All right. So with a quorum being present, I will now call this City of Denton Economic
Development Partnership Board meeting on Wednesday, January 11, 2020 to order. Just want to remind
everyone that this is being live streamed and recorded. So please say your name and
before you speak and speak loudly and clearly. And if you have phones, please turn those
off for the time being because I can't imagine anything more important than what we are doing
here together today. Let's change the world. We're going to start with items for consideration
1A, EDP 23-004. Consider approval of the minutes of September 14, 2022. Those were in your
packet and distributed prior to today. At this time, the Chair will accept a motion for approval
as distributed in a second before we have a discussion. All right. It's been moved.
Do I hear a second? It's a second. All right. It's been moved and seconded. Are there any
proposed edits to the minutes from where they were distributed? Any further discussion?
Hearing none, I will call the vote. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. All
those opposed, please signify by saying nay. And are there any abstentions? All right.
The motion carries. Items for consideration B, EDP 23-005, elected Chair and Vice Chair
to the Economic Development Partnership Board. The further information about when that's
supposed to happen and how long those terms are was included in Exhibit 1 in the agenda
information sheet. But these are one-year terms and anyone who is a voting member of
the board can serve as Chair and/or Vice Chair. The Chair gets together on the agenda before
we have our meetings and proposes on behalf of the board agenda items and governs the
meetings. And the Vice Chair does all of those things as well as fill in to chair the meetings
if the Chair is absent. Which can only occur less than three times annually for our commitment.
I read that in what I signed so. Wow. Yeah. You know what, I'm not the only one here that's
surprised that Steve can read. So this is a huge deal. You know, running one of the top
five taxpayers in our city and managing the health care of thousands and thousands and
thousands of citizens. I'm thrilled, thrilled at your commitment to learning to read. Just
kidding. So currently I'm obviously serving as the current Chair and Steve is our Vice Chair.
But at this time I will accept nominations for Chair and then we will move to Vice Chair
and again you can self nominate as well as nominate someone else.
Council Member Davis. I will nominate Jill Jester for Chair. Second.
Are there any other nominations for Chair for this next year?
Making it awkward. Just to make sure everyone feels like they've had an opportunity.
All right. Hearing no other nominations. All those in favor of Jill Jester to serve
as Chair for another year, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed, same sign.
Nay. I'm just kidding. I got time and it was off. If you could identify yourself. Yeah, Steve.
Read. Just kidding. Okay. Any abstentions? All right. Well the motion carries almost unanimously
and thank you for putting up with me for another year. Obviously I very much care about the City
of Denton and our prosperity will be. So thank you and sorry to staff and everyone that now has to
work with me whether you. Okay let's move on to Vice Chair. So at this time the floor is open
for nominations for Vice Chair for this next year of this board. Come on y'all. I did the last one.
Sure. All right. Who did you nominate? Steve Edgar. Are there any other nominations?
All right. So there is one nomination for Vice Chair for this next year of this board and that
is Steve Edgar. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. All those opposed,
please signify by saying nay. Any abstentions? Yeah. Mr. Edgar, congratulations. Thank you.
Oh my gosh. No more than three absences. I'm no more than three absences. All right.
Oh who seconded the motion? I'm gonna say Mr. Davis did because he raised his hand
right after Mr. Tory did. Yeah I like it. All right well thank you and let's keep moving along.
Items for consideration CEDP 23-006. Receive a report and hold a discussion regarding activities
and development at Denton Enterprise Airport and we certainly appreciate our speaker coming back
to fill us in on what's happening. The airport is a huge conduit for economic development.
It's huge as far as visibility in our state and across the nation. It's so much busier than I
think people realize and we're very pleased to have the airport director here today to tell us
what's happening, what's on the horizon, and anything that we could be doing to help you.
So welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. I am Scott Gray. I'm the airport director for
Denton Enterprise Airport here in the city and I do have a presentation that you probably got in
your packet in November the last time I was here but believe it or not it was May of 2019 the last
time I was here so probably a lot of things have changed for those that were still on this board.
I'll cover some of those and in the last two months even some of the PowerPoint has changed
so I'll cover some of those as well. So quickly in 2022 we finished the year with about
81 ground leases so that would be for anybody leasing land from the city. They typically build
their own facilities so they build their own hangars, they'll build their own office space,
whatever the case may be. So we have 81 tenants on the airport at the moment, underground leases.
42 businesses, so some of those businesses have multiple properties which our fixed base operators
do. So 42 businesses, maintenance, aircraft sales, charter, etc. So all of the different
aspects of aviation needs for the folks that visit our airport. We just finished our
base aircraft update. We did a hanger inspection, 425 base airplanes. 36 of those are corporate jets
and then the spattering of single-engine, multi-engine, med trans helicopters is there
so they have their helicopters there as well. And believe it or not there's two balloons
that we have. This happens to be an airline pilot that actually does balloons. I think she's been in
a couple of the city events in the last couple of years as well so she does have her balloons
at the airport as well. We do have two runways. So let's see in 2019 we would have been working
on our second runway. So now we have two runways. In the picture as you can see right here is our
primary runway and then the parallel runway is here. 7,002 feet for the primary, 5,002 feet
for the secondary. The secondary runway was added pretty much to help support flight training and
separate traffic from faster, larger airplanes to the smaller airplanes which I think has addressed
the reason why we've seen an increase in our operations that I'll cover in a minute.
We have about 950 acres at the airport, most of which you can kind of see is it's right through
here. We do own this property here on this side and we do own this property right here as well
where the freeway will go through and I'll cover that in a minute as well.
