Aug 30, 2022 City Council on 2022-08-30 11:30 AM (Joint Special Called Meeting with the Denton Independent School District Board of Directors)

It is 11.39 a.m. on Tuesday, August 30th, 2022 when we do have, the Denton City Council does have a forum, so I'll call our meeting on order and then I'll turn it over to President Price, is that how it goes? Yes, President Price has a nice race here. Thank you, Mr. Westbenton. We note that the Director Snow that the Denton ISD Board of Trustees does have a forum as well, and we will call our meeting on order. Great, and then the first thing on the agenda is item A, ID 221548, receive report and hold discussion and give staff direction regarding safety initiatives for Denton ISD schools and facilities. Good morning, my name is David Mays, I'm the Director of Safety and Security for Denton ISD. I want to thank President Price and Mayor Hescliffe for letting us be here today. I'm also joined today by Sergeant Derek Braver, he works with the SROs in Denton, he's their direct supervisor. Alright, today we'll go over safety and security updates, some stuff that's sponsored by TEA in response to the Governor's initiative, SRO training and then the Denton Police Student Resource Officer Youth Program, that's a mouthful, but you can put it on a t-shirt. So the safety and security updates, so TEA in response to the evolutionary tragedy, at the prompting of the Governor's office in June, sent out a notice to school districts, letting them know that they needed to comply with certain security updates in order to start the next school year. And among those was a 47-point inspection of the schools. It was a safety audit, and for the board members, some of this will be reviewed, so I apologize, I'm covering the same ground with a couple of things. The 47-point inspection covers the items that are conducted in audits on a three-year basis, so every school in the district is looked at every three years on a rotation to check and make sure that safety and security aspects of the school are up to date, so that they have all their stuff for tornadoes, that they have different visitor policies, different things that they need to do to keep the school safe. In this particular instance, the Governor set the stage for this audit of each school to be done before kids came back over the summer, so that there was a baseline, that each school was as safe an environment as we could create for the students that were coming back. Additionally, there's a door inspection requirement. There are six aspects of the door inspection requirement, and the district very wisely chose to have their Director of Operations conduct that with his staff because he has a background in construction, which provides an opportunity for people who know what they're looking at to see, "Hey, is this or is this not a functional area that we need to work on?" They were given six different components to look at, and they took care of those, and I'm proud to say that the safety inspection of the doors and the 47-point inspections were conducted on all the schools before the kids occupied the schools, which was part of the Governor's mandate through TEA. Additionally, if a school is occupied by students, the mandate came back that you will check the exterior doors to make sure that they are working properly any week that students are in there, so even if you've got a partial week, you still have to check the doors to make sure, and that has to be conducted by a staff member of the district. That's a TEA regulation that goes to school district employees, not to anyone else. But in order to try to piggyback on that and create an even safer space, the Denton Police Department has its SROs going through the schools and checking the schools' exterior doors on a weekly basis as well. So you're getting double coverage on something the district does it, and we do it. Additionally, we assigned the SROs to have an elementary school so they could have an interaction. At least, they all have two, and then we have one that has one of the early childhood centers additional to that. But they're doing checks, and one of the things they're also doing is they're conducting checks with a patrol officer, having them come in with them. So they get some exposure to the school, they get some interaction with the students, they get some interaction with the teachers. It's a good thing for the school. Part of the office that you do with the district or with the state component is, is there a police presence in the schools? Well, with this being a weekly thing, I should always be able to answer yes. We have officers in the schools every week. You've got a patrol officer coming with a police officer with an SRO who can help that review. And then STOP-IT. That's our anonymous reporting system the district uses. So STOP-IT is a way for kids, parents, anybody to be able to report that, "Hey, I have a concern about what's going on in school." It could be something as small as, "Hey, somebody pushed me up to I think someone has a weapon in the school." Over the last year, the school districts had 285 reports. That's August to August. We didn't get any in the summer. You can see this small chart that's really too small for you to see, but I put it on there for posterity, right? There's a number of reports in the summer, but they had 285 instances that came in. So the school district has those, those come to myself, Dr. Russell, Ms. Obara, several different people. And depending on what the item is, if it's bullying, if it's something else that can be handled at the school level, it's handled at the school level. If it's something that's a threat, it comes to me. It also comes to me sometimes as a phone call at 3 o'clock in the morning that, "Hey, there's someone's making a report that there's a gun." It's some sort of an actual threat we think could be a danger to the students. And they call and say, "Hey, do you know about this? Have you heard about this?" If I haven't, say they woke me up, they explained it to me over the phone and asked if I would call the police department and let them know. I usually have to take care of that stuff myself. But STOPIT's a really good source for the kids. And some of the stuff that comes through may be kind of mundane to you, all right, but the gist of it is, is that if it concerns that kid, it makes their environment not safe for them. So we should address that. With that, I'm going to move over to the training aspect of what we do, and let Sargeant wrap it up. Good morning. Thank you all for allowing me to come speak with you and share what the SRO in the city of Denton has been doing over this past year since we talked last. I wanted to highlight some of the things that we've spent our time training on this past year. Last year and right before August came into it, we could. All of the Denton ISD SRO sessions for a week-long training walk kind of made that a tradition. So this year, give you some highlights from that week of training. Hopefully you're familiar with the organization called ALERT. It's Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training. They're based out of Texas State San Marcos, a university down there in San Marcos. And they do a lot of research-based best practices for engaging threats that are to our community, not just schools, businesses, etc. And they're endorsed by the FBI. They're the ones who did the evolving report. If you're familiar with that report, then we now study the incident. And so they're kind of the end-all, be-all in responding to threats as law enforcement officers. They have a class called AIR. They love the acronyms like anything with law enforcement, right? AIR stands for Active Attack Integrated Response. And the paradigm prior to a couple years ago with law enforcement active response training was just going in and stopping whoever was killing people, right? The active attack portion focuses on any attack. It's not just guns, could be knives, could be vehicles, could be fire, etc. You get my point. Anybody that's intending to commit homicide. And they do a holistic approach to that response where it's not just a solo or single officer response to the attack. It's also the managing the incident after the attack. So you get a lot of incident command training for line-mobile officers who don't, besides a couple FEMA classes that are done online, don't have a lot of training in that. So they build up that aspect of it of, yes, now we've stopped the killing. How do we stop the dying? The people that are in the area that was attacked and how do we get in there quicker to save them and provide them combat casualty care? Well, they have a rescue task force model. And so if you're not familiar with that, we take medics, pair them up with law enforcement officers and bring them in as soon as possible to get medical care to start treatment immediately. So that was a really great joint class we did with multiple agencies. We had all the Denton ISD agencies represented. If you're not familiar, that's Corinth, Denton County, Little Elm, Oak Point. I'm sure I'm missing some off the top of my head, so forgive me. And we have Water District, which is Elm Fork PD now. We also had the Office of Denton County Emergency Management come out. You can see from the picture they brought out with their mobile command center, they call it the LIHF because it's huge. So we got to utilize that in helping train these officers up on incident command to respond to those types of things. Really good partnership. They had some actors come out and get makeup and moulage on, so they were crisis actors to help it feel a little bit more realistic for that reality-based training. Can't say thank you enough to those folks. But we also had Bob Martinez, who's our incident manager, for the city to come out. So we're all starting to see a little bit more mesh and communication prior to any incidents taking place, which I think is fantastic. Another class we did was the Youth Mental Health First Aid. TECOL, the licensing agency that gives peace officers their licenses back in the last training cycle, required some mental health classes for every officer. And this was kind of a great refresher to bring up the mental health -- not crisis everywhere, but the mental health aspect. It ties really well into Denton ISD's social-emotional learning stuff, where you get skills to approach juveniles now, not just adults that are in mental health crisis, but our juveniles are having the same things happen to them. And this was a great resource for our officers to have some information that was given to them about local stuff that's available to our families if they need it, as well as the nuances with dealing with medical care with a juvenile, if perhaps an adult in their life doesn't want to consent to treatment or doesn't believe there's treatment necessary, all the different ins and outs and how to navigate through that process. So that was a really great class that we sent our team through. We also met with the Children's Advocacy Center multi-disciplinary team. We went through what they call a new team member orientation, where it's kind of an overall view of what services are offered at the advocacy center. Now, obviously, we've been working with them for years, but it's always good to come to the table and make sure that all best practices are refreshed for every officer and supervisors alike. So we had members from their team. We had City Denton detectives who were working child crimes cases in our schools, and that's victims as well as suspects that could be children is on to victimizing our children, and they're making outcries at schools for their trusted adult. So we met with all of them. We had victim services coordinator come out and talk to us. The representative from Denton County Juvenile Probation and their pre-trial diversion program came out and spoke. And again, it was really great to bring all of those assets to the table. Something really new for our team this year is we had all of our SROs do the Clifton Strength-Based Gallup Survey. If you're not familiar with that, Denton ISD has invested a lot of time, effort, energy, and money into this program where you take a quiz, basically a personality trait quiz, and based on how you answer and the time you answer, it will change which question you get next. And we've all heard of personality tests, right? Well, this one, just as most cops do, they came into this training a little skeptical. But then when myself and Lieutenant Mays offered up ourselves to Scott Spaulding, he's the Streets Coach Coordinator at Denton ISD. His sole job is to go out there and teach people how to utilize these strengths. He started giving our team members different personality traits that we have, either to a fault or to a good thing. And this guy, you know, we've only met over email. There wasn't any kind of preemptive meeting or anything, and it opened up some eyes that maybe there's some good information here behind these strengths. It takes 34 different traits, breaks them into four domains, and allows you to know what you're naturally good at and how to focus on making that better, as well as how to communicate better to others. That was the initial, we had a little four-hour class with him, and that was learning how we can communicate ourselves better with other individuals. And that's going to be an ongoing training piece where we'll learn all the different traits and how our strengths can communicate with other people's strengths better. All of Denton ISD staff and faculty take this survey, and ninth graders and up, as my understanding is that they all have the opportunity to take it. It's an abbreviated version for the students. They don't have all the traits on there, but that'll help us communicate with those kids that we're trying to mentor even better. So I'm really excited to get that going. Back in June, Lieutenant Mays and Officer Rick Howell and myself had the opportunity to go down to the Texas State School Safety Center School Safety Conference in San Antonio. And that's an annual thing that they put on down there through Texas State School Safety Center. And it's a wonderful conference chock-full of great information, great breakout sessions, where it's anything from how to do best practices in your lockdown drills to social-emotional learning and mentoring kids through a law enforcement lens. It's everything you need to do is safety. So we all