Sep 11, 2018 City Council on 2018-09-11 2:00 PM

Welcome everyone we do have a quorum present for this City Council work session on Tuesday September 11th at 2 o 1 p.m. call the meeting to order first item up is citizens comments on consent agenda items we have any cards no cards next item is request for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda for September 11th any clarifications councilmember breaks so on D do we have we also have a closed session on that is that the same the same on the consent agenda item D for Texas Women's University is that the same item for the closed session general manager will give you a little bit of background so that you under in case you had some questions well I would prefer to pull this off the consent agenda if something comes up in closed session that you know we need to talk about in regular and item F in regards to the portable restrooms for the community market so there was some background on this for for the county but my question is because I recall that we agreed to pay the county a lot of money to put restrooms in in the ultimate plan and so I'm curious if we're behind schedule is this just temporary before that or is that still going to happen it's a temporary solution at this point since the council authorized the contribution of project there's been really no movement forward on the on the parking lot improvements or permanent restrooms out there so I can certainly follow up with Commissioner Reid's office if you 'd like me to do that he is also the county's also waiting on the city in their final design on the peck for drainage project because it could affect where the restrooms are placed and when they start the improvements because we're negotiating a potential easement with them over near Mul berry yeah I mean I would I would like to put an ISR together if you'd like and get an update yeah that would be great okay especially because if the community market is waiting for for us to make a decision then we need to go ahead and do that any other requests for clarification so mr. city manager to that point on do we need to involve the county as far as location it's not our property so do we have to coordinate with them placement have we gotten that settled in advance we haven't got it settled and it while it isn't the city's property we might need the easement from them so we could have we could ultimately affect it depends quite frankly where we decide to move the storm water line on their property so that's going through final design right now and I believe that's that they're waiting on us but I will double check that no no I'm sorry on the on the temporary temporary restroom or that's what this is yes yes so to place those do we need no I would suggest going ahead and moving forward on that and I will get the council an update on where we are with the overall project itself okay got and then a question on let me see I would like to have a brief presentation on G and I think I could just and that could be here just want to kind of understand that that dynamic if we could please sure and we Carlos got a quick presentation for you good afternoon mayor pro tem members of the City Council Carla remind director of human resources and we are a chapter 143 city so by statute we're required to have a three-member Commission the commissioners are appointed by the city manager and confirmed by the governing body the City Council they serve staggered through your terms the statute does set out the requirements for the commissioners which you can see up here on this PowerPoint slide the statute also outlines the roles of the Commission again outlined here but just to let you know primarily what our Commission does is they set the date time and location for our entry and promotional exams when they're doing promotional exams they give their source material so where the test questions are going to come from so the council the Commission approves that source material whenever an appellant a test taker if they have a question or they disagree with a test question and they want to appeal that there's a mechanism where the Commission can listen to that and decide if they want to sustain the key answer or if they want to overturn it or throw out the question altogether and then whenever they rank that based on the test score then the Commission approves that eligibility list there are other provisions under the statute like listen to appeals for disciplinary actions and promotional bypass but with my experience here in 19 years of the civil service director all the employees want to use a third-party hearing examiner which is allowed by statute as well our current commissioners are Darrell Ramsey and John Baines Paul Abbott was also on the Commission but his term expired in August of 2018 so in order to fill this position the city manager wanted to have a competitive process I worked with the Public Communication Office and they posted a notice on our city's website on January 27th an email was also distributed to our new subscribers my understand that went on August 2nd and then the information was included in the Friday staff report on July 27th and I further understand from our Public Communication Office at the Denton record Chronicle picked up the story and it was posted in the newspaper or advertised in the newspaper on July 30th the letters of interest were due to myself by Friday August 10th I submitted those to the city manager we had four people interested Lillian Prado Carrillo Larry C aps Keaton Harrington and Phil Nabatey city manager had asked me to set up some phone interviews which we did on the 20th and the 23rd between myself the city manager and the deputy city manager and after reviewing all the information the phone interviews the city manager is wanting to fill this vacancy with Lillian Prado Carrillo thank you very much I appreciate it that's very that's very helpful and I want to just say how well done that is mr. city manager I appreciate that process and that vetting and that thought into that selection so I just thought that's why I wanted to kind of highlight that and then lastly if I may mr. Pro Tem I I'd like a brief presentation on item O just and and the heart of it is