Excuse me, could you reference this? Oh this one over here? Yeah absolutely, absolutely. So as the
title says busiest general aviation airport in the state of Texas. One can argue that but the state
said it so we're going to go with it. Generally speaking the operational levels for the busiest
is between us, Fort Worth, Meacham and McKinney. We all do about the same thing. We're in different
locations but flight training up or down any particular month will push somebody up for the
busiest for that month etc etc. But since the state agreed with me that we were the busiest we're going
to go ahead and keep using that. What's pretty exciting for us right now is this has 150 operations
per year. We blew that out of the water this year. We were almost 177,000 operations. So mainly
increased traffic not only from training so when we got the second runway people that weren't
willing to come use our airport because of one runway their safety concerns with larger aircraft
and smaller aircraft. Having the secondary runway has been enticed not only our flight school that's
based at the airport to increase their their presence but also other aircraft are coming from
different airports and training at our facility as well. So let's see I started about five and a half
years ago. We were at 127,000 operations when I got here. So in five years we've seen about a 40%
increase in operations. I would expect depending upon the economy that we would probably see a
little more growth in operations at the at the airfield. What we're hoping to see is an increase
in corporate activity. The training activity is great we need more pilots but those those folks
don't buy a lot of gas which is which are secondary revenue sources for the airport. So having
corporate airplanes fly particularly transient which means going to and from our airport somewhere
else will enhance not only the presence of the airport but in business activity at the at the
city. Yes sir. Back on the runways so 7,000 feet is there any corporate jet that can't get in the
dent now or what what can we have? We can accommodate pretty much any existing corporate
aircraft in the fleet. We actually have 737 it comes periodically DC-9s so 7,000 feet is sufficient.
Now if it's 100 degrees in the summer they're fully loaded they're in a Gulfstream stage 650
maybe not be able to fully load with fuel or passengers they'll have to adjust for that.
Thank you. We are the fourth busiest contract tower. So contract tower different from an FAA tower. So
FAA tower like McKinney excuse me like Meacham and like Dallas Fort Worth and Dallas Lovefield
those are operated built and operated by the FAA. Most of the smaller airports have what's called
contract towers where the the sponsor the municipality builds those facilities and then
the FAA pays their contractors to go work in it. It actually is about
20 percent of the cost of operating a FAA tower so it's a lot cheaper. So for smaller airports it
it's turned out to be a fantastic program. I believe there's nearly 300 of those towers in
the program one of which is ours and we are number four across the country. The ones that are busier
really have a little bit better weather than we do. Arizona and Florida those are the two busiest ones
and they do a tremendous amount of flight training at those facilities. I always like this one I
think we're a little higher now the December numbers aren't into the FAA system to update that
number but we're number 89 in the country overall all airports is busiest. When I moved here I moved
here from Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh was number 90 so I thought well this is an upgrade so this is
one step at a time one at a time. So this will be of interest to all of you folks and I'm sure that
you may have seen some of this information when it came out. TxDOT does a economic impact study for
all the airports of the state and this was what they gleaned from that when they did ours in 2018
obviously these numbers are different now. We've been encouraging TxDOT to create a web-based system
where we can actually change parameters and get new numbers on the fly. Some other states have done
that so we're interested in getting as new of information as we can. 2018 data doesn't really
tell us much today unfortunately but 1,400 jobs so that's jobs at the airport and that's jobs
that support the airport so could be jobs at rental car could be jobs at hotels etc etc office
supply companies so that's all that's all across the board not just at the airport. 45 million
dollars in payroll and you know 150 million dollars in goods and services and I'm sure
these numbers have been enhanced just with activity that's going on. You can see in some
of the pictures the types of airplanes we have corporate jets etc. We do have a number of service
providers so this has changed since November when I was here. We have two fixed base operators fixed
base operator is the ones they're kind of like the concierge of the of the airport they provide
fueling they arrange for catering they arrange for hotel rental cars etc so they're kind of the
concierge. They are a private business they lease property from us they they provide all the services
for us. US Jet Center was just purchased by Shelter Aviation which is a private company that operates
15 FBOs across the country mainly in Florida so they bought they bought their facility out and
they now have a presence they did their official opening December 7th I think it was when we did
the official ribbon cutting mayor was there for that event and we're excited about their presence
they have a history of being the number one FBO in the country over the last four years so it brings
a lot of professionalism and a lot of contacts that would be helpful for attracting those business
customers to our facility as well. US Trinity Aviation they are our other FBO so we have two
at the moment and then US Aviation Academy US Jet Center US Aviation Academy we're owned by the same
company the Aviation Academy stayed so they are leasing now from their new landlord and stayed
and they probably have nearly 200 airplanes just to do their flight training their biggest problem
is they don't have enough mechanics to keep the airplanes checked they have to do a check every
hundred hours so their their struggle is not that they don't have enough people that want to fly
it's making sure that the airplanes have been checked off so they can fly. Met Trans as I
mentioned earlier exciting news with them it just we went to council last night and was approved on
consent they've opted for their second parcel next to their development and then we'll be building
another facility there that will house their fixed wing training program so they do their helicopter
training program they'd be doing their fixed wing training program and additional helicopter
flight training devices there so we're excited about that taking place as well and then as I
mentioned earlier a number of other businesses that are at the facility. Development opportunities
this is this is on the east side of the airport so give you a perspective the terminal building
is right off the picture here so here's airport road coming right down here here's the terminal
area of the tower you can see right there so this is where most of our remaining property is on the
east side if it's in the green it's available if it's in red it's already part of leasehold and
these are right of first refusal so this is the parcel that Met Trans is going to build on
so here's their existing facility right here and they have this in their leases right of first
refusal when they decide to move on so they'll be building on that site. We do have applications
and development going to start on site 10 and 11 so those will probably be moving forward here in
the next several months as soon as we get some design criteria from that and then with shelter
coming in they've already expressed interest not only do they run FBOs but they do hanger development
across the country so they're interested in expanding our hanger presence because
we don't have any places to put all those corporate jets that are going to come
right there's no more room so they're very interested in in developing some of these parcels
and maybe expanding on some of their old leasehold. So this is a significant piece to the future of
the airport is Luke 288 and I know Luke 288 has probably been talked about for a couple decades
I would imagine it never fails it's always that way right. Our excitement with this is that's
what's going to allow us to develop this parcel here which is aviation and then as I mentioned we
own this parcel right here that the free world will be coming through that'll allow the airport
not only to have additional aviation resources on that side but it'll also allow us to diversify
have non-aviation related revenue if say class a office space restaurant whatever the case may be
could be on airport property and we could glean additional revenues that we're not seeing now.