went to all different breakout sessions and brought a bunch of stuff back. In fact, the Youth Mental Health First Aid was something we got exposed to down there, and I said we needed to bring that back to our officers, so that was one thing. Another class that they had a project we were working on was best practices in the building emergency response plan. Part of that safety audit that's done every three years with those campuses is looking at those response plans and making sure they're up to par. And right now, while every building has one, they're not all uniform. And that's something we want to try to shore up to where they're all uniform. Yes, each campus may deal with a unique emergency or a unique point of contention around their area and their community and their spaces for that. We want to see it all kind of standardized, much like our standard response protocol that all the district is using in response to emergency. Another thing here is the Gangs 101 class. We sent three of our SROs to a Gangs class put on by the Texas Department of Public Safety Department's Anti-Gang Task Force and Anti-Gang Unit, where they've got people who are trained regionally so that they get information on the gangs that are in our communities and in our region and the recruiting tools they use, the types of crimes they're involved in, recognize them and see what types of colors or flags or signs, et cetera, that they're using so that we know what to look out for as officers. And that pairs well with the -- the city has a new initiative, if you haven't heard, called the Violent Crimes Task Force. And the SRO unit is going to meet monthly with our Violent Crimes Task Force to see if there's any updates, upticks in violent crime in our communities that we need to look out for in our schools, whether the adults in the community have children there or our kids may be starting to be recruited by these people in the community so we can mentor them in a way for making those types of lifestyle choices. I'm looking forward to that partnership with them. And so this is kind of a highlight of most of the training we've done. But I want to point out that at the City of Denton, we -- you're a police officer first before you can become an SRO. So all of the things I mentioned prior to this is in addition to all of the base-level training that a patrol officer has to go through, such as firearms and tactics, defensive tactics, emergency vehicle operations, building searches, all of the standard police training. Well, the SROs have a very unique opportunity to engage with our community, especially our young people. And that's what we want to hone in on this overall encompassing safety aspect. We're reaching them as people first so that they can feel safe in their schools. And when they don't, they reach out to a trusted adult that doesn't have to be the SRO. And if they've got someone on campus they can trust, we can work together as adults and make that place, that learning community, safer. So I appreciate your time on the training portion there. Thank you. We can get back to the attendees here. All right. So the Denton Police State Resource Officer Youth Program. You'll notice that that's different than the Denton Police Summer Youth Program. And to explain why that's that way, look at these pictures. You have a picture of some people there with Santa Claus and a picture of Christmas tree. The picture there with Santa Claus has to do with a shoe drive that they wanted to have for Revere Elementary. They talked to the principal, Mr. White, said what do your kids need last year before Christmas and he said shoes. And so some of our kids from the Summer Youth Program gave up one of their days to come in and collect shoes at Golden Triangle Mall. And they ended up getting 33 pairs of shoes and 200 pairs of socks. The nice part about that is it gets them focused on something outside themselves. If you're like me, you know that you can think about the problems that you have in your life when you look at someone else's problems. Sometimes that gives you a little bit more clarity on where you really are in life. So that's a plus. And then we've also got the Christmas tree there. That was another initiative in order to get some coats. It was part of a coat drive to try to help get coats for some kids who didn't have winter coats. The great part about this is this is kids that are giving up their own time to give back. And that's really the important part in our community. You know, you got to serve members of a governing body because you were elected because you wanted to do something. You wanted to be civically minded. And that's what we're trying to teach these kids is that they need to be civically minded. And be able to focus on other people's concerns, issues, needs, because that makes them better citizens. It makes for a better community. It makes them the kind of people we want them to be. So during the summer youth program, we served 70 kids. Some kids went on trips. Some kids went to just classes. They learned about job skills. They do a lot of things in the summer youth program. They get a lot of opportunities to engage with other youths who are not sitting at the house with nothing to do. It doesn't cost anyone, it doesn't cost the kids anything that taxpayers pay for the summer youth program. But it's an initiative we've had for 12 years now. So there's been a lot of kids that have been served through that. A lot of kids have gone on to the military and other opportunities in life after they graduated. And I guess that brings me to my next, that's the end of the journey. If you look at these pictures here, this is SROs with their kids that are graduating. And that's the end of the journey for the kids, the end of the journey for the SRO, but it's something they both are celebrating. If you look at that, these are people who love their kids. Even when they shoot past you by about a foot and a half, you still love your kids. But you look at them and you can look at these pictures and go, well, that top right is not that top picture. That's a middle school SRO and he's with his middle school kids. And the thing about that is that he wants to celebrate the journey that they're on. And the thing about it is, is the people that I work with in the SRO unit, they love kids. Those are mementos of a good job, of a job well done, of having an impact on a kid. You might say, well, what's important is to have a police officer in a school? Well, because these kids get the chance to see a police officer every day. And kids can't be fooled just like adults can't be fooled. You watch somebody, you watch your character. And they don't know you're watching, you're watching. And if they have character and they have something that you can believe in, something you can trust in, you might talk to them. So maybe one of our kids ends up being a witness. Or maybe one of our kids ends up being a witness. Maybe they can't talk to that officer on the scene, they don't know them. But they know somebody that wears that badge that they can talk to, that they can share with, that they can say, hey, I know this. And that makes for a better, safer community. And we just want to have that impact on them. We want to have the opportunity to show them the police department is here to serve them. That's the reason why it's the student resource officer unit instead of the school resource officer unit. We're here for the kids. And that's the goal, and I hope that I've conveyed that to you. If you have any questions, we're happy to try to answer those for you. Great. I'll defer to you. Any questions or comments for Lieutenant Mays? How many SROs are there for the district? Twenty-one. It's counting me. And so there's an officer per high school? There's two. Braswell is looking at getting three. It's usually one officer per 1,000 is what the average is across the U.S. That's kind of what they're trying to base it off of is be consistent with what's been proven to be okay or be good. And then there's how the officers are distributed in the middle school. And tell us about how they work in elementary schools. There is an officer in each middle school in the district. And in the elementary schools here in Denton, they're assigned an elementary school, whether you're a high school officer, because it's too much to ask one middle school officer to go and visit all the feeder campuses. So they're assigned two. I'm sorry, they're assigned two elementary schools in addition to their home campus. And the reason why we have those officers coming in with the patrol officer is to try to get, well, two things. I'm being selfish on part of it. One of them is to get them exposed to the school. The other is to expose the patrol officer to what does the SRO do so that at some point in their career they might say, you know what, that might be a really good job for me. Maybe that's a point in life where I'm at. I want to give back. I want that opportunity because we have a lot of police officers that don't really understand the job of the SRO, that it's not really an enforcement-based issue. It's more of a relationship-based issue. And I think we've even had one where we had an officer inside a school that was kind of taken aback by the fact that this SRO had a community relationship with her kids. And I mean, she's great anyways with her kids. It's one of those things where the officer kind of had the wrong perspective because in patrol it's very transactional. I have this problem that's been handed to me. This is the location I have to go to. I have to find some sort of a solution even if it's a band-aid at this moment. And then I have to move on to the next problem and the other six that built up while we were trying to fix this one. And in the SRO world, they are building relationships. They're building community. It's a community-oriented piece, a community-oriented policing piece that we've always hoped for in the community. It's just having enough officers to be able to do that. If you're going to middle school or high school, they have that. And that's one of the things I can remember standing next to Sharon and her in Ryan High School. She was a Bryan grad. And seeing the kids come past her and interact with her and just seeing that level of familiarity, not disrespectful, but familiar to that they knew she was there and she would talk to kids and the kid looked like they were tired. And she'd say something to them. And it's because she knew. It wasn't just she was trying to impress her boss. She's really not concerned with what I care about. She cares about her kids. And I think that's what I'm looking for. I want somebody who cares about the kids in that environment. Also, just one more question, sir. Yeah, no. And after you're done, what I was trying to do was give difference to the school board. That's why I asked the president if they had questions, because we have access to them pretty regularly. So anyway, go ahead. After you finish your question, we're going to turn to the school board members. Go ahead. The other question is, you know, I'm just thinking about instances that occurred. If we had an incident at a school, would that SRO officer be like the incident commander? Can you tell us a little bit about that? Or am I getting too far out of the-- Well, no. I mean, how does that-- National Institute of Management would say that the first officer on the scene is the incident commander. So they can hand that off to the next officer. So it doesn't have to be some sergeant, some lieutenant. It's--I think we refer to it as that guy. It's that guy who realizes, hey, we need to set up a command structure and try to get this moving forward so that we're not duplicating efforts when we're moving forward. But you have to have somebody--but I mean, you have initial response, you know, address the concern of safety concern. And then you may need to start setting up that command post, start setting up all that stuff. And then as the lieutenant, I'm coming over there to get that stuff rolling. If it hasn't been rolling, same thing as any sergeant. So I mean, we do that because you want to make sure that you do stuff in a patterned way that you can be okay. We're doing all these things. I've got--I can get resources in. Like, when we did the air course, the great thing for me was I didn't really need the reps on, hey, let's do all this stuff of coordination and stuff like that. But the great part was is I was able to go up in Goliath and drag somebody up in there with me because they didn't really want that part because that's the management part that is scary because you never done it. And I was able to teach them, hey, do this, offer this, do these different things. And that was nice to be able to get it out--you might want to call your medics, okay, you need to stage them here, you need to do this. And it was those things that for me comes more intuitively because I've done it for a while, but for them was a new experience. So that was one of the great things about that course because they know how to respond to a scene and put a tourniquet on somebody. The great thing about that course is what do you do after the tourniquet's on? What do we got to do to get these other things basically hemmed in so that we can take care of people? We get resources in there. We can get medics into a warm zone and get people treated so that people aren't--and it's not up to a police officer. They don't know how to do tourniquets and whatnot, but I'm never going to apply. You don't need--if there's a paramedic and me standing there, you're going to point at the paramedic. I want you to put the medical stuff on me. I want him to carry the gun. And that's the thing about this is we've got to get to the point where we can get that paramedic in there and have those other resources there, have resources to be able to pull people out and get people going to hospitals. And, you know, I mean, there's a lot of things that you learn being a lieutenant, you know, that they would not have learned. And so it was an opportunity for me to do that. That was a long answer for a short question. It was a long answer, but I was just wanting to, you know, just clarify that that guy would be the coordinator, especially SRO. They're more familiar with the school. Yeah, that guy could be anybody. So you have that guy. So the way we do it now is that guy can be anybody who realizes we need to get this done because if