just to kind of understand the selection process or pardon me why friends and family was identified for this particular need sir do you want a little bit of information about the grant itself is it or you just want to talk about the friends of family yes sir yes so the initially the that you call it command right yes so both the the friends of the family why they selected and what that role overall does well the friends of the family has been a community partner and is basically the I would call the flagship community partner when it comes to domestic violence and sexual assault they've been in business here in Denton since 1980 we have had a long relationship involving friends of the family dating back to I mean I don't know how far it goes back but from my entirety friends of family has been the referring organization that when we refer people to an organization we go with friends of the family when it comes to domestic violence as far as I know it's the only shelter in Denton County that services victims of family violence and sexual assault I have and so we've always worked in partnership with them we even have a current partnership an advocacy partnership with them right now where they come in and talk to when we're investigating sexual assaults they come in and they're part of the advocacy involving them so the partnership has already been established and but this is this is just in furtherance of that and as far as I know the duties in this is just a staffing the money that's laid out here the 39,000 plus is a is to staff that position using them and this is a victim centered approach when it comes to this grant and it's the idea here is to make the victim whole and there's probably no better organization in the community to do that than them very good thank you very much and I would just add because the councilmember has but the the match for this position has been placed in your budgets supplementals for the upcoming year so the funds are available this is simply the formal agreement thank you councilmember Duff yeah I'd just like to make a comment this organization I know about the organization because of my wife and the women's club at Ro bson Ranch and we have the women's club has donated money to them for the last 10 or 11 years and they're they're really a great organization any other requests for clarification all right seeing none we'll move on to our work session reports first item up is I may receive a report hold a discussion give staff direction regarding gas well setback distances including the history of setbacks in Denton and current setback requirements along with other cities afternoon mayor pro tem City Council my name is Ken banks I 'm the general manager of utilities and I'm here today to speak with you a little bit about gas well setbacks in the city of Denton not surprisingly there 's been a pretty significant history associated with gas well setbacks and I 've provided a brief outline on these and and I'll try to work through those relatively quick I expect there'll be a number of questions to just dive right into the setback history originally the actual setbacks for gas wells pred ated the Denton development code and was located within the code of ordin ances so basically the code of ordinances had the first aspect of setbacks applied in 2001 it was those types of activities were basically allowed within only agricultural and or industrial zoning and it was a pretty simplistic approach basically no closer than 500 feet from a place of assembly institution or school and there could be residential structures that were located within 250 to 500 if the residential owner agreed in writing to to allow that to happen we move on to the actual development code itself which was put in place in around 2002 this setback aspect and other gas well related regulations were added to the development code in 2002 via the ordinance indicated it was allowed by right in a number of different zoning categories which I've listed for you here essentially the wellhead could not be closer than 500 feet again from a place of assemblage institution or school or within 500 feet of a previously platted subdivision that had one or more lots with one or more structures and they had the same provision that if a residential owner agreed in writing that residential owner could be within 250 to 500 feet flash forward to ordinance 2004 059 this really didn't influence the actual setbacks themselves as established previously but it did add a provision that allowed for development of gas wells within the flood fringe of the flood plains they they were allowed to do so via what became known as a watershed protection permit it had a number of standards that were associated with the activity including flood proofing and and a certain amount of freeboard above the the flood fringe this again basically the remainder of the of the code remained essentially unchanged so you basically had the 500 feet setback and then the the ability to get within 250 feet within agreement in writing so 2005 around this time we were seeing a lot of gas well development happening in the in the city and we're noticing some impacts to roads and so there was actually a consumptive road use methodology that was developed that essentially was based on the amount of single axle loads that were represented by these various pieces of equipment that were going on to the gas well sites so the setback section within the code was actually modified but it was only modified to replace what we had prior which was referred to as a road repair agreement with an actual road damage remediation agreement was just an attempt to try to get a better handle on the actual damage that was done to the to the roads themselves so 2010 there had been a number of different meetings that had been held a lot of debate around this time with the development of gas wells 2010 ordinance saw the definition of protected use as any dwelling church public park public library hospital pre-k indergarten kindergartner elementary middle or high school also picked up public transit centers public pools senior centers hotels and motels the setback at this point was increased to a thousand feet from this new definition of protected