Unfortunately it's not there yet I don't know when it will be there yet I know TechSoc's in
the process of doing all their acquisition of the right away so if that's taking place now I'm
guessing we're still five plus years out to see that happen and I'll be gracious with five years.
The key for our success is if we could get right here's Jim Crystal if we could get the north
northbound access road built first which I know there's conversations with TechSoc to build that
piece that'll open us up with development opportunities when that starts right now
which is very different property in between the current we own this and we own this parcel right
here so it'll split that parcel some of that's floodplain you know obviously some issues there
I'm sure we'll work with parks and do something exciting over there for the can't be developed but
obviously the future of our airport is is really getting this this access to that side because
that can expand our development opportunities as you know Cole and Hunter Ranch will be all through
here south of the airport we're hopeful that that will draw additional folks that need corporate
travel that need class a office space etc etc I say this and I'll hope I don't offend anybody
but I've said this ever since I got here frozen peas don't fly on airplanes so we have a lot of
development around the industrial park which is great you know I'm sure it's fantastic for the city
but that doesn't put people on airplanes we need corporate presence in order to enhance our our
airport activity so we do work closely with Wayne and his staff on people that are interested in
bringing warehousing etc and then if there's an aviation component how we can how we can help with
that this this picture here is from the airport master plan that was completed 15 2015 I believe
it was 2013 data so what this shows is what was proposed to happen in the in that different time
frames right it's a 20-year plan this was to show what would be proposed in in different sections
of that plan as you can see this piece right here is that parallel runway which is already
constructed so some of these things are done some of these things have already been foregone
because the property was used for for a different type of development versus t hangers etc the fire
station I believe was shown to be right over here the fire station actually is currently under
construction right next to the terminal building because it was a better location for access not
only for airport but also for the firefighters to respond to the industrial area etc so the exciting
thing about about this picture some of this stuff is done and we've convinced the fa and tech stock
to do another update to our master plan and that's what we're going to be starting here shortly as I
mentioned the fire station there's a picture a rendering of what the fire station will look like
if you've been out to the airport before here's the terminal building right here towers just off
the picture so we kind of created it to kind of look like it all fit in at the same time period
so we didn't have something that looked a little older or something a little newer a few facade
changes will be done to the terminal building to help it match so that project fencing is up they'll
start moving dirt here probably in the next week and that project's likely going to take about 16
months to finish barring any additional supply chain issues that obviously we faced for a long
time this is the fire truck that was it was purchased it's probably been a little over a
year ago now that that came in so we already have the fire truck that one will be stationed
here along with two other trucks the other two trucks obviously will respond to other incidents
within their range the master plan as I mentioned that will likely go to council for a contract for
our consultant to in march and then that project will take 18 months that project will look at all
opportunities available to the city for our airport so not just general aviation not just corporate
flight training but they will be looking at similar to what mckinney did is there a necessity to have
passenger service is there is a necessity to have cargo activity obviously alliances is pretty much
full at this point so that will be looked at and that process the master plan is a pretty
strange straightforward process but we're asking our planning firm to kind of ask the questions
about what we could be and then allow us to go to the council and say these are these are directions
which which exit we want to take who do we want to be over the next 20 years and then we'll develop
the rest of the plan accordingly so that could mean runway pavement strength increases could be
runway length could be you know different facilities etc etc that that that plan will help us get there
the next project which we were working with the fa and texas on that went to council last night as
well to finish the design is a nearly 20 million dollar runway reconstruction project so our primary
runway hasn't been touched in decade or more so there's major cracks there's some subsurface
issues some of which we've repaired as we kind of log just so happened the acting administrator
from the fa happened to show up out at the airport and i gave him a tour and allowed him to stick his
hand down into the runway into the crack and the next thing i know the fa's number one project for
the region happens to be our 20 million dollar project so we got we got lucky that he came and
visited with his staff so that project's going to probably move forward with design here very quickly
with construction happening at the end of this year through part of next year our biggest concern
is is as you can imagine if we're that busy we got to close this runway how long it's going to be
closed it's not uncommon for engineers and to say well you need to be closed for three or four months
and three or four months closure for an airport doesn't really work well right as you can imagine
so we've indicated to them hey we know walmart got their runway reconstructed completely similar
length as ours in two weeks so i think you guys need to go back and figure out how we can do it
better i'll give you 30 days that's how much time i'll give you so that's where we're working towards
now they got to finish the design figure out how we can get there but anything we can do to minimize
the downtime for our primary runway for our for our businesses that are located there and then our
customers that are coming in as our primary goal there we go now i'll open it up with any questions
that you might have nothing's off off the limits councilmember davis and if anyone else has a
question just raise your hand i'll make notes and we'll go down the line go ahead uh talking about
the fire department can you tell us a little bit about the economic impact that will have and kind
of obviously more fire fire stations the better uh better emergency response and all that kind of
stuff for that part of town um but having it at the airport why is that so important it's a great
question um mainly uh large corporate operators um will actually call especially international
customers and we've had some international customers come they come from england they'll
land to clear customs someplace else and then they'll come to us for whatever reason they're
doing business and they'll ask those questions quite often from international travelers if you have
arf is what it's called aircraft rescue and firefighting on the airport while we do the