we orchestrate a role and they go, oh, well, that's my-- That's my-- This is my box. I have to say, we know we need to get all the boxes on the base. You need to have a good foundation in order to make sure that all the things can be built upon and create a safer environment. Thank you, ma'am. So, again, if the school board members, I'll turn it over to you if you have any questions. Any questions or comments from the board? Dr. Alexander? Just a comment, I hope all of us realize what a really unique and very positive relationship that exists between the city of Denton and the Denton ISD in this area of the school safety. And my observation from working with law enforcement across the state, we really are a unique set of circumstances here in the way that we've developed our partnership. I really think we are a role model for the way this should best be done across the state, actually. And I'm really, really proud of what has happened here in Denton. If you look back to the incident in Yuvaldi and in other places, typically the problems were related to cooperation and coordination among the various agencies as they arrived on the campus. We really worked to build those relationships ahead of time. And I'm really grateful as a board member to the city of Denton for the excellent cooperation that we've had with the Denton Police Department and the cooperation that we've been able to build. I think this is something that we should all be really proud of. Thank you very much for the work that's been done. Any other comments or questions from the board? Can I piggyback off that? I know I don't get that many questions, but I want to say thank you for the opportunity that you guys give us to be in the schools. It's really incumbent on y'all to decide if you decided to work to be in the schools anymore as of tomorrow. And I'm sure that can be taken out and moved forward and pushed out. And I know it's a blessing for us to be able to have that opportunity with these kids. And it warms my heart when I get to see kids. I do a crossing because we don't have enough crossing guards. So if you know anybody that needs a job in the morning and afternoon, we sure could use them. But, you know, I love seeing those kids come by in the morning. You know, I probably say it too much. You probably say it with me. But, you know, if you've got if you can't go into elementary school and that doesn't lift you up, seeing those smiles and seeing those kids who think that you're something special and that you're really doing something for them. There's something wrong. You talk to somebody and I get hugs from those kids or hugs from those kids every day. And it's, you know, they're tackling me in the middle of a crosswalk and I, you know, they're breaking me down here. I'm trying to be a tough guy. And, you know, I just I thank y'all for that. It's been a great opportunity. It's been the last two years. I want to say thank you. I have a question. Thank you. So thank you for the presentation. I appreciate the information. Can you comment on how you feel? Do we have a good hold on how to handle social media threats? I saw on social media this week that Frisco already had, you know, a threat. I realize those are extremely difficult situations to track down, but can you comment on how you feel that we handle that? If I had some wood, I'd knock on it because I'm afraid to say that we do a good job. I would say we do a good job. We have a lot of coordination. I had to help with Lil Elm on one of theirs last year, and it's nice. One of the benefits the district gets from the school or from the department is the fact that we have resources that may or may not be accessible to a small agency. So we have crime analysts and people have been to a lot of different schools, a lot of opportunities. Sergeant Bradford is trying to put together an actual social media investigations class, which is really neat. Somebody else that we saw at the conference, a child crimes investigator of a different agency that put that on. It seemed like a really interesting course. He had, I think, 400 people in his audience in both different sessions. So it filled the room because it's such a concern for everyone. You get one of these threats and it can upset the entirety of the community because, well, now do I send my child to school? And I don't remember, we sat there this morning trying to figure out how many of these we've had that have come in before school, and we're able to address it and fix it and find out, hey, there is nothing wrong with this, contact somebody after hours. Sometimes it was three o'clock in the morning calls, start the ball rolling. But yeah, do I feel like we have a good handle on it? I do. Do I think that I'd love for my guys to get more training on it? Absolutely. It's never one of those things with the way social media changes. And there's always a new app that the kids move to, say Facebook, to the high school, and they kind of giggle at you, like, you're so old. They do that to me. But it's a great opportunity for us to try to investigate those things. I think we do a good job of it. I'd say the ones we've had using different image search engines. So you can look at an image and see if it's been used before and using that in the Fusion Center in Dallas to be able to maximize your impact on that type of situation and get it solved as fast as possible. Reaching out to people like Google with requests on the proper formatted form and says, hey, this is a concern for us right now, and then giving you information and then jump into those boxes. There's a lot of opportunities there. Are we going to be able to solve that in five minutes? No. I wish it could. It's frustrating for me because I sit there and try to do it and try to help out. And I watch a lot of people that are probably smarter than I am that work through these cases. And I think this is amazing. We're able to do this. But it's only because we have all the gears engaged. And so my hope is that we can get that piece of training from the gentleman and just try to pick up even more steam to move forward and make the community safer. Because, you know, a lot of these aren't real. But in people's hearts, they are. And people, you know, their heart misses a beat because they're afraid that their loved one might get hurt or get taken away from them. I don't want that. And I don't want that to go on any longer than it has to. And so we keep diligently trying to make sure we address those and the best game is the best we can. Okay. Any questions from council members? So the governor put forth this 47-point plan that you all were implementing in the schools. How many of those are obvious to the kids and how many are more behind the scenes? Well, the summer safety audit was basically everything. So it was checking your doors, the video cameras. I mean, it's a it's a public accessible document from the website. But is it stuff the kids would notice? I don't know. It's been my observation that the kids are like every other like I was when I was younger. I don't think about a lot of the things that you know, but is it stuff that they would notice? I don't know how to answer that in an intellectually capable way, except that I think the kids aren't as cognizant of what's going on. I mean, the reason why kids get hurt, speeding and everything else, you know, a lot of times they're doing stuff that they feel like they're they're unable to be hurt. And that's a beautiful place in life to be. But we all know that's not true. And unfortunately, that's the reason we have these officers in school trying to address these concerns and threats. But I know that we conduct the safety audits on the schools and it's an opportunity to go through and make sure that you have everything that you need. As far down as something like a backup plan for your who your associated person is in charge, you know, like the order of ascension for lack of a better time. So it seems like most of them are administrative, you know, planning and not so much changing sort of the day to day vibe of the school. If I can kind of dumb down my question a little bit, the kids are not going to experience sort of like, oh, well, we've got we've done these things and it's really obvious and it's going to ratchet up their stress levels or something. No, I wouldn't think that they would. And all this was conducted before they came back. That was one of the mandates of the governor. And all these things had to be done before the first kid hit the classroom. So it better be done before then. So that this door checks that Mr. Honor's team conducted the school audits. Those all had to be conducted before the first day of school. That was part of it. And it was good because here's the thing about it is the audits are once every three years. And it's because there's so many schools that you would be every week trying to go someplace, trying to get something done every year. But this was a nice, nice baseline to set everything in. And I think as a district, they probably should do that every year. It shouldn't just be what was germane and topical because we had a tragedy. It should be it's a good safety practice and we should do it every summer before we start back. These are all things that we should probably look at every summer and make sure that we're doing everything that we can. And if if someone can look at that list and say, well, hey, we probably should be doing what about this and what about this? And those are one of the benefits of us working with Bob Martinez, who's the city events emergency manager, highly skilled man, very intelligent and very giving. Was one of our plans and everything else and sitting down with him with different stuff. I think we can make the path forward better and just make things safer. And that's the that's the goal is I don't have all the answers. I mean, obviously, otherwise, I had a better answer for your question. But sitting down with other people who are intelligent and have a gift and a background in that, I think would be an opportunity for us to only move forward. Mr. McGee. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I'd just like to ask you a question about about your training. And a very general answer is, is honestly, so for those of us who are counseling don't typically know what's the pathway to becoming an SRO. You can't an Academy graduate can't literally graduate and become an SRO tomorrow. What's the pathway to becoming an SRO? Because I'm sure you all have been promoted many times as physicians. How does that work? Yeah, and I wouldn't want that. I wouldn't want someone who not because their heart's not in the right place, but because their level of experience would be too low in my mind to be able to do that job. The beauty of having a patrol officer who goes through a career, three years, three years. So that's that's three years of patrol and seeing things, many varied things that they probably should not encounter in a school. It gives them some depth and gives them some ability to be a good, a good sounding block for a kid, a good barometer for is there something going on in that person's life? I mean, it's kind of like anybody else, you know, a coach, a well-seasoned coach can look at their players and say, you know, there's something wrong with that person today. Maybe I ought to contact them and say, hey, you know, what's going on, you know, engagement and conversation. Same thing with an officer who's had some experience on the street, having some had some life experience like me. When I became a police officer, I was so green. I didn't know anything about the world and the police department gave me the opportunity to be a police officer and I learned a lot about society over 17 years in patrol. And I can bring that to the table with the school district and I can look at it from a realistic standpoint. What is this? Is this indicative of something else? So I wouldn't want someone who just graduated from taking penal code from Sergeant Bradford to come out here and try to be a sounding board for some kid. Whenever they might be 21 years old, don't have any kids, don't have any life experience, you know, because a lot of like I said, it's a relationship. I mean, yeah, we're not counselors. We're not there to, you know, try to do any of that job. But we are there to try to be an opportunity for them if they need to talk to somebody to be there for them. And in order to do that, you need someone who has a little bit of life experience. Police experience would be great because I'd like to say they've gone those hairy calls that are scary and everything else. That's the reason why I feel confident that our officers go forward because you don't get the option on the street. You know, you go to the domestic that's violent and you're going to have to go through that door. You may have a bad, a bad interaction in that city, but you're still going to have to go. And so anything that would precipitate that you wouldn't go would be obvious to your peers from that moment. Does that make sense? So you would agree that parents can still say it because it is true to say that you all are among the best that didn't ask. They're working in schools. I guess to answer that, I wouldn't want to stratify the department to say, oh, these guys are good and these guys are bad. I would say that the people that I work with that wear this badge, I'm proud to call them my brothers and sisters in blue. And I think that they do a great job for this community day in, day out. And they go to places and protect people who may not may not be supportive of them. And they're there for them anyway. And they learn to be the best, the best representative of what the government of Denton has and what the people have and what police officers ought to be. And I guess I guess that's the thing is I'm proud of these officers. If you're asking me, do I have any any momentary pause about any of the people on the unit? No, I do not. I think we need to move on, but I think Dr. Wilson wanted to make a few comments. Just a couple of some summarizing points. First, one of the main reasons our partnership is so instrumental with the city of Denton is because of the threshold of experienced officers, the training those officers receive before they move into the school environment. Secondly, the school district asked the city a couple years ago for us to pay for the lieutenant's salary to coordinate all the safety and security