the board. Can I speak before we conclude the meeting just so I can have it on the record? Yes, now I don't think we have reforms, I don't think actually we have a meeting, but you can certainly speak to us. You can read my mind, but you've dealt with me enough. I'll talk to Mac more succinctly, but here we sit in a city where the charter is being challenged at every turn and we move forward, where the legal rights of officers are being challenged at every turn and yet we move forward. And in this advisory body we conclude because of a failure to nail down a detail, a miniscule detail, because if you want to drill down, if someone has a complete definition of work, because I know he's in the insurance business, so if he's getting residual from someone indenting and he checks on that, is that work? We don't have a fine definition of work. And so if we're gonna get down to this level of detail for an advisory committee meeting, then I expect the same shutdown at every level of this city and I will make that abundantly clear in the legal department. I want them to have the same approach everywhere, where not to be inconveniencing citizens for something that I think is absolutely miniscule. Quite taken. Thank you. And with that we are concluded for today. Thank you.