truck is there there's the uh the firefighters respond from either station three which is by
ut or station seven which is down off of vintage they respond get in the truck and then then they're
there um so what the significant is is sometimes those operators have sops in their own operation
of their aircraft they won't go to an airport that doesn't have on-site are especially if they're
carrying passengers right um so i think it will make a big difference in future decisions by
businesses wanting to be located or operate to and from is because we will have we will have on-site
fire response so in order in order to handle larger airplanes and things like that you have
we've discussed this many times before it's part 139 which is a safety certification from the
airport we operate that way since i've been here but we just don't have a certificate because we
don't have a need to have one that requires firefighters to respond to the middle of the
runway within three minutes well obviously now that's very difficult to do is to get somebody
from station three or seven over get in the truck and get the apparatus out to the middle of the
runway obviously being on the airport we'll be able to meet that yes oh councilmember davis and
mr corey yes i heard the news today that uh most of the major airports shut down because of uh
system problems how does it affect our airport with that national system problem and did it
affect our airport today yes so that was the note of system which um they changed the name of it so
it was the notice to airmen is what the official name was everybody that has a safety issue
piece of pavements closed etc etc reports that to the fa that thing is available to all pilots that
are going to and from those airports that system in about 1800 zulu last night so give or take
24 hours ago um went down um which then pilots can't get the safety information that they may
need so throughout the night i had emails throughout the night because i'm on that system
um that it was broken at some point in time the fa decided that they were going to do a ground
stop for all commercial airlines and i think it actually expanded to all ifr which is basically
corporate and uh commercial airlines so they did a ground stop because the pilots couldn't get the
safety information where they were going let's say a piece of navigation of equipment was
non-operational they wouldn't know that so they'd be trying to tune in while they're flying and they
can't get it you know that kind of stuff so um for the airlines major impact major impact for us
yeah we did see some corporate airplanes that were sitting on the ground waiting to leave
because they they were have to wait till the ground stop was over flight training and those
types of things were unaffected so we still had airplanes operating but we had a few corporate
airplanes i could tell that were sitting there uh apu's running indoors closed going hmm what
are we going to get out of here um so yeah they they did lift that uh before this meeting started
so um hopefully that won't have any future impact on us at least today the airlines i'm sure
especially unfortunately southwest will probably struggle through it because the way their system
works as we found out recently with some of the things that they struggled with it'll have an
impact on their operation was there any kind of dollar negative was there any kind of dollar
negative effect for our airport you know it has an impact on business operators right um but it's
back operational so you know i'm sure the fa is going to be doing a full-blown investigation to
try to figure out how they can have that never happen again um we'll see what happens but it is
an important system that we we rely on as an airport operator to tell pilots when there's a
piece of pavement closed or there's a situation the navigational facility doesn't work whatever
it's down for maintenance so it's important that it does work
council member days can you talk a little bit you mentioned the master plan and the master plan
process and there will be a point in that process where you kind of stop and set the vision kind of
pick a i think you said pick an offer pick an exit or pick a direction can you tell us a little
bit about what some of those directions might be knowing that we've still got a whole planning
process to go through but what are we talking about what are some different things that we could do
if we're already really performing at this top tier and pretty busy sure um so it's it's pretty
much the character of the airport so we're a general aviation airport we don't have scheduled
airline service we don't have large cargo operators like alliance we have small cargo
operators and occasional deliveries for peterville etc because we can handle certain size airplanes
so that's who we are that's who this airport's been for its existence right unless it was when
it was a military um training facility so that's one direction we continue to be general aviation
we continue to expand for corporate business purposes private flyers etc the other one is
like mckinney's doing current commercial service do we think that commercial service would be
warranted in this area of the metroplex right so we'd have to go through very similar things that
that mckinney has already gone through over the last several years so is the area the metroplex
have demand large enough that another facility would be warranted right then we could venture
down that path right building a terminal building on the other side with the freeway etc and then
second to that different than what we are would be larger cargo operation something similar if
you will to what alliance is doing we can be who we are not a lot of changes other than you know
some additional infrastructure taxiways connectors stuff to get people from the runways to the new
facilities if you start talking passenger service then you need a new terminal building you need all
of that infrastructure and i think mckinney is considering floating a pretty large huge um
bond to do that i i heard numbers of 400 million i believe the construction for the terminal
building and to get them started is 200 million um to give them four gates and have some operations
to do that cargo obviously is a whole different animal because you need
large warehouses that are connected either airside connected so they would be on airport property
where the aircraft in the earth and the facility is a joint versus just in the industrial park
because you have to get it from the airplane to the storage facility etc etc so there'll be some
logistics with that but those are really the three off-ramps right could there be a combination of
all of those it's impossible there could be a combination of those when you when you take
one of those it impacts the others right so if you decide you want to have passenger service then
that'll likely have an impact on decisions for the general aviation facilities you may see operators
decide they don't want to operate at our airport anymore flight schools may decide they would like
to go someplace less congested with large airplanes etc etc so all those things will have to take
into consideration normally when you do an airport master plan you don't make that pause you just go
they they come back with here's the plan to accommodate everything we can think of that
that makes sense for this this region i believe it's important for us to kind of make sure