across the district. And that's what Lieutenant Mays does. And the city also kept our supervisor, all the student resource officers in place. And and so that continuity and the ability for people to come up within the system and understand what we want our community. Really, really important because you can you can tell and you can see the passion that these gentlemen have for what they do. You can also see the experience level with which they work. A lot of school districts across the state will choose to have their own police department. You all know how hard it is to find police officers as it is, right? It's even more difficult in a in a in a school district due to different retirement systems, different benefits, different. There's a lot of variables that play into that that allow for school districts that are partnering with local municipalities and law enforcement to get access to additional resources. A lot of Lieutenant Mays talked about and also to get the best of both worlds with regards to being in the municipal government side. It is it is our collective role together that our citizens are safe at school in the community, in their places of worship, in their businesses. You name it. All of that. It is our belief that that is best done by quality municipal police officers that see that bigger picture of everything that we do, which is why our student resource officer program is is effective and is really a model for many people around. And, you know, we can always get better. And if something bad ever happens, we'll always figure out what we can do differently and get better so that doesn't happen again. But I can tell you, these guys spend a lot of time and table talks and discussions and shutting down schools in the summer to practice and who's in charge and what's going to happen and not happen. And so the things that keep me up at night are those items. I'll see it a little better than I want to have Lieutenant Mays and his team to make that all work for us. So it's a couple of surprises. Thank you. And I just want to touch on a couple of things in round really quick. So, one, there was a lot of discussion about the traffic to Denton High School. Here's where I want to go. The important thing is one of the important things is not a silver bullet, right? There's not a fix all. But we go from what? Thirty three doors to four doors from a safety standpoint. Right. And we're not on the main road. And so there's a lot of safety enhancements that don't get mentioned that I just want to put out there that are critical for people to know. Doc, I'd love to get that Gallup survey. I need that. So I'll get with you. We'll come do it for your team. Awesome. And then I'll get with you. I have a question on the gang members live, but I'll get with you on that to save time. And then I do want to say I have a little bit of experience going to schools, talking to the elementary school kids, different places, middle school kids, different places. And I experience the security features firsthand. And so I thank you for keeping those implemented. And just to your point, just great kids. My favorite question from the elementary school kid was, do you ever have to bribe anyone? I said no. Well, I said yes, but we call it negotiations. And then lastly, I do want to make sure that the school board knows that you can disseminate the information and the city manager will correct me if I'm wrong. The October 3rd, is that the swearing in new police chief? And they'll get invitations. The school board will be receiving invitations to the swearing in of our new police chief, Doug Shoemaker. Graciously, your superintendent served on the interview panels. And he'll be here to be sworn in and you'll certainly get an invitation for that as well, council as well. Good. So I just want to touch on that. So that takes, thank you very much. Appreciate your presentation. Thanks for all you do. That takes into item B, which is ID 221549. Receiving the whole discussion, give staff direction regarding future development, infrastructure, and facilities planning and initiatives. Grab some food guys. Good afternoon, my name is Becky Dabini. I serve as the city engineer and director of capital projects. And this is going to be a joint presentation amongst four different individuals. So we're going to have ISD go first and do their demographic report. And then Ron Mengita, Fritz Endischmick, and myself will also give you a presentation on some city ideas. Good afternoon, mayor, board president, council members. It is my pleasure to be with you this afternoon. My name is Bob Templeton with Zonda Education and we provide demographic housing research for school districts all across the state of Texas. We are very fortunate to have worked with Denton ISD for the last several years. We provide a quarterly update on the housing. Zonda is a national research firm and we literally track 90% of the single family construction across the country. So we have a very good pulse on what's happening with the housing market and we turn that into enrollment projections to assist the school district with their facility planning. And this afternoon I will be providing our second quarter report. So it's a high level report. I'll touch on some economic conditions that we're seeing over the last several months. I'll touch on the housing market and what we're seeing with housing. It is changing. And so then I'll conclude with our enrollment projections that we presented last spring to assist with facility planning. You may be well aware the pandemic caused some huge challenges with population trends. In fact, in the 2020-21 school year, the state's enrollment dropped 122,000 kids. However, have we seen a year where it dropped at all? So that was historic in that it dropped so much. Now that happened all across the country. That was not anything specific to Texas. It was because of the pandemic. What we learned was it was primarily at the younger grade levels. It was pre-K, kindergarten first that made up the biggest amount of that drop. Now this past year we did see a bump back. It grew across the state about 55,000 kids. But keep in mind that's pretty much a normal year because the state is still the fastest growing state in the country. So we really did not see much of that return that we lost from over a year ago. Now when we look at the trends across the state, this is two different maps. The map on the left side of the screen was that change from the previous year. Those red and orange school districts were the school districts that saw the largest amount of enrollment drop. It was primarily the urban's and the suburban's that saw those biggest drops in the previous year when we dropped 122,000 kids. Now this past school year, which is the map on the right, the red school districts again saw a drop in enrollment and those were primarily the urban school districts. So most of the school districts kind of got back to a more normalized pattern during this past school year. When we zoom in specifically to the school districts that are in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, I've outlined the Denton school district in blue. You can see it is one of the fastest growing school districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. And it's a rather large geographic school district. It spans multiple cities. There's multiple areas of growth that are occurring within the Denton school district. And so it is in a position to where it will be growing for several years. There is a long growth horizon for the Denton school district because of the amount of land and also because of the location. The Denton school district seen a significant increase by about 3,200 students in that five-year period between 2016 and 2021. Now the economic picture, of course, you can tell by this graph when the pandemic happens, because it was very dramatic when we saw the unemployment rate go from historical lows prior to the pandemic to historic highs. And it literally shot up in a very short period of time where across the country the unemployment rate shot up to over 13 percent. Now I did see a very significant improvement rather quickly. This is not like any of our previous recessions, nor was it like the Great Depression. This was historic in the way that the unemployment rate spiked. Now as of most recently over the summer, back in June, that unemployment rate you can see is closer to where it was prior to the pandemic. But I will tell you, it doesn't feel like it. And the reason it doesn't feel like it is because many industries are still struggling to fill positions. It's happening in every industry. Our firm has felt that great resignation. I had three positions that opened up over the summer. One of those was a research position that two years ago, that same position, I would have had 30 to 40 applicants for one position. When I posted this job this summer, I had over 200 applicants. This great resignation is happening in every area. And now with the way people make decisions on how they buy cars, how they buy houses, they do it all online. And so when jobs are posted, it literally gets posted across the country. And it's very easy for individuals to apply. This is creating challenges for education. It's creating challenges, I'm sure, for city jobs, city services. And it is going to be something that we'll be dealing with for several months. Now, the housing market is interest rate sensitive. So when the interest rates go down, that stimulates the housing. And when the interest rates go up, it does have a negative effect on the housing market. And just to give you a comparison, you know, when we did this comparison from the January house payment of about 343,000 with a 3.5% interest rate on that loan, the monthly payment was about $1,900. And when we did the same thing in June, now the cost of the housing has gone up in that period, but the interest rate has gone from 3.5 to 5.8. That change in the interest rate on average is causing the monthly payment to go up about $529. That's pretty significant for millennial first-time buyers. It causes them to have challenges with buying and qualifying. It also affects the move-up buyers. The move-up buyers that are currently in homes at a lower interest rate will be hesitant to buy that move-up home because of the higher interest rate. Now, it does not primarily affect the relocation buyers. So the buyers that are moving to the region because of a job change or a family change tend to go ahead and buy. The DFW region, including Denton, one of the strongest regions in the country for job growth. The job growth is still holding good. And so the DFW outlook is still really, really helpful, positive. Now, I also want to point out the past two years has been a very unusual, I want to call it an outlier event for the housing market. So we saw new housing drastically increase over the last two years. Now, keep in mind in 2019, those were really good times as well, but we've kind of lost sight as to what was the numbers, what the numbers were in 2019. And when we look at where the housing was across the DFW region in 2019, those were really strong numbers. We were building about 30,000 homes a year across the greater DFW region. And you can see what the pandemic did to the housing market. It has shot the housing market up to about 50,000 homes per year across the DFW region in less than two years. So in a two year period, we went from about 30,000 to 50,000, which was unusually high. And so now when you start to hear news about the drop in rates, the drop in sales rates, the drop in starts, I would encourage us to point back to 2019. Let's compare it to 2019 so that we can really not get too much of a headline news about a drastic drop in the starts compared to that unusually high season. Now, one of the other challenges for the housing market was, and this has happened in many industries where supply chain challenges and labor. So we saw new home construction that, you know, prior to the pandemic, it would have taken anywhere from three to five months to build a home, is now taking six to 10 months to build a home. Now the supply chains are improving in some areas, but we still have many areas that are struggling with supply chain challenges. So the duration of construction is what's causing that gap between starts and closings. Because you'll notice the closing number is down at around 43,000 versus the starts are up at 50. That is not an excessive buildup of inventory. It's just simply the time it's taking to get those homes finished and closed. Now the interest rate hike is causing a slowdown in sales. So we track data from the start or building permit level, and we also collect sales data that we get from the builders. The sales data is starting to show a slowdown in sales activity and this is from June of the summer, and we've broken it down by county. You can see across the DFW region, the sales rate from June to May has dropped about 29%. And you can see that is a low number in June and there again I contend it is because of that interest rate hike. Now when we look at Denton County, Denton County's drop in sales was about 36%. Now what I'm encouraging our school district clients to keep in mind, the enrollment growth that's going to happen right now because of this school year starting is really the result of all the homes that were built over the last 8 to 10 months. So that's what's driving the growth that's going to happen right now. Now this slowdown could cause a slowdown in growth for the future years in 2024, 2025, but keep in mind, even when we had the great housing crash back in 2017, it did not stop growth. It literally slowed it. And so that I think is what we can see. We're not going to see it to that level. It's not going to drop that much, but if it drops back down to 30,000 across the DFW region, that's still really good. And so we could see a little bit of a drop in starts in the DFW region. Denton right now is ranked second in the DFW region based on annual closings. You can see the start rate is $3,300. That's the annualized single family start rate. The closing rate is $2,834. Again, it's the delta is caused by the time it's taking to complete the construction. We have 3,800-ish vacant developed lots. Those are on the ground ready for growth. And we've got about 31,000 futures. Futures are concept plans, future phases of existing. They are in the planning pipeline, so to speak. And