use or again within a thousand feet of any lot with a previously platted residential subdivision with one or more lots developed generally about this side or you can finish I'm just curious was this ordinance ever were we ever sued in regards to this ordinance and these setbacks not to my knowledge I would defer to Aaron on that were these was this ordinance challenged we had grumblings of lawsuits but not one actually filed in fact we were the ones who filed in 2012 if I'm not mistaken okay thank you important to note on this this was also modified so that the ZBA could make an adjustment to this 1000 foot setback but not decrease it more than 500 feet so there was another provision that was added that allowed a reduction down to 250 feet if the owners of a protected use signed a notarized waiver that was consenting to that that reduction and then it maintained a minimum separation of 500 feet from all other features councilmember Amato could you explain for the public how those minimums work you mean in terms of how they're measured no sorry in terms of if somebody want to in this ordinance or in the current ordinance just in general if somebody wants to use to utilize them in the minimum to apply for either for a reverse setback or a setback right what the process is right well the the setbacks themselves are just stated by code the it's important to realize and we'll get to it in the next next slide that the reverse setback came back a little bit later and so basically what you're what you're dealing with with the separation standards are that are here is that if they were really intended more to protect those planted subdivisions that were in existence at the time with a gas well coming in and then they also were designed on if an owner of a piece of property decided they wanted to build a residential structure closer to the gas well than these setbacks would provide that's one example of how you could have this notarized waiver of consent there were other I could think of other examples where a group of mineral owners might might do a similar type of reduction in that amount of overall separation distance to get down to the 250 feet but I think if we move forward to the idea of getting to what became known as reverse setbacks then we can we can kind of talk about how that works 2013 basically saw the setbacks increase to 1200 feet from a protected use or previously planted residential subdivision the ZBA adjustment retained at 500 feet protected use can be located as close as 250 feet from a drilling and production site this was the first kind of reverse setback like provision and essentially what this what this meant is that if you had a pre-existing drilling and production site that that that protected use could be located let's say it was a subdivision as close as 200 and feet from the actual side of the drilling and production so the separation distance and it's very important to understand that in a lot of when you look across the spectrum of setback requirements that exist in DFW Metroplex you're going to find a lot of variation in the way the setback distances are actually measured some are measured from the wellhead to the wall that's probably the most common one some are measured from the edge of the of the pad side or the site plan boundary to the wall of the protected use and then in some cases you'll see them measured actually from the site boundary or edge of pad to the property line of an adjacent protected use so the this particular ordinance defined the separation distance is being measured from the boundary of the drilling and production site as identified in the site plan and then basically to at that point the closest exterior point so that was basically the edge of the development site plan to the wall of the of the structure so 15 was adopted ordinance 2015 133 after the implementation of HB 40 this is the first time that we had the term reverse setback actually codified so we had a type of reverse setback before but this is when we actually labeled it as such the setback was the standard setback was decreased to 1,000 feet the setbacks were moved from their current location to the new section of the DDC which was basically located such that the setbacks became a component the component of the zoning regulations that the 300 foot separation that is in existence right now that is based on the International Fire Code for certain types of buildings basically they're referred to collectively as group AE or I assembly education or institutional buildings was actually extended to all protected uses and established the measurement to be from any equipment on the gas well site not just the well head so it's important to note that our our standard setbacks and our reverse setbacks at this point would be measured from edge of pad but the fire code still measures from well head so a little bit of a nuance yes ma'am Councilmember and and what kind of variety is there in the proximity of within a gas well site the the site of drilling and the peripheral boundary in other words you know you could you have a how close to the periphery the closest exterior point could you have a drilling site I'll make it a couple of general statements usually the the pad site is a is a couple of acres and they tend to have the just because of the way in which the equipment is arranged you'll tend to have the drilling set site itself the actual well head located pretty close to the center of that pad site that just gives the maximum amount of room to be able to bring all the equipment around facilitate the drilling have room left over for any equipment that has to remain on site that I think that's an important point though because if you've got set backs that are based on ideas of setback to flammable material or things of that nature then you can have a piece of equipment or storage tank or something of that nature that could actually be closer to the edge of the site much sure so for the residential subdivision the reverse setback is measured from the closest point of the proposed structure again to the boundary of the gas well development site now a little bit of a nuance difference here for the for the proposed residential subdivision plat the