that the council and the citizens understand here's our options and what makes sense for us
is the city not just the airport but for the city of what we need and what would be supported and
then make the appropriate capital choices right could be runway length could be increased pavement
strength currently in order to view passenger service we could do passenger service with smaller
airplanes right now today we could probably figure out a way to make that happen but if you're going
to use you know aircraft bigger than 737s like a320s things like that for cargo or passenger
service our runway is generally not strengthened enough to handle that size airplane runway length
is debatable you know we have seven thousand some argue we need eight for certain types of aircraft
operations some say ten you know all of those things can be done it'll take a pretty good chunk
of money because we've got to cross drainage areas we may have to relocate roadways etc etc so
that will have major impacts on whatever direction we get yes for our help with executive assistant to
jill jester uh question along those lines do commercial airport department do uh like like
what mckinney's done does that make money do those does it does it is it is it a a service or is it a
moneymaker right is it is going to catch recapture those costs or is it a convenience quote unquote
cost great question mayor and and the general answer is depending upon the size of the airport
right so if you take mckinney they're going to get started they're going to start off as the lowest
level commercial service facility so there's non-hub small medium being dallas lovefield
and large being dfw right those are kind of the sizes so you're going to start off small
generally when you're in the non-hub maybe even the small you started you probably aren't making
much money probably costing you there's a lot of investment up front to get it and then it may come
as the service expands you get additional airlines etc etc but to start no it will be more of a
service to the region than it would be as a economic impact to their bottom line got and
follow up to that so councilmember davis and i were at alliance and talking to h ross brod jr
obviously wildly successful built that from the ground up uh and and he seems and so i trust his
insight to say that uh there's an opportunity for us to get into that market and just because of
where we're located and obviously he has a dog in the hunt because he has 3000 acres near but i i
trust his his vision i mean they created it from scratch that that uh that industrial side of things
that freight side of things but looking at the passenger side of things i think it from a rail
standpoint from a why would someone from lewisville come to denton standpoint and driving people to
denton uh and not having denton citizens have to drive to lovefield etc i think it makes a lot of
sense and so i look forward to the study coming back and my ask is just that we we focus on what
we can be outstanding and so there's obviously a lot of talk about drones right and so maybe if we
specialize in that i just want us to be uh uniquely specialized in an area like the flight school's
done well med transit's done well and if we can somehow be a hub quote unquote or a a source for
drone as uh services as that takes off and we begin to build infrastructure around that i think
that's just most important that we specialize in something outside of just convenience but but my
other ask would be my question would be is there anything that prevents us i forget the name of the
the freight the the the airline but it's like jst jxt it's a smaller kind of is that is there
anything preventing us from reaching out to them and saying hey you can fly from here right now as
and use them as a test case no we can reach out to whomever we want the issue would be what size
airplanes do they use and will our facilities accommodate so is the airplane too big way too
much then obviously that's a challenge but um we could we can provide service with less than 30
seats without having our part 139 safety certification so for example um unt and some of their opponents
have used our airport to move their sports teams not the football team because they use a an a320
and they go out of alliance um because it's a very large airplane but some it is used currently
today and we can help make that happen but no we can reach out to operators like that um and uh try
to accommodate them again the the thing that we probably don't have to accommodate it immediately
is a terminal facility that meets the demand of having that number of people at that location
waiting to get on the airplane so that would be the one thing that we would have to do and most
likely that's going to end up being on the other side of the airport right because we have the
developable um developable property we have the opportunity from a clean slate to build what's
needed um rather than trying to retrofit something that doesn't quite meet the need doesn't say we
can't make that happen in a shorter term to allow it to happen but certainly we can we can talk to
those folks got important just before i forget you mentioned drones typically referred to as uavs
that is part of the master plan study to find out if we can be a player in that if you will
charter to and from our facility maybe overdue lowfielder dfw business areas etc etc as being
done in the dallas area and i'll just close with this i mean i think it may be a worthy
field trip for this group to get so i went down to alliance at the service center gulf street does
and so that phase one of it is there and i think it'd be a worthy field trip to just understand
the economic impact of partnering i mean there's people by they can't build them fast enough and
the entry level plane is 29 million dollars so a person that has 29 million dollars and a flight
crew and a support staff on the plane has disposable income or that company does and so just the the
dollars tighten again that's entry level i mean you you get up there and they're all customized
and just kind of understanding what that brings to our community in and out as they're getting
things done is is pretty impactful and introduces a whole different business climate to to the city
of denton and then when you talk about office space it makes that conversation easier because
they're familiar at a different level so i mean i don't know what it would take to kind of get us
all on a bus to go down but i think it is pretty impactful and pretty impressive to see and that's
just one of the makers i mean i'm sure there's a million but that just kind of is here in this
area easy to get to and kind of gives a feel for what we could achieve if we could hit the right
mix a gulf stream is is one of the top that's like the gold star brand out there and when they were
looking to expand in the area we were certainly extremely interested having the developable
property on the other side because they're a large general aviation corporate aircraft developer
fit who we were at the time unfortunately and don't blame them of picking where they went because the
facilities were natural for them to fit but that may be something you know if there's continued
expansion either by them or from martier some of the other operators we were approached about
somebody who wanted to build brand new airplanes and come to our facility but i mean they're talking
airplanes that are probably can't fit in any other airport besides dfw and alliance at the moment
because they're so big that they're going to build it we just can't handle that type of airplane we
love to try right it's getting there it's going to be the challenges how do we how do we stack up the
funding grant funding etc to get us those facilities to have those and it's it's one of those
build it before they come you know because sometimes you know the airline industry is is
reactive they they want it now and they want to show up and start service when they want to start
service it's not usually the other way around where the communities hey we really want you to
be here they have to have a business model that works for them to come so that's that's the
challenge for passenger service cargo there's just lack of space in the metroplex right now
well i think maybe a trip to the airport would be beneficial not also i don't think we have time to
get into it today but i'd also like to talk about how creative the funding can be for all of these
different needs development reconstruction all the above but i think that would be a nice deep dive
as well to see what role the city plays versus the state the ffa etc we have had a reception out
there at economic development partnership board and our investors have been out there for a reception
which was really great we had some planes we got to look at but maybe something like that would be
really helpful and increase awareness in the community so that if something like a bond at
some point comes forward we can assist in being a conduit to the community as far as what is really
happening out there and what people are saying and i think we've hosted one of your meetings
in the past as well as well as well as that's of interest great well anything else before we let
mr greg go back to work and uh i gotta go to the celebration we're uh we're celebrating the
busiest year the airport so we have some food and cake so i promise to bring this taylor back
so no wine so i won't be gone okay just okay i suppose you could bring your own but i
well thank you so very much we really appreciate you and look forward to continuing our conversation
great thank you all right thank you thank you so much all right um we are closing in on noon so
we're going to try to move past these next items of consideration as soon as possible um moving
on to i'm is for consideration d edp 23-002 um receiver or hold a discussion and give staff
direction regarding the meeting dates and times for the calendar year 2023 so in uh your packet
and i believe on your tables in front of you we have two different alternate versions and one is
a quarterly meeting calendar one is a monthly meeting calendar and uh we're having a presentation
on that or just we're talking about it right yes it was let me get yeah well um so i mean i think
it's it's you know fair to say that we've had some issues with core in the past year and there have
also been instances where there's not necessarily something that we need to weigh in on um so this
option is being presented to have a quarterly meeting set versus monthly um in my opinion i
think it would be best to continue to be flexible so long as all of the individual members are very
good about responding to uh whether or not they're going to be present so that if we know there's not
going to be a quorum we can cancel ahead of time so that no one wastes time additionally if there's
nothing new to be voted on to be discussed and presented to council uh that we are just flexible
but you know my initial thought is that having these monthly meetings on hold for us will be
easier to get everyone together in case in between those quarterly meetings we do have something that
comes up that we need that we want to weigh in on before it goes to council and um that we have that
time that's set aside and we let everyone know as far in advance as possible whether those are going
to be needed uh but um wayne i don't know if you have further thoughts on the choice of calendars
going from quarterly to monthly and then after mr emerson we can open up the conversation to everyone
go ahead i would only say that we can always if we have a quarterly schedule we can always have
a special call meeting and we could hold those special call meetings on these dates i mean it's
always an option to do a special call meeting so that would be the only other thing i would
add to the conversation um erin do you have any thoughts or where's is dan here do you have any
um i think for sake of calendaring it's easier to maintain a holding on the calendar just because i
know that we have so many different calendars and different professions in this room so
i think it would be easier to hold the dates and then cancel if one is not available or there's no
updates so let's open it up for a discussion i mean there's no right or wrong answer um i don't know
how to turn that off apologize for the son of a gun dingy angel is getting in between so someone's
opening a bottle at one um you know what i'm just gonna i'm just gonna slow it yes so i would just
my comment would be what would work best for staff and from an organizational from a meeting
perspective if it works better for for you guys for for them to have a monthly set meeting and
then we adjust uh cancel or reschedule for the next month then uh i mean i in my opinion we try
to make it easy as possible for this body to respond you know when we have to we need to all right
i would say what makes it easy for staff is what makes it easy for the board because for us it just
takes staff time preparing to have a board meeting and so we're we're more than happy we're here to
serve at the pleasure of the board so what makes it easy for y'all is actually what makes it easiest
for us that's the best way to answer that no i would say monthly go ahead yeah i'd just say
monthly and then to your point if we're open and honest about if we can make or not make that that
kind of then you can count noses early and let everyone know we're not meeting but i do want to
stress that this only works if we are all being we're all good about communicating if we are not
going to be able to make it if we have a conflict and we will also i think work together to also
make sure that we're not having a meeting if a meeting is not needed right i mean everyone's got
other things they uh have as priority as as well um however i i think there is a lot out there to
talk about discuss learn about and advocate for uh that uh that we have not had the opportunity
to touch on just yet so um anyways but those are my thoughts but yes i think to your point
is maybe establishing some norms about what when do we decide we want to cancel when when do we
want to decide someone's if we don't have rsvps are we we have that form so that we avoid situations
like last time where you guys are all very busy professionals we show up and then we don't have
a meeting so i think maybe we could establish norms about when do we decide we want to call it
that would be beneficial to staff as well is there anything in our charter that requires
in-person attendance is there an option of having especially i know we've had to do that several
times in the last couple of years of offering to arrive at forum webex or zoom option as well
not that i'm aware of i'm not aware of any specific in-person requirement versus
we are not having um the web or virtual meetings any longer we do need to meet in person and we do
need to have a forum which is one more than half of the appointed board members so that is the stated