so that does give us an indication that the district is going to be growing for a long time. That does not include the ag land that's not in that planning window. We measure this new home data every quarter. You can see we have seen that slowdown in the second quarter, but even if we maintain 700 starts a quarter, that's still going to be close to 3,000 starts. So I think the housing market is going to slow, but it's not going to cause a significant slowdown in the overall population and enrollment growth. Actually, it might be a positive, because it could take some pressure off of the facility needs. And the reason the Fed lifted the interest rates was a means to help slow inflation. So if we see that, that would be a positive for the reduction on the inflation pressure. And we break out the data by elementary attendance zones. You can see this is spread out over all the elementary zones within Denton. The most active zone is the Union Park zone, starting over 670 single-family starts. Sandbrook Ranch is in the second spot, 655, and in the third spot is the Evers Elementary zone at 394. This just gives us a real quick way to see the path of the single-family growth by those elementary zones. Now here's the big picture. This is the elementary attendance zones shaded with the color pattern. The green shaded areas are active subdivisions that are building single-family homes. The yellow are the future subdivisions, and you can see Denton ISD has massive master plan communities. These are several thousand lots that are the equivalent of feeder patterns worth of development. There's 67 actively building subdivisions. There's about 38 future subdivisions of the futures that are outlined in red, where you see a red outline, that's indicating that development activity is taking place. So new lots are coming, and there are 4034 lots that are in development to be delivered over the next several months. So the development community is still working at a pretty robust pace to bring new developments and new lots to the school district. Now on the multifamily side, this is a little bit unusual as well, we're seeing tremendous growth in multifamily across the state. So the multifamily is surging at the same time that single-family is surging. We've got about 2500 multifamily units that are under construction, and we've got about 6000ish, 6500, 900 that are in the planning stages, and we've roughly completed almost 2000 units during the past year. I will also say we're seeing a new hybrid of multifamily, which is the single-family for rent. So, you know, several years ago, the single-family rental market was fueled by foreclosures. Well, the foreclosures have pretty much gone away. We really haven't seen foreclosures over the last couple of years because of the moratorium, so investors aren't able to pick up that property. So now we're seeing developers building single-family for rent. We're literally tracking over 50 of these projects across the state of Texas. So it is a new trend that's emerged over the last two years, but it's single-family, and they do have some amenities, and they're typically smaller sizes, but the rents so far are very expensive. We just did the research on one in the Northwest School District. The average rent for a two-bedroom, two-math, was about $2800 per month. The three-bedroom rent was $3200 in Northwest ISD. Now, you may have some of these going on. I don't recall the exact details of some of yours, but it is something that we're seeing. Now, I'm not going to touch on all of that activity, but some of the highlights, this is probably one of the fastest growing spots in the Ditton School District, is this Far East Quadrant, which has Sandbrook Ranch, Arrowbrook Union, Wind Ridge, Union Park, and you can see there's several hundred homes under construction in this region, one of the fastest growing regions in the district. And then another area that I'll point to, also in that kind of Eastern Quadrant, which is Spiritus Ranch. It's a new future, 2,156 future lots. The groundwork is underway on about 183 lots. The first homes are expected this fall. That starting price point is $500,000. That's the other thing that's really been surprising. The average price for new homes has really gone up over the last two years. Now, Prairie Oaks is an existing development that's underway down to the south of that, about 985 lots. There were 80 homes under construction. They're delivering additional lots as well. Again, the price point in Prairie Oaks starts at about $500,000. This is more on the north side of Ditton, which is in the Evers Elementary Attendant Zone. This is a future. It's called Stark Farms, and it's just getting going. They've got 90 occupied homes, 385 total lots. There's 35 homes under construction. There's additional groundwork underway. You can see it's just north of the loop there. And then we've got the Stewart Ridge, which is 560 total lots, and they're delivering their first homes in the second quarter. This is D.R. Horton, the largest builder in the country. The starting point there is $337,000. Again, kind of in that north quadrant, north of Ditton is Cambridge Brook, 206 future lots. The groundwork is underway on all of those lots. That's a D.R. Horton development starting at about $300,000. $300,000 is the entry level for new home pricing, which blows my mind. It didn't seem that long ago when it was about $180,000 to $190,000, but it's literally doubled in about a six, seven-year period. Sage Brook annexation, it's a new development, about 490 future lots. The groundwork is underway on 171 lots, and that price point is $365,000. That was just the highlights. But you can see from these projections, the district is in a position to be growing 1,200 to 1,500 students per year for the foreseeable future. And so it's not a matter of if these projections are going to come true. It's really a matter of when. And it's a matter of do they accelerate or do they slow down based on what happens with the housing and what happens with the economic conditions at the campus level? The growth is spread across the district. Those yellow rows are when that campus exceeds capacity. And you'll notice there is pressure in multiple elementary zones, and I know the district is undergoing facility planning to bring solutions to solve these challenges. At the secondary level, middle schools, high schools, we've got two middle schools that are approaching capacity, and we've got two high schools that are also approaching capacity. So the district is going to be in need of multiple facilities over the next several years to support the population growth within the Denton School District. You can see the patterns. We do expect continued growth. In five years, the district could top about 38,800 students, and in 10 years, the district could top 45,000 students. The interest rate hikes are starting to impact sales, but I think what it means is it could put the market back to where it was in 2019, which 2019 was still really good. The multifamily market is playing a larger role with the enrollment growth, and there's tremendous groundwork underway on about 4,000 lots within about 25 subdivision. The market may start to shift towards buyers. Now when I say that, what I'm meaning is that the pricing could start to soften, and we could start to see some more inventory of existing homes. During the pandemic, there was a significant shortage of existing homes on the market, so that limited the buyer's choices. So with this change could provide some more options for buyers. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Chancellor Watts. Yeah, this is, it's not so much, first of all, thank you for the data. Very comprehensive. I guess the question is really for the city manager. I mean, this is here, this data is going towards the school district. Do we have a consultant or someone, because this data is, and also my question for you would be, are you able to massage this data for specifically cities as far as, because good heavens, what a great tool for growth analysis. And because I don't think we've ever really seen anything as far as at the city level. I would say we have some of the data, but it's because of what we're doing with permitting, pulling permits, and so we know from developers, a lot of these developments, but I think I would like to get his card so we can look at what you do. Yeah, this is tremendously impactful. So we're all on the same page. Well, and it helps us, I mean, we just got out of our budget discussions and people are trying to determine how much of the budget is growth, how much of is, is, you know, coming back to the status quo. And this is just, I mean, it's unbelievable. We use it for our committees to plan future schools and future school sites. It's invaluable in that respect, because we can't wait, you know, last minute to do that. Thank you. Something that's unique about our service compared to other developers is we provide a quarterly snapshot, because the housing market changes significantly, and you can see what it did from, you know, just simply in the spring when that interest rate was three, three and a half percent to now five percent, we've already seen the sales rate drop 29% of the region. So we're able to respond very quickly to changes in the market. We can slice and dice and cut up the data on any geography. So it really doesn't matter the geography because we're collecting the data at the lock level and the subdivision level. We also, you may have noticed I had some satellite imagery from June. Our satellite imagery technology that we're feeding from gets updated every month. So I'm able to look at satellite imagery from last month from, I can look at it from 10 years ago. And our company is writing the artificial intelligence code for the satellite imagery to be read and interpreted by the software to start tracking the housing for us, which means it's going to be updated, you know, monthly instead of quarterly. Thank you. Any other questions from the council members? Y'all have seen this. We're good. It's really encouraging to me that the city is looking favorably on this kind of data. I remember years ago, city planning meetings with developers. One of the things developers don't do is check with anybody. They just, they get fresh right on the dirt. They got somebody on the back end of the thing about lots. And I do remember previously, there were people in city planning member meetings saying, where are the school sites you're donating to make this all work? And it was a powerful, it didn't even have to be a rule. Just a question. But it made these people reflect. And the truth is, when they do reflect, and especially when they reflect in concert with some of our people, they get it, they get it in their head. Oh, yeah, we're going to need a school out here. And oh, by the way, it's easier to sell a house for more money if the school is two blocks away. And so there's a huge financial incentive for joint planning, which is what we're starting here right now. And we absolutely agree, Scott. Well, yeah, we absolutely meet with the district on a regular basis. Scott's the Director of Development Services. So we meet and we talk through all of the upcoming projects we try to work through. We have a lot count on the ground, always. We don't have the in-depth data that we witnessed here today, fabulous. And I absolutely am not going to walk past me without a card. But we don't go to that depth or detail. We don't have the staff to do that. But we do absolutely manage, when we have developers come into the community, what they're talking about. We walk through the district with the projects that they have going as far as any of the expansions on the schools, new schools, and then what projects we have coming forward, and whether the school chooses to serve that, what that will look like, and what needs they may have. I think we will get it from now on, because I want to have the same data that the school district has from a city side. So when we make decisions, it's parallel, not someplace else. Just a comment. And all of this relates to all of the transportation planning that must go on within the region as well. So coordination and cooperation and interaction is absolutely essential. So, you know, Dr. Alexander brings up a good point, because we experience that all the time with regard to transportation and access. The difference between a lot of municipalities and governments and tax dots and state and everything else is we have kids coming regardless. And if roads are delayed, roads are delayed, but we still have to put a school there. And we have to deal with what comes up as a result of that, which I just want to say thanks to the city for helping us work through the opening in high school, because in 2017, when we all got around the table and looked at that piece of property, we were all like, yeah, this is what works, and we worked through it all. But there are delays and things that come along, and we just have to address it and deal with it and do it as best we can. And it's a challenge, but we can't just, okay, we're not going to build more schools, and some of you go in the morning and some of you go in the afternoon. That won't go well either, right? So there's a lot that goes into it. It really is on the top of our minds when individuals might say, well, how come this wasn't thought of ahead of time? It is and was and will continue to be. And we just got to continue to work and build that trust in our community on those topics, because we're doing those things, and we're working through that. And as with all things else, we get better, and we work them out as we go. But we can't let perfect get in the way of progress, because school starts on certain days, and kids are expected to be there and learn, and that's where we all have to work together on. I appreciate Bob and his team for all they do, and they are a really good tool all the way up and down. And I don't know if you guys noticed, but there was a big, huge yellow rectangle west of I-35W on that map, which is directly in partnership of planning with the city of Denton for Cohen Hunter Ranch. So I want to make this point, and I appreciate Councilperson Watts bringing this up about the city of Denton piece. That same speed with which the developments are going out east is what you will see with Cohen Hunter Ranch. Union Park is a Hillwood element. So while that was not directly city of Denton, it definitely is looking in the rear view mirror of what it's going to look like forecasting whenever it goes to the other side of 35 and get started. We will be in that 2000 closings as we work through in that part of the development. That's what these forecasts show us. So that's the connection for people in the city of Denton is what you see out there. It's the same home builders, everyone. It's the same people. Oh, no, that will be here. It will be that way here. Yes, it will. It will. I've seen it in Denton since I've been here since 2005. And our voters have done a really nice job of making sure schools are ready for residents that aren't even here yet. And that's why you're seeing us have new schools and renovations and new ones, which is why the new Denton High School opened, because there had been two schools built for people that didn't even live here yet, voted for by current residents. And it was it was time for that. So the growing pains that we experienced for that are, in my opinion, worth it. So I might just remember what the end game is. It's important. Okay, Ron. All right. Mayor, council and president, members of the board. I took a lot of my thunder. I mean, there's a lot of stuff that he covered. I followed. We're perfect at kind of set us up and what we're going to be presenting, not only with the planning, with mobility, with projects, really, just really quickly. I felt like I was in the TV show, like a military briefing, because as Bob was presenting, everybody was like looking at the slides and like, what's going on? There's so much stuff going on. So but I think all good stuff. So why are we here? Well, we already know a population is going to grow. Den alone, just the city of Den, is projected to grow to around 230,000 people in the next 20 years. That translates to approximately 37,000 dwelling units, both single family and multi-family. That kind of breaks down here in the sense that single family got 20,000, roughly 20,000, multi-family, five or more. It's about 11,000. Again, the total is about 37,000 units within the next 20 years, possibly. How are we going to grow? So this right here is from our Den 2040 comprehensive plan for the council and others. This is really in the heels of the update of the plan. We see that our growth is going to be primarily around the core of the city, but there are pockets around the periphery. I think Dr. Wilson mentioned, obviously, coal hunter, right? That's an area also that we're seeing that we're going to see grow. We know that. We've identified that. So that's how the city is going to grow. This map illustrates the preferred growth for the city of Den. What is going to grow in those areas? So the future land use map that you see here, again, part of the Den 2040 comprehensive plan shows what type of land uses are proposed or are anticipated, designated for those areas of growth. We pretty much covered the city limits as well as the ETJ. So the areas that you see in green further out are within the city of Den's ETJ. You can see that there's also areas that are outlined in pink. Those are potential municipal utility districts in the future. But in general, the areas around the core, around the city limits, immediate area, are primarily residential. Obviously, there's a mix of land uses. That's what you want to see in the city, but we see a lot of residential development occurring as well. Where is developing happening now? Immediately, we see growth happening, of course, in the Cole-Hunter area. We see it in the northeast by Sherman and Luke 288, and Bob showed some examples of Stark Farms. That's that area right there. But we also see it on the northwest part of Den, around where the new Den Hive location is. That's another area of growth that the city is seeing. But that doesn't mean that that's just the area. We have other areas of the city that's seeing growth as well. But for today's presentation, I just really wanted to focus on those particular areas. We see a lot of preliminary flats and final flats coming in, and I'll share some of those examples as part of this presentation. Also, I just wanted to make mention that we have future area plans coming in. This is a more defined, in-depth area planning effort to identify more specific areas for planning. The Council has set for the northeast area, the southeast part of downtown, but also the northwest in a future area planning effort. So that's something that we will be working on as well. Hunter and Cole. I'm not going to obviously spend a lot of time on this. You already know the area. I think from what I understand, DISD has already identified or at least looked at areas for future elementary and high school. So we all know about Hunter. We know a lot about Cole. In the demographics for Cole and Hunter, we know that it's going to be about 19,000 dwelling units. That's both single-family and multi-family. Approximately 1,300 single-family and 6,000 multi-family dwelling units. So that's the growth that we're seeing. Let me back up one. The Hunter Ranch preliminary plot was submitted. This is actually submitted to the city. They already submitted a preliminary plot for their first phase. I believe this particular one is still pending consideration. For the Cole Ranch area, this is their preliminary plan as well, their first phase, and this was approved by Planning Commission just in August. So there's a question of when it's already here. They're already knocking on the doors. So that's one reason why we're presenting today is to make sure that obviously we acknowledge the coordination that we're having with DISD, with the city. Really quickly, this is the area I talked about, the northeast and the northwest. There were some examples that Bob shared earlier, but really in just this area and just alone in 2022, we have approximately about 1,500 dwelling units, either under construction or ready before development. So just in that area right there. That does not include all the other parts of the city that also have preliminary plots and final plots being proposed. So with that, I think I answered all of the lies in where and how, but really I want to point out that the when it's here, it's already happening. So I'm going to turn it over to Preetem Dushmek. She's going to talk specifically about mobility planning and Vision Zero as well, and as it relates to our future or current coordination with the DISD. Good afternoon, Preetem Dushmek, and I'm in transportation planning with the city. And I'm going to touch, as Ron mentioned, a couple points, mobility plan and Vision Zero. I think Dr. Wilson and Dr. Alexander had a good point about mobility shouldn't be neglected. So we are moving forward and planning towards that. Let me go back. Our council adopted a mobility plan. It was an update of a previously 2015 older mobility plan. And within the new mobility plan that was adopted in March, our key focus area, I do want to point out there are three key things here. Safety was primarily a focus. We want to make sure that not just, we talked about safety in schools and school buildings earlier in this meeting, and PD talked about that, but I just want to make sure that we are not losing sight of safety on the roadways. So it is our priority. One of our council priorities. The first priority is safety. We want to make sure all our roadways are safe and they're designed safe. They operate safely. So that's our priority. The second thing I want to point out is it was an all-inclusive plan. It's not just a master thoroughfare plan that is auto centric, that is just focused on vehicles and truck traffic and so on and so forth. It is really focused on bicycle as well as pedestrian, which are active modes of transportation. So that is also a key element. And then the third piece was when we move forward, we're not just designing some of these roadways, but we're stepping back and planning it better. We're working with the development community. For example, when Ron mentioned Cole and Hunter, we're working with them to form context-sensitive design. So we are designing some of our roadways that are sensitive, that fit into the environment, that fit into the overall plan. So those are the three key things about the recently adopted mobility plan. We also, as part of the mobility plan, adopted several goals and I want to really focus on a couple of these. The first one, as I mentioned, safety was really important, but also there are two more, which is the insure coordination between land use and circulation systems. So as schools develop, as residential development comes in, we are going to coordinate it much more better and make sure that we have the transportation system that actually supports it. And then last but not least, create a safer space for that active transportation element for walking and biking, especially to schools for kids. How does it relate or how does it matter when it comes to all the Denton ISD facilities? There are a couple of places we're going to look at next three slides. First, focusing on existing schools, and then next, in the future, when the growth is happening on the periphery of the city, what do we look at? As you can see here, here, give you a quick picture of what the facilities we currently have in the city that are Denton ISD and the motorway network. It really matters because we're talking about access. We all went through experiencing the Denton High School opening and the traffic condition associated with that, safety associated with that, as well as the school safety zone. So it's very important, all our existing schools, we understand what the roadways that they actually access to. Is it an arterial? Is it a collector? If it's a collector, can we really slow things down? Can we have a slower speed limit? If it's an arterial, how do we manage congestion? How do we manage traffic when the school is starting and when the school is leaving? So those are really important. We regularly work with Denton ISD staff and really plan that, and Becky's going to talk a little bit more about that. And then just two quick slides, as Ron mentioned, that we have some future areas. There is a North East Denton plan. We really want to sit down and understand and have a better plan for where these roadways would go, where the networks would go, and where are some of the future school sites. And then C, just based on the attendance areas, just based on where the new facilities will be, how do we lay out the transportation infrastructure. Similar things in the coal and hunter ranch area, it's the same concept. I just wanted to make sure that we planned it better. The next topic I'm going to cover is Vision Zero. Just to give you a quick idea, what is Vision Zero? It is a concept that was developed in Sweden back in 1997. It's been a while, and it has slowly caught on with the rest of the world. It is pretty much, from an ethical standpoint, no one should be killed or suffer lifelong injuries in road traffic, in road accidents. So that's the concept of Vision Zero. We want to head towards that. The city has already started step one of the Vision Zero process, and we want to make sure that we are going from a traditional approach to a Vision Zero approach where we should be avoiding all deaths and serious injuries. And those are the ten elements, the core elements for Vision Zero that we'll be focusing on. As you can see, safe roads and safe speed is one of them, but the first one is leadership and commitment. And that's where this group comes into picture that we all are headed in the same direction and we have the commitment. And then last but not least, data-driven approach. So how does it connect, or how does it impact the schools? It's from the access point of view. It's from safety and school speed zones. We have to set speed zones in front of the school. Also, the bike and pedestrian safety. We have to have safe access points for bicyclists and pedestrians to get to school and then pick up drop off traffic management plan. I think that's my last slide, and I'll hand it over to Becky. All right. So I have a lot of slides. I'm going to go really quick. I'm just going to pick the topics that I think you're interested in to really highlight on the slides. I know you can all read and have copies of the presentation. I want to start off with really kind of talking about our overview, which really we're just going to hit the coordination efforts and then talk about the projects that are within a quarter mile of the school. Current coordination efforts, so Paul and Dr. Nevins love our monthly meeting that we have together, where we talk about private development projects, capital projects that are going on, any coordination efforts that need to happen. We do have project-specific meetings that we hold, and as we have different projects that impact different school sites. We have our active communication, which is our Discuss Denton. You can go onto that page and find any specific information about a capital project. And also our CIP map, which shows the projects that are happening in the next 365 days. And then I would say really kind of our current coordination efforts, and I'm going to add one that has happened just over the last week. We've done a lot of coordination at Hodge Elementary with drop off and pick up based on feedback we received from residents. We also have received a similar request from the Jennings Elementary and Brett Visual on the back, who's our Deputy City Engineer, has been coordinating with the lady, I believe, that's over the bus system. I think her name is Gwen. So we've been working with her on some questions that she's had too. And then, of course, y'all are very aware of Denton High School. I'll go into that in a minute. And then our interest at this point is really looking at the future planning and coordination of the Calhoun and Newton razor as we transition into the new location. So keep in mind, there's a lot of things that go into play with that. I'll highlight some of those. So the first project I know you all want to know about is Bonnie Gray Phase 6. I'll highlight that that project is to begin construction in quarter four of this year. We have had issues with an imminent domain case. I'm trying to work through land acquisition on one particular property. But we made the decision and I'm on my neck out there. I'm going to go ahead and take the project to bid and make sure that that overall contract documents put together so that we can construct the roadway. I want to highlight this project and I'll talk a little bit more about this than others. Keep in mind, this is a four lane divided roadway. It's going to go from University 380 all the way up to 77. We will have traffic signals at these three intersections, Windsor, Riney Road and US 77. There will be a 10 foot shared use path on the east side of the roadway and a six to eight foot sidewalk on the west side of the roadway. There's going to be drainage system improvements, water line improvements and also street light installation along this corridor. I know you've seen the interim improvements that have been made with the improvements to the crosswalks, the installation of the stop sign at Riney, Bronco Way and also some additional sidewalk improvements that have been made there. And then of course we've coordinated with Paul and Dr. Nubbins on including your Riney Road portion of the roadway into our plans. And we're already taking that interlocal agreement through council and we're going to bid the project with your portion of Riney Road as a part of that. Windsor sewer capacity is a project that's currently ongoing right now. It started back in 2022. We anticipate being completed through the end of the year. That's a major sewer interceptor project and I'm sure if you drive up and down Windsor you can see all the construction in that area. Windsor Westgate is another project that I want to highlight. We are really working through the design process of getting a consultant on board. And we hope to have that design completed by Q3 of 2023 and then construction completed the next year in 2024. We've been working with DISD to coordinate those efforts to minimize impacts and we'll continue to do that as we work through the Denton High School. Keep in mind this is an improvement to Westgate North/South which will include drainage improvements, sidewalk improvements, roadway. Also Windsor as you know you drive and it's four lanes and then it goes to two lanes and then it goes to four lanes. We're going to be improving that cross section. Text on is actually improving I-35 and going to put a bridge over at Windsor. And so there's going to be a lot of continued conversation in that area. And then of course the Westgate to Bronco Way connection that we've had lots of conversations about. I will tell you one of the things that our staff is currently working on is some temporary improvements in this area. We are currently taking soil samples with the gap where Westgate ends and Bronco Way begins. And we're going to be moving forward with a temporary pavement service that will connect those two pieces to have some advanced and additional improvements made in that area to provide another way for folks to get to the high school. So that's ongoing, upcoming and as soon as we have more details behind that with the data we collect on the soil samples we're going to work to get that design completed and to construction knowing that this project is going to be a little ways out. So that's an additional project. Hickory Creek Phase 2, this goes in front of McNair Elementary School. It's that connection between Teasley and River Pass. We hope to have that completed by quarter three of 2022 and we've been coordinating with the McNair Elementary staff. Ryan Road is a project that's currently on hold and the purpose for it being on hold is that we are actually constructing Hickory Creek Phase 3 that goes from River Pass to 1830 and being that those are the only two major east west corridors in this area. We actually chose to put this project on hold, finish Hickory Creek Phase 3 and at such time that project is completed then we will kick off the construction of the Ryan Road. 2181, this is not our project but we did have some water and sewer improvements that were done. We coordinate every day with TxDOT. I actually just sent Travis Campbell an email and I think you all know that they're hoping to have that completed by they say October, November. So I'm just saying end of the year, fingers crossed, legs crossed. I don't know what all is across but I'm hoping by the end of the year. McKinney Phase 2, this is near Ryan High School. Our hopes are to have that completion done by quarter three of 2022. So you've seen major improvements in that area with a wider road, sidewalks, etc. from Loop 288 all the way down kind of into that private road in that area. So I'm really looking forward to getting that project completed. That included a lot of improvements for water, wastewater, roadway drainage and of course the sidewalk. Safe House to School, we've had some community meetings. We've had lots of conversations with several of the principals, especially the principal of Nettie Schultz Elementary and coordinating efforts. These are kind of the overall projects that are happening at Alexander, Jennings, Jay Schultz and Pecan Creek. We have worked through a process with all of these projects that have been approved. We're hoping to have that design completed by quarter one of 2023 and then anticipate that construction actually to begin in quarter three of 2023. So really looking forward to getting those projects completed. These are just location maps. The 2019 Street Reconstruction Bond Program neighborhood two and six. This is a 17 different divided upon areas, which includes 14 neighborhoods. This is just one of those packages. And as soon as that starts up and we start impacting those schools in that area, of course, we'll bring those coordination pieces on. Just wanted to highlight that same with 7A. It'll be another bond package that's coordinated with Mormon. And we actually have already started construction in that area and anticipate having that completed in quarter two of 2023. Same with bundle three. It also impacts some of the schools in that particular area. And so we're working through it's already under construction and working through having that completed by quarter one of 2023 next year. Ongoing, just wanted to mention on September 27th, we're going to be bringing the citywide speed study forward to the city council. It'll be our first chance to give an opportunity for several of our staff members to talk about the results from the citywide speed study. The reason why that's important to you is because at such time we finished that conversation. We'll be bringing back an additional conversation to talk about ordinances and that's where school zones will come into play. So we're currently doing an evaluation of all of the school zones that are around the entire city of Denton, seeing if any updates need to be made. I know Nettie Schultz changed direction in the way that it faces, so that obviously impacts the school zone. And for our team, really the overall focus and coordination efforts we'd like to see is really working in pre-touch on this with the mobility plan northeast and then of course the Hunter Cole Ranch. And that's all we have. And I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. To the school board, if you have any questions or comments, let me put my glasses on. Oh, I know what it means, but to some people who may not know what ETJ is, that's the Extraterritorial Jurisdiction. And anyone else from the council, questions from the council as well? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So Becky, how does the new drainage project on Westgate behind the high school connect to the one we did doing that connects from Windsor up to the bridge? Those integrated projects, because that whole mobility piece in there will obviously need coordination with those drainage projects. How's that coordinated? So the same individual who is managing the Windsor project is managing the Westgate project and we're designing that as a bundled package. So those drainage systems will connect to each other and then we'll obviously connect to whatever infrastructure TechStat has or in some cases sometimes we receive their flows. So it just depends on the way that that drainage is designed. And we're in the very beginning conversations on that design. Any other questions? Becky, I'll say this and then I'll let you fill in the gaps, but for those associated with the school board and staff, except they may already know this as well, but we're on the record. I think it's important to note the challenges that come along with and the shift in our approach. So our approach has been to replace all the infrastructure under the streets now when we do the street reconstruction, so it takes longer, but hopefully you don't get that question of why you just finished the street, why are you back? And then the coordination of Atmos has to come in and then the other services have to come in and move and that sort of thing. So that takes longer and then you get life happening. So for example, Bonnie Bray should have been done long before, but the original contractor went bankrupt and then you got to get insurance companies involved. And then, you know, so there's all these little steps. And so from your parents standpoint, Becky's been great about tracking and they've increased a lot of visibility into where things are. So that's been great for me to go back and answer questions. So as a resource, I offer that as questions come in or concerns, either point them our way or her team's a great resource for those sort of things. And then the other thing is everything can go well and just stay not as inspection. And so we hold them accountable and have them redo it. So that also takes a lot of time, but those are kind of the things. And so if there's anything that I missed, but from a communication standpoint, I found that to be useful when people ask, providing that information normally has been helpful. No, sir. You just didn't say my buzzword. So my heart's broken, but you did do the right thing. Lieutenant base did. Thank goodness. My word is holistic. So when I took over this opportunity was to make sure that when we go into an area, we look at all of the impacts that we're going to make water, sewer, drainage, sidewalk, streetlight, roadway, etc. So it changes a little bit of the way we've been doing project delivery. But Mary, you can say it next. Are you looking at all like an out straight locus or those text. We are, but yes, we are. Yeah, they text. That's but we are. Are you I'm sorry I didn't know. Oh, I'm Lucas. Yes, ma'am. I'm Lucas are actually text art roadways. We made the improvements on the south side of the square for water and sewer and drainage. And we are currently working on an agreement with text art to agree to a pavement section. We're waiting on their design to come back. And at such time, we've also submitted for the Denton County bond to do improvements on the north side. We have the funding to do the water and sewer improvements and we're working with the county on the funding for the roadway improvements. And that bond election was called August 16th and the actual election will be in November and being if that's approved, we will have the funding to be able to finish the almond locus portion on the north side. And then at such time, the city will take over almond locus between three and eagle drive. Thank you very much. So that concludes item V. Mayor, just council member and board members know where we sent the information, the PowerPoints to Kim. I believe so it can be distributed to all of you to have in your back pocket so you can refer to when you get questions. And I'm going to pause for a second and before I call item C, lead into that give Dr. Wilson, Sarah, if y'all have anything that you want to kind of preface this conversation with and item C, but then also give credit where credit's due. So this great building we're in is a nice building. And so it just it's a great example of us working together in the fruits of that. And so just I did want to point that out that this is a great thing. And then give credit where credit's due. Again, Dr. Wilson has been fantastic about being sensitive to the fact that we all serve taxpayers and putting buildings back on the tax roll or property back on the tax roll. If it's not being used or it's not in their plans, but being very intentional about that. And I appreciate that. And it's meant a lot. And it also is a good opportunity for me to go talk to the citizens of it and kind of share that, you know, so that they know that that's your heart, you're passionate about that. So with that, if y'all want to lead us in any lead in to item C and then just just we have item C for discussion points for what are some future topics that this collective group might like for city staff and IC staff to put together. You come in and talk about as we move forward. And, you know, as you see part of all of this, it's, there's a lot of moving parts that work through this. I think it was great to hear Mayor Hutsby talk about the body and brain expansion and all those pieces. Well, you know, we had a contractor before on Teasley that went bankrupt that we had to work through. And again, the school has to come regardless because the kids are coming. And I think, I think a lot of what is it coming upon us is to take a step back and just remember that build, build ready or not here they come. Right. And even with the best laid plans and everything you try to do years in advance, this was five years ago, we were working through these items. It didn't always go the way you want it to. I can tell you this, I was at the high school yesterday morning at five till nine and there wasn't a car waiting. So part of part of what happens at the start of the school year is simply people figuring out what their pattern is going to be, who gets there earlier, who comes later, who has been practiced before athletics things before. If traffic is that bad, people realize maybe we shouldn't take four cars and four kids can ride in one car with a parent. That's a good thing. Carpooling is good and encouraged. But the first day of school, the first two days of school, nobody wants to carpool. Everybody wants to take their freshman. Everybody wants to take their kindergartner. They want to walk them in. We've got to have the different brins as we work through it. I think it's important that this was timely that we get together now because I think now you've seen things bubble up and work through it. The city has been amazingly supportive about trying to mitigate what we can as we work through it all. Nobody would like to have bike lanes and pedestrian paths and all that to schools that they may open more than I would. At the same time, nobody wants to put portables at schools when they get too big for where they're located. Sometimes you have to, and it's an inconvenience that you work through. Good, bad, and different is where we are, but any other topics that you guys have that we'd like to collectively talk about, I do think the continued discussion about Colin Hunter is probably just keeping that update. For most people, it's going to come and meet in the middle. The county's bond on loop 288 expansion westward is significant with regard to that because as Hunter comes from the south and Cole comes from the north, it will come right in the center, which is very similar to what we've worked through in the eastern corridor of the school district. Everything's way east and it's coming towards the center. And when you heard Mr. Thompson talk about the spirit of development, that's jumping over to what I call the western section of the eastern quadrant. And so that's what happens is it all, it all kind of coalesce together. Hey, we didn't have such a great community. Just appreciate the partnership. Jamie and I have each other on speed dial and we have enough respect for each other that we work through these problems and just address them head on. But we have, I would say I have some of the best people to work with from the city. And obviously he does from the school district that there isn't anything we can't figure out and that's everything from the future. Maybe we have to add another natatorium because of the growth of needs for aquatics to other things. And so she said that publicly, not. You know, it's a great thing. And so we just have to continue to do what we're doing, but appreciate the support from both the council and the board. Okay. So for us, it's item C's ID 221330 receive report and hold discussion and give staff direction regarding topics of future of future joint meeting discussion. No, five, five. Sorry. But yes, I'll turn it over. I think that I have a big role to play in this as the city's representative on the regional transportation council. But I would love to see an update on the N.C.T. COGS, safe routes to school program and what we're doing to bring ourselves into alignment with that. Obviously, roadway planning is really important, but I think we've we've learned, unfortunately, the hard way in a couple of instances, how important it is to have a robust sidewalk network in the city of current and future schools to tie that in with the N.C.T. COGS. Thank you. And Councilor McGuire stole my question to some degree, but I want to follow that on to sort of echo that, that that's really important. And I think sort of success story in the same vein is what we were seeing with the SROs is the flexibility you gave Matt Preston to work with the city and interface with me and then mobility with Becky's group to really nail down those appropriate sidewalks because he's sitting there right in that neighborhood. He knows how his kids are getting to school. The parents are talking to me about how they're getting to school. And I think that work, I mean, it just worked beautifully to be honest. Things got smoothed out and I really appreciate you giving him that that sort of power and flexibility to work with your operations team to figure that out. So I just want to make sure that something's really good. I want to make sure that you do a good job letting him have that power. The other thing in addition to that is I think there's a there's a place sort of in the regional transportation realm where collectively the board, the council and probably need to roll in the county commissioners. See, see the degree to which we can push on our friends and text that because we all all three of those bodies have the same problems. We have six text that roads and we probably there are most problematic roads that we have to deal with. And I know that we have reasonably good operating relationship with those folks. But to the extent that we could coordinate our efforts as a single hive mind to get them to really understand. You all need to move a little faster on some of these issues. It's it's killer schools. It's killing our neighborhoods. It's killing our future mobility planning. We need your help. So to the extent that we can coalesce in a single vision, I'd encourage you to do so. Anyone else just add to that. It's so important that we have coordination and particularly the coordination at the regional level. And I really sense that we need to maybe focus even more than we have more recently on the role of the council of governments in what they can do to help all of us collectively achieve our goals. And I'd love to see you all as a city be pretty aggressive in your interaction with the council of governments. It will make a difference. OK. Well, if there's nothing else. So, Mayor, I think the only other thing is to say, are we doing this once a year, twice a year? Well, we've done it the past quarterly. Quarterly. We can we can start going twice a year and then get to quarterly, however you'd like to do it. I mean, it's you guys have a lot going on, too. So this happened to work because of the it was a fifth Tuesday. Yes. And there wasn't a whole lot scheduled on the fifth Tuesday. So any of those months that have a fifth something. It's usually not everything's usually scheduled first, second, fourth, so fifth something helps sometimes. We only have we have council members now twice a month, which is great for our planning. But we also have school board meetings and stuff that I don't want to get. I know you don't either. We don't want to get to a point where we're not having these meetings and we're not sharing this information. I mean, we are definitely working behind the scenes, but it's important we keep you updated. I would recommend that we take some of these things we just talked about. Maybe maybe check with the county and see if we might include some of them and get a regional perspective on whatever we can get that together. And it's a good idea to have the cog involved and just kind of work through that. I mean, it would be good to include in that. Maybe if it happens before November, I know that it would be moving right after right after November, probably after the bottom line for the county where roads would probably work for me. Probably a good idea. Good timing wise, we might be able to get textile representative here. Well, there is a real value in all of the governmental entities, the county, the city and the school district, all really coordinating our bond planning. Absolutely. And I would like to see us do some public interaction in helping each other successfully sell our bond planning so that we all understand the interrelationships. Because often the success of one bond project depends on funding that may come from one of the other bond projects. And I just I think it's so important that that coordination be ongoing and visible to our public. Well, we were kind of having a side conversation, but I think because so much is happening in our city at such a rapid pace that it would be good to me on a quarterly basis, because so much could happen in the six months span of time and we could be here jamming all this stuff where we can be proactive. And maybe we could strive toward that and try to do maybe three a year for a while. Then I know it's difficult to coordinate and have the regular meetings, but it is extremely valuable. The most important thing to me is that all of the staff from both the city and the school district understand how important a priority is among the elected officials in both the city and the county that they are in fact engaged on a regular basis. As long as I know the work among the staff is really taking place, I'm not so concerned about how often we meet. I just want to be updated regularly. But I really want to make sure that that's a high priority so that we all are coordinating together. In years gone by, before legislative session or at the beginning of the legislative session, we've had multi-agency meetings where we got on the same page with one another's legislative agendas. This would be a good December to target for other things as well as that. I can remember the most impressive presentations I ever saw in Austin, where when a city person popped up and said, "Oh, by the way, the school district needs this, this, and this." And the school person popped up and said, "Don't forget the city and the county and the chamber and the nonprofits." And we were all supporting each other's legislative agendas, and it was powerful. You don't have enough time with Denton County Days to get it all. If we had a separate meeting, it would really be better, I think. I think so, too. And we have plenty of time to plan this and do it well. And to show up in Austin, everybody prepared to be mutually supportive, because that's not something they're used to seeing. And those were the comments that came flowing back from the legislators was, "Wow, these Denton folks have really got it together." Everybody's supporting everybody else, and at the same time, you fold in the universities and their agendas as well. So it's a good way to help. We kind of did that with the last Denton County Days. Remember when we met at Sweetwater and kind of each group, "Okay, you get this, you get this, you get that." We really aced it compared to everybody else who did this. I do think that's important. The other thing, though, is when you're talking about bond programs and things, that's important because many of the things we do, there's an opportunity to share facilities, which we've proven. And that is where the taxpayers get the bigger bang for the buck instead of duplicating those things. And the county also needs to be able to table on that. But I definitely think we need to have more conversations when that occurs because many of us have the same needs. Well, y'all can probably come to a playoff game or two if you show up in December. Yeah. We just did a quick look over at the calendar, and it will put some stress on our staff to get it all together before Thanksgiving. But we think it's at November 29, Tuesday, it's the fifth Tuesday of the month of November. That's three months from today, basically, November 29. So maybe that's another time to get it together. And we'll look at doing some coordination with the county on that. And cog-like, right? I mean, do work through it. And then if we have time, we could even do legislative agenda work if we needed to. Darren's ready now. He's on go. Could I suggest, too, that one of our successes through the years has been cooperation not just between the city and the school district, as well as the county, but also the cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce is so important. And some kind of liaison where they're actively involved in knowing what we're talking about, I think, is really important as well. We can make sure that -- well, Erin's a good person that we both know quite well. And she's here in the building because we share office space with them so that we can coordinate better on economic development issues as well as development. So, perfect. A couple of things have jumped out to me that I don't know that it fits, but just to put it out there. One, from a workforce standpoint, I think the more we can partner with the Denton ISD and your -- and then just kind of all those talents. I'd love to put something in place that fast-tracks them to the front of the line. And we have some sort of thing where they come straight out of there and have an opportunity at the city if there's something like that that we can discuss. Vendors, obviously, we saw today, we should be in regular conversation. Maybe that's one of those things we can kind of pool resources from a vendor standpoint as well and leverage that knowledge base. And in economic development, I think that it's critical for us to kind of share notes on who's coming to talk to us, and that ties right back to workforce. That when I go to those meetings, that's really what they want to know. They want to know, hey, if I come here, who's going to work here, especially now? And so coordinating those things, again, for your campuses, those that aren't -- even if they are going to NCTC or if they're not, they're going straight to a trade. Let's plug them in at the city, especially those police officers, those sort of things. I mean, that's critical. And we have all the training from your classroom to then we're going to have vendor gun range. We're going to have that training capability, classroom capabilities there. So we're going to have some really neat facilities and amenities to make sure we're having the best equipped students come out of this area. Don't forget firefighters. Yes. Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. That is true. It really seems to me that we haven't done as much as we potentially could to help promote economic development through the fact that Denton ISD encompasses an area substantially larger than the city of Denton. But we have this tremendous growth to the east, particularly, and many of those people that live out there don't necessarily think much about coming into Denton to do shopping and do their business. But as they come through the school district, we're drawing them back into Denton. And it just seems to me there's some creative thinking that really needs to go on between all of us and particularly maybe with the chamber about how we might promote more economic development for businesses within Denton by being more engaged with the people in the eastern corridor of Denton ISD. Just a thought that I think we ought to all think about. Yeah. Knowing Alliance has 75,000 jobs just to the south of us, right? And we use the bus people down there, right? So as that fills up, hopefully we can get some more jobs here. So that's great. Okay. Well, then, if there's anything else? Any none? Then I'll call the closed session. That would be the last thing, and we'll get out of everyone's way. I think we're good. No, we don't need it. Okay, great. Even better. So, anyone else? So just in closing, I'll just say thank you all very much for being here. It's always a pleasure to see our friends from ISD. And thank you for the prize. Thanks for being here. And we will now adjourn this for the morning. Okay. We'll adjourn. Thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you.