reverse setback is actually measured from any undeveloped lot boundary not a not a not a wall of a of an existing facility but any undeveloped lot boundary to the closest boundary of the gas well development site plan so that is that is one of the more conservative measurements that you're going to find out there for reverse setback because it's taking into account the distance between the property line and the wall of the home and the distance between the edge of the pad side and the actual wellhead so quite a bit more conservative than a typical well to wall so the reverse setback for all other habitable structures shall be the distance present prescribed by the fire code and the protected use must maintain at least 300 feet between the closest exterior point of the building and any equipment on the side as I mentioned earlier that store flammable or combustible liquid or gas so a little bit of a summary on on how things have have changed through the years I just provided this table this is essentially the same information that we've just gone over the zoning categories are included in the 2010 to 181 but they're within the backdrop of what we referred to at that point forward as a protected use so I just thought I'd identify that so we can move on to kind of looking at what distances exist in Tarrant and Denton County and I want to share with the councilmember Am ator has a question. Sorry real quick just before you move on yeah to the other counties do you do you happen to know how many times a request for a minimum set back distance has been denied in City of Denton? I do not I don't know if I can't recall of error ever hearing about one so I don't I feel a little uncomfortable in saying that means they weren't sure yeah sure and sorry to put you on the spot for that but that was my kind of general sense that they tend to get tend to get granted when they're requested for at least requested at least historically thanks sure want to make a quick acknowledgement to Matthew Fry he is a professor at UNT and Matthew was very helpful in giving me some guidance and information on research that he's done on municipal Gaswell setbacks and so a lot of the information that you're seeing here is based on a couple of papers that he published so in the particular one that's referenced here from 2017 he looked at 48 municipalities and basically looked at the number of municipalities that were out there that and summarized the actual setback distances and then also looked at those that had as as defined as such reverse setbacks so in terms of the 48 that he took a look at that that had setbacks about 30 of them are 600 feet or less 600 feet has a tendency to be the most common setback that you see in the standard setbacks that you see in the DFW Metroplex about 18% had I'm sorry about 18 or 37 and a half percent that were greater than 600 feet and the most common setback greater than 600 feet is a thousand so you see kind of a jump there between the most common one being 600 and the next level ups tending not to be much in between you're going to see a lot of thousands at that next level councilmember Amator thanks and of all of those setbacks including flower mounds 1500 foot set backs right have any of these setbacks been challenged under House Bill 40 that so-called ban on bands I'm not aware again I'd refer to Dan to Aaron on that no lawsuits have been filed since House Bill 40 was was enacted by the legislature most of setbacks at Kenny's is listing up their pre-date House Bill 40 and they've been remained on the books since then thank you thanks so much that was that was my understanding thank you right so nine of these municipalities had as defined reverse setbacks so of those nine a little more than half had reverse setbacks of 250 feet or less and a little bit less than half had greater than 250 feet measurement methods are important as we mentioned earlier well head to wall equipment to wall site boundary to wall or additional site boundary so we did a brief survey on our own of 38 municipalities in DFW found very similar results our percentages of those that were 600 feet or less were a little bit higher and again the 600 feet was the most common setback most common setback greater than 600 foot was a thousand feet and then one city flower mound has a setback distance that exceeds 1,000 feet they're setting at 1,500 right now I believe councilmember Braves has a question Dr. Banks would you mind going ahead and defining and telling the people watching the difference between the setback and the reverse setback because a lot of that language is common for us but for somebody who may just be watching and not really understand if you could just sure absolutely a setback is measured when a gas well is coming into an area and a protected use already exists and so essentially the gas well is required to to be located so that that overall distance is not beneath that 1,000 in our case foot setback so the reverse setback is basically a situation where a gas well exists and you've got a protected use that is coming into proximity of that gas well so that may either be a situation where you have a residential subdivision that's platted but doesn't have a home that close to the gas well site but it does have a lot that's there and in that case we would we would measure the setback to the property boundary as I mentioned earlier to the actual edge of the site for the gas well so it's it 's just a terminology that that is designed to define which entity comes first if the protected use is there and the gas well is coming in then you use a standard setback if the gas well is there and there's a desire to locate a protected use in proximity to it then a reverse setback applies councilmember Amato and can you confirm this for me as I understand it within Denton City limits about 25% of the land in City of Denton is platted for gas wells is that correct that is correct within the city limits thanks and so can you explain since you were talking about plating a little bit earlier what exactly what what that means well if it if it's platted that means that it has the ability to have a gas well on it that doesn't mean that a gas well will exist on it and so we have we