requirement and that's just all boards across the yeah it's an open
state requirement that we have to have let's um let's go to the capital yes yeah we have a physical
in-person quorum um there's also a little bit of a technical limitation with where we meet because
when we're broadcasting they have to do a very different setup it looks the same to folks watching
from home but it's technically a very different setup to getting them meeting out and how they
report it because you're accommodating sometimes you see a presentation sometimes you see a split
screen of the room and the guy on zoom or 300 people on zoom whatever it is it's technically
very difficult i don't know if they could accommodate here probably accommodate another location
but similarly that would be if we decided to do in a meeting at the airport that broadcast
would have to be considered how we can make that happen there or any other remote location i don't
think we can live stream from say the airport or the dist building when the city council meets with
dist there or something like that that's all recorded and then broadcast later which is an option
but uh i just i don't think that's necessarily just positive i'm just put it out there there's
also a technical limitation it just adds an additional consideration not not impossible
it's a different consideration um i like holding just for my own schedule i like holding the
the the date so i know so it's on the calendar and if it cancels goodie i get to be at my desk that
hour um you really said it it just just means another meeting takes place another another
something another demanding place um but we do that it's been pretty successful some other city
origin commissions i think that they may not need to meet every month but they have a calendar and
that helps get born there and then um it may be it may be helpful if we get down to there's an
agenda we have enough for a meeting there's enough meat on the bone to have the meeting but we're not
hearing back from folks um i don't know what the current kind of staff protocol is for reaching out
but i'll work with funtree you know if there's some trouble getting a hold of somebody i'll
i'll help get people calls and make sure they're going to be there and you're not going to forget
as soon as you RSVP that kind of thing because it's time out of our day too we should open up one
agree yes i just offer one other suggestion not too many the water but other boards i sit on and
boards that i manage tend to take off july and december so in the region i've noticed a lot of
like 10 month boards or add one more challenge but if you know if we don't need if there's if
those are heavy travel months realize i work in academia not everybody does but it still
tends to be true and so just one other thought that's a good thought and also just as we plan
out the next year and what we're going to cover and you know sometimes we're not in control of
what's coming up for votes um as far as incentives and that's you know a big part of what we do but
um i think that's very fair to say here are two months that are good to try not to stack up and
if they're going to be two that follow off these good months so all that information is helpful
additionally um i would encourage you to email me um and i will disseminate or if you have anything
that you would like to hear more about or discussions that you would like to have um
there's a lot going on a lot out there the reports that we get each time are so very
insightful as far as the standard board and what's going on uh so there's there's there's plenty but
feel free to help us bring something to the top of the list if needed and um i thought these
introductions were going to be done for but we have a couple of new people that are here today
uh filling in for tina out not filling in but uh taking over the spot we do have another
representative from peter bill which is one of our top taxpayers and uh would you mind just
introducing yourself and telling us just a little bit about sure uh my name is todd wells um i'm
director of manufacturing engineering for peter belt motors i've been in in denton since 1999
and i've been an employee of pac heart for going on 24 years now so i've been
um with the same same company for the most part for then extending my career professional career
and just uh looking forward to the opportunity to serve the community here and getting engaged
and definitely the development of the local area so appreciate it real thrilled to have you here
and look forward to hearing your perspective and know that we always want to be whatever one
has to say and then i understand we have a new you introduce yourself to us please
i'm katilda and i'm the new specialist with the economic development team with the city
great we're glad to have you here and look forward to working with you we also have one
yeah yes i'm lacy brother i am what's my name administrative assistant i am kind of the stuff
one of the staff members for y'all um i grew up in sanger i just recently moved back to the area
and i've been here for about a month now and i'm really enjoying it thank you and she's the one
who's been emailing you so you'll get your your calendar invitations from lacy meeting agendas
will come from lacy and any other reminders and communications to the board will also come to lacy
for us great well thank you we certainly appreciate it all right um so i i think the
consensus is we're going to keep the holds for monthly but we're all going to uh be very good
about communicating when we're unable to attend and we're also going to be good about determining
whether or not there's enough meat on the bone as you would say to have a meeting and use everyone's
time wisely is there any direction to what we would consider meat on the bone for staff or
make staff determine that i'm curious well certainly if there's an incentive that's going
to be presented to council or if there are any changes to the funding or direction that is given
the any reports that are going to be given to council we would like to also be a part of
your those um and then uh any speakers you know any outside speakers that are here uh to present
we definitely want to make sure that we've got a forum here for that um and i think the rest of
that is pvd is that helpful yes okay okay great all right um so we are moving to um eat can we take
yes we need to vote okay um so move thank you all those in favor please signify by saying aye
opposed please signify by saying nay and the motion carries
moving to item eedp 22-076 receive a report pull the discussion and appointment reappoint numbers
and an economic development partnership board representative to the downtown economic development
committee in the past this was the economic this was the downtown task force um currently
mr davis is our representative there it's just you know we do have a specific tourist uh raising
money and funding for the downtown area and so you know the downtown area has been a big economic
driver uh and so there's a specific downtown task force to help maintain the communication inside
and advocacy between the city and our citizens uh so i will let you take it from here see if i can
make it a little larger so everyone can read it okay so what we're asking you to do today is to
reappoint some members appoint a new member and also reappoint jesse davis as the chair
from the economic development partnership um reappointed members would be peggie caps
hank dickinson tracy wong reena malone and brock mcnight and hank dickinson has had a change of
employment he now works for the chamber and we'd like for him to hold the chair that represents
the chamber on the board and then we are also asking that we would like to appoint a new member
to fill the term from alex pain alex has left the board and busy with other projects downtown so
that's left a vacancy and we'd like to fill up position with jill herbs if you don't know jill
she's a co-owner of panhandle recording house it's just about a block over they've been in
downtown business and property owner for 25 years and they've expressed some interest in being more
involved in the community they're also um have joined the den masonry association and jill's
actually sat in on a few of the downtown economic development committee meetings just to get a better
feel for the committee and she feels like it'd be a great place for her to to get involved and and
be part of the community so that if you have any questions i'm happy to to go through any of the
the renomination three appointments or provide additional information uh thank you i'd like to
ask councilmember davis's our representative there um if you're familiar with this potential new
appointee and feel she would be a constructive member of the uh group i do i do and the really
cool thing about this group is that um it was it was new to me when uh y'all appointed me to it
and then there's some weird goals where i basically have to be the chair um which is fine i guess um
but getting to know the group it still has that kind of task force feel which is which is neat
and it's a round table kind of different kinds of folks and i think she's gonna be a really addition
good addition to that kind of round table feel um you've got bankers you got guys that sell ice
cream you got all sorts of different people um in the room and it's really a good dynamic so
i think she'll be a good addition thank you and any other comments on the reappointments
i'm very happy with everybody's every service they're um only only changing one person that's
somebody who is pretty clear that they needed to move on and do other things so um nothing it's
a good group all right any questions or discussion yes looking for a representative from unt
we have um we on this board we have um we do have the justice williams university
we have not had anyone from ut and we did for some time which was hank so and then he kind of
switched positions there um we do have that as one of our um potential you know positions to
be filled so that would be up to the economic development partnership board if you would like
to open it up and add another member i believed that we are at max it's nine to thirteen in the
durable um excuse me members so we have six we're right at our max right now at 13 um to add
another membership member or not to appoint jill is addition you know that would be up to you also
make that determination i was in no way promoting that i'm just asking because i didn't know what
there was a if you needed help identifying someone appropriate from unity here at max and are happy
please don't don't hear that i'm pushing that in any way i will mention that there are some
folks on the board obviously that that can tw but there's some folks on the board that have
connections obviously when when hank was a unt employee that was a really straightforward
connection but lots of folks on the board that have unt connections and uh have people's phone
numbers i totally agree i just wanted to make sure we were doing our part so yeah and jill
herps is a unt proud of unt alumni i do know i think hank still is partial to unt well but it
you know again it is one of the areas that is targeted um to consider and i think that in the
future it'd be nice to find a way to have that input uh but it sounds like the group right now
is successful um but i think in the future let's definitely try to find a way and we do have five
members that are they're on their final term so at the end of this this two-year session that would
be a great time to you know look at the diversity on the board all right well at this time is there
a motion to accept uh the proposals for reappointments and the new appointment to the
downtown economic development committee so moved okay all right it's been moved and seconded is
there any further discussion before a vote all right all those in favor please signify by saying
aye aye all those opposed please signify by saying nay and the motion carries unanimously
thank you very much all right thank you appreciate the presentation and all the information all right
well at this point we are to f which are the staff reports um i do want to hear about the airport
consensus updates and then we might uh fill in those last couple of items at our next
meeting as we are running a little late thank you eric is Sullivan on the economic development
program administrator here at the city we received the staff received a request for information on
denton the city of dentons incentives as well as mckinney's incentives so i'm going to briefly go
over the two programs so the city of denton we adopted our incentive program in 2015
this board actually was included in the policies that you approved in may or were approved by
council in may and the basic considerations over the dent policy is expanding the tax base one
then another idea is to the job growth spurring the job growth of the development of course fuel
sales and consumption so those are the the three considerations and then the minimum valuation for
the program is one million in aircraft valuation and that can be combined in order to be eligible
and then your backup you saw there was a short table that basically provides that the base
operator can get up to 25 and then the owner can get up to 25 and then the operator and or operator
because it could be the same entity um can get an additional five percent and that increases based on
valuation from a period of two to ten years so that is the dentons policy and then the city of
mckinney and mckinney's economic development corporation they also have airport related
programs their considerations involve the business personal property valuation of the aircraft itself
they involve jobs the business the real property valuation of improvements so that would be a
hangar or some type of office building or complex that would be at the airport and then finally they
look at sustainability so those are the at the considerations they look at and the things that
are eligible under their program are infrastructure relocation and training i'd be happy to entertain
questions business personal property was the big one on mckinney yeah that was the first one
yeah it was business personal property and then and they have jobs they listed them separately
and then their real personal property and that was the example i gave the hangar or the office
building and then they look at sustainable activities as well all of those emphasis sounds
good it seems that maybe should be included in dentons as well next time it comes it's in our
policy to be approved in or the council approved in may i would make okay well thank you for the
update and anything else before we adjourn we all get back to work or wherever we need to be
any announcements
all right well welcome again uh tod we're thrilled to have you guys with us
and uh look forward to the next time and uh we are adjourned thank you