have quite a few properties that are platted for gas well development that they may have an active gas well on them they may be platted but not have a gas well on them and they we've got actually a fairly large amount of those plats that have plugged gas wells on them now so it's it's kind of a mix as to what you what you see out there but I think it's important to realize that there there was a propensity in the city to have large tracts of land platted for gas well development at one point but I that doesn't mean that other uses can't exist there and that doesn't mean that it's necessarily going to have a well located on it it just just means that that potential is there that 's correct yeah and do we have to your knowledge is there on the website or anywhere else a map which properties have are platted for gas wells there is yes yes you can get on the city of Denton GIS and there's actually a layer that you can turn on called gas well division and you can see that yes through the layer but so to do that you have to the user has to select that filter that's correct yes yeah when you pull when you pull the the online GIS up there'll be a list of filters on the side if you just choose the one called gas well division it will be able to pull that information up for you you'll be able to see the plats thanks yeah I would love to see for just request to staff looking into the possibility of having that a map with that information already on there thanks councilmember breaks just on that note it's my understanding that if a plot was made that the ordinance in place at the time the plot was filed is the ordinance that guides that development is that true I believe that's correct again I'd like to defer to Aaron just to make sure going back to our history we've had several you know ordinances correct that's that's been the a question that has been difficult to apply what we've the old gas well as Kenny mentioned earlier on the 2015 ordinance we separated the zoning provisions from the non-zoning provisions it wasn't always clear before that date whether these regulations were zoning or not or not and so that question as to what regulations apply has been a question that predates 2015 since 2015 that's that's no longer much of an issue or much of a question because we know setbacks are zoning and that we made it expressively clear in 2015 so the vested rights is always something that does come up in discussions councilmember yeah I can tell you ropes and ranch has already platted and it was platted before the thousand so it's basically grandfathered in and there are active gas wells there now and there are areas where there 's no houses yet that they can build they can drill gas wells they not necessarily will but they probably will at some point depending on what happens the gas prices that's my breaks to follow well it was just kind of on that knowing that there's what 25% of our land in the city is has been pl atted which is what several thousand acres and then I guess just with this discussion knowing that if something comes in and they and they drill I'm just I'm curious about since it hasn't been I guess since 2015 there wouldn't be an issue of what applies and what doesn't currently that is correct that was one of the changes we made as a result of the 2015 but it was based on the lawsuit that the city had filed against Eagle Ridge in late 2012 I believe or 2013 where we did not get a TRO was denied at that time thank you I do think before I get off of this slide that it's important to point out flower mounds and in a little bit of a unique circumstance because of where they sit within the Barnett shale and kind of the way the patterns of their city is have developed but the 1500 foot setback that they have currently applies in both directions and so it essentially acts even though it's not called a reverse setback as a reverse setback so just want to point that out before we move on legal perspective on setbacks I'll go through this I'm sure I'm going to to butcher it from a legal standpoint so Aaron can keep me honest on it in summary HB 40 does allow a city to impose reasonable setbacks but that term isn't defined and so during one of the 2015 legislative committee meetings there was a legislator from West Texas that stated that 1,000 feet seemed to be a reasonable set back for cities to use that was the only time at least my understanding during that legislative session that anyone offered an opinion as to what reasonable setback actually that city staff and outside attorneys took a look at the pad sites residential housing growth trends within the city of Denton's and then the implications of setback distances and associated links of those distances against HB 40 and the risk of a takings claim and recommended in that 2015 ordinance adoption to actually have a thousand foot setback reverse setbacks were not addressed by HB 40 but that does not mean there that there are no legal risk associated with increasing those distances and during the 2015 ordinance in fact property owners and real estate professionals did voice some opposition to increasing that reverse setback distance beyond 250 feet the idea was that the larger that distance became the greater the risk would be for a takings claim and so basically the legal staff at the time during 2015 recommended to keep the reverse setback distance at 250 feet as my brother so just to clarify adding on to what you just said is it not true that that the HB 40 specifically does not regulate above ground activity that that's just an unambigu ously the case that that law that's on the books does not apply to and that's probably you looking at Aaron that's a legal question it's not necessarily the case I mean it allows the city to impose regulations for above the ground but it still has to meet that four-part test which I don't think Kenny's gotten to yet and the four-part test is basically one of them has to you have to make sure that and the key that preempts us in many cases is is this above- ground equipment regulated by some state law or federal law mostly state and if so then it doesn't meet one you know before part test or we can impose something that may effectively prohibit the operations by doing something so yes we can regulate surface activities above the old above the ground but we also have to be cognizant of the other elements that we have to meet in order for that ordinance to withstand legal scrutiny thanks and just for follow-up so there's that there's nothing in there specifying regulation of development correct as dr. Banks has has pointed out I each bill for HB 40 does not address it does not impact surface developers encroaching upon the gas well so just what it is occurring in Denton rather it impacts gas well operators yeah so there's no ambiguity about that at all right that's my no thanks councilmember does the city of didn't have any injection wells within the city limits no good good answer councilmember breaks so I'm seeing the 250 250 feet and that's what we have but then earlier 300 feet was mentioned as fire code and what's mandated for safety can you explain the difference or can we I mean for me when I see 250 I think well at least it should be 300 because of the fire code and what is required right the difference between the two is in the way in which it's measured the 250 would be the edge of the site to the the protected use or in the case of a residential subdivision to the actual lot line on the on the fire measurement it's the actual closest piece of equipment to the wall of the facility so there are rare circumstances where the 300 foot protection of the fire code is greater than the 250 feet of the reverse setback but that's a very rare circumstance and it is something that's looked at as a part of the development process in whichever distance is greater is the distance that's chosen believe I was I was at the takings claim in 250 so essentially we've got one more bullet there there are some risks with mandating longer distances for reverse setbacks and those risk include legislative preemption the the interesting part about this is that we we could see both real estate and developers and landowners as well as potential mineral interest so some options just for consideration is status quo with the set backs and reverse setbacks remaining the same increasing the re setbacks or reverse setbacks which would have those risks that we talked about earlier and then there's been some discussion of the possibility of trading density increases for increased reverse setback distances councilmember Altser when I asked for this work session I was mostly prompted by there having been more research that's that's occurred since the time that that setbacks and reverse setbacks were established and I wonder if there's anything you can share about the school public health study in Colorado or actually I don't know the timing on the ERG study in Fort Worth or any perspective from the the state on the health aspects because I'd like to be guided by by the science at least to some degree and giving guidance on this okay the color let me figure out how to how to frame this it's difficult in trying to apply studies that are done in other formations other atmospheric conditions and other types of hydrocarbon extraction to the Barnett shale so some of the difficulties in applying the Colorado study that you mentioned by McKinsey is that the pad sites tend to be a lot more developed you'll have 20 to 40 wells it's a mixture of hydrocarbons and natural gas extraction they have atmospheric boundary conditions that cause a lid to occur that prevents dissipation for certain constituents in the evening time just due to the topography and the temperature differentials that exist in the area so those are just some some examples of how it's difficult to compare a study in one area to another I'm not meaning that to come across as a criticism of the study in any way shape or form I'm just saying that applying it to the Barnett sh ale is is difficult to do the the Eastern research group study that you mentioned is the study that was conducted by Fort Worth back in 2011 it was specifically designed to determine whether the existing 600 foot setback at Fort Worth was adequate for protecting public health the findings of that study to very generally summarize was that the the 600 foot setback was found to be protective of public health they had a couple of constituents that were model constituents and that particular case from aldehyde and acrolein that they suggested to have a greater degree of study done on because it was a modeled effect not an actual sample effect but their finding was that the 600 foot set back in that research was adequate for protecting public health did that address what you were after is there any finding that a 250 foot reverse setback is protective of public health the the ERG study was the largest study commission for that and it's was for the Barnett shale and it specifically was designed to look at 600 feet and 600 feet only so their finding was that 600 feet was adequate they did not extend that to say how far or how much could you reduce 600 feet to actually get to a level that they felt was not protective of public health so the the the answer to your question is I'm not aware of any studies that have been done especially on that scale to address that specific question I will say that the additional difficulty that comes about in doing that kind of work is it's very operationally dependent and so if you end up having a situation where let's say you did an extensive amount of research on an individual pad basis and determined at this particular place in time that 300 feet was protective operational characteristics could change on that pad site that might make might make 200 feet protective or might mean that a thousand feet wasn't so it's very difficult to to try to pin down a a specific value and quite frankly in my opinion and it is just my opinion that value is going to be pad site specific so it is crucial to have a good ongoing robust inspection program to make sure that those operations are being done appropriately and that leaks are minimized because if you don't have the leaks off of the off of the property then the exposure isn't there so not a not a definitive answer but unfortunately not in my research on this an answer that can be defined so some evidence of 600 in some circumstances being good I think in general I don't want to put words in your mouth say greater distance is better than less distance as as a general rule and just the health exposure of people contrasted with the operation of the industry as a whole the greater the separation distance the less exposure you're going to have simply because of dissipation of any constituents that are coming off of that side you will reach a level of diminishing return beyond which the exposure level will not continue to diminish I think I probably best pose this next question to the city attorney you'll be here about the the risk of preemption and first of all I wonder if you would mind clarifying for those who are watching listening what preemption means and whether there's you know any sort of history supporting that and then specifically regarding our you know considering any changes here would you view preemption as I'm asking for your judgment a possibility a probability a near certainty a certainty what preemption really means is basically that there is a higher law that is inland that basically take addresses a subject either clearly or by implication and to to the to an extent that a lower regulation is not applicable or can apply and so in in this case you know if the state law passes if the state passes the state law that speaks solely to that subject and to the exclusion of any other authority local authority then you're preempted and that's in a very general sense have we seen this happen before yes we have we know we've seen it in the last few legislative sessions with the legislature passing various bills that preempt local control one of them happened to be in the city of Denton which was House Bill 40 as a result of the fracking ban election and that was successfully that successfully passed the by the city's voters and immediately what we saw our experience of that those of you that were in the council was the the oil and gas Association went down to their lobbyists and got a bill passed to take away as much of our our power and authority in this and that's because they are a very powerful group in the state now turning your attention to the the builders and the real estate agents if I had to say in the top five who were the most powerful industries in the state that would be certainly included in the top five they can go down the legislature if they if he if they see something passed by this council just a flat requirement that you raise it at say 600 feet from the edge of the pad site which I don't know the exact acre age but it's going to be significant that they can't that's basically land that they can't develop two things will most likely occur from that action one a takings claim lawsuit where they're going to ask for the money to compensation for that value of the land that they can't build upon or second they may model themselves after what the oil and gas industry did and go down to the legislature and have a bill passed house level of success I can't tell you that I don't have a crystal ball as to it's a certainty near certainty possibility or not likely I that I cannot answer that's if I could I I wouldn't be an attorney I'd probably be something I'd be playing a lot of I just want hopefully that answers the question your questions yeah I guess a couple things I know that we've been asked and emailed numerous times about the Colorado study the study back east there's been a California study we've been sent I asked staff to reach out to seek TCEQ and the Railroad Commission and they were pretty clear with us that they don't acknowledge those studies that they've spent a lot of time and effort working with Texas universities establishing their own criteria their own philosophy methodologies and that was the answer we got so that's important is it as we listen to what Erin just said you know if it gets down to asking them to testify what do they recognize these other studies and the in the setbacks that are listed these other studies we've already got some indication where the staffs can end up you've also got a legislature right now in the last week they're talking about preempting your ability to raise taxes they're talking about your ability to preempt your ability to ever like cameras we've heard trees are on the table so I think I think while he well our city attorney is not going to be comfortable saying you've got a 50% 80% chance of being preempted local control is definitely on their radar TML right now is building a legislative agenda that's that's trying to safeguard you know city rights and as much as possible so we can't give you that percentage but city's rights right now are in this governor's in in this legislature sites and I think that we can't we obviously can just give you our best advice in terms of some of the risks that you're taking or and you've got to make that call so that's my marital what has been said we're looking at the way that I see it is we're looking at health risks and public safety risks for our residents versus the risks of our city government getting sued with by developers or gas companies depending on reverse setbacks or setbacks with with uncertain results and just to clarify kind of going back to one thing you said or what you were talking about about health risks I take it you've seen also the studies about cancer clusters and asthma clusters yeah and those are you know just looking at the where there are unusual greater than normal examples of cancer and asthma and there have been other other kinds of conditions that have been studied to you I'm using those two as examples closer to certain kinds of fracking operations including gas wells and other kinds of industry as well so it to go back to what take kind of taking that and going back to what what you were just saying about the the risks of preemptive legislation right if if we want to and correct me if I'm wrong but if if we decide as a council that public health and public safety are such an important part of our job that we're okay risking getting sued by developers or getting new led or having new legislation passed preemptively then we would at least have a chance if we put a law on an ordinance on the books that increases our setbacks and or reverse set backs we would have a chance of that standing whereas if we do nothing which I would call preemptive inaction kind of a preemptive inaction in anticipation of preemptive action on the part of developer lobbying groups in in Austin then nothing would happen in other words we still have the status quo so either way all of that is to say that either way whether we if we preemptively do nothing then preemptive inaction then we still have our tiny 250 foot and 500 foot setbacks and if we do something either we'll be back to square one or we'll get to keep those increased setbacks and reverse setbacks is that would you say that that's a fair assessment and that's that's a possibility that would be a fair assessment just as you know that's a difficult question for you all to to really decide as a policy issue I mean I simply give you the law and the legal advice and then you know what you do with that is your decision as a council thank you and I I completely understand that I just wanted to make sure that I that I I had that right thanks councilmember death I think we have a very good inspection system set up on these gas wells right now and you know I look at I look at the pollution that we get from Dallas and Fort Worth and even from Denton with all the auto-mobiles and everything I think we're talking about something from these gas wells it's not really significant it would be significant if there were if there were big leaks but we're not gonna have those kind of things councilmember break so that that's great you actually set me up for this I saw an article this morning which was a concern and then I also heard dr. Banks mentioned that how important inspections are especially with the with the reduced setbacks and reverse setbacks and so I'm just gonna take a minute to read this because if we are counting on inspections to protect the health and safety of our citizens then we are going to have to think about something else because there's a new the EPA's new methane proposal according to the draft would loosen the 2016 rule that required oil and gas drillers to perform leak inspections as frequently as every six months on their dwelling equipment and to repair leaks within 30 days the proposed amendment would lengthen that to once a year in most cases and as inf requently as once every two years for low producing wells it would also double the amount of time a company could wait before repairing a methane leak from 30 to 60 days and it would also double the amount of time required between inspections of the equipment that traps and compresses natural gas from once every three months to once every six months and so I I mean I appreciate our inspections process now and from the report we had last time it's doing really well but if some of those restrictions go and our hands are tied and we do not have the ability to do the inspections then I mean what are we gonna do if we can't say if we're gonna keep putting people within 250 feet to these dangerous explosive sites and we're not going to be able to send in inspectors to make sure that there's no leaks and that they're safe then I just I ask you what what do we do and what is I think the I think the concern and no one's being dramatic I think the concern with moving we don't know what too far is in terms of increasing it I mean this is this it's a nebulous discussion right now just because you're preempted doesn't mean you go back to the way it was before there could be a whole new standard that is even more liberal and so we need we need to be careful with that we're seeing that right now with the tree discussion you know mr. McDonald has had numerous discussions with the development community about where are we heading with the tree just be you know trees you've heard that you've seen the governor's reaction to this fortunately we kind of escaped this last session but sometimes when you 're preempted you move even further backward and I think that's our concern is we don't know what they're gonna do all the all the arguments that are being made in terms of increasing if they're excellent arguments there's you can't argue with it with the logic and the thinking we're just trying to say there is a chance that if the development community partners with the gas well industry and further I guess enhances House Bill 40 we could be moving even backwards even more than we're contemplating now and whatever the council wants to do we will make sure that we move forward on but we do have an obligation to save these looming risks are out there and they're real especially with this particular governor in office and in the in the policies we're seeing being floated in Austin right now councilmember Duff they really wouldn't I mean if they open it up for you know for for longer periods like you were saying that doesn't pre imped us from having inspections more often it doesn't it doesn't we could we could certainly if we wanted to we could enhance the current level of service if we wanted to it's really more of a matter of you know if if we get into disputes with the the gas well operators how quickly will the Railroad Commission make them you know how aggressive will they be in terms of rectifying things will they buy by timelines that we want to see enacted or are they going to be holding them to timelines that are even more extended we don't know at this point I think councilmember Briggs is bringing up a it's a good point we just don't know to what standards they'll be holding the industry accountable that's my wrong there's so as you just pointed out there's a lot that we don't know but we do know that there are cancer and asthma clusters one thing we know for sure is that gas wells sites and the operations on gas well sites are extremely explosive so when you're talking about the health risks for instance and our air quality sure you can say that that our our f-rated air quality is not entirely coming from Denton it's a result of industry elsewhere as well as from Denton but if a gas well explodes over in Dallas a child here will not be harmed if a gas well explodes here 250 feet away from a child's bedroom window the risk of that child being harmed are enormous and with twice a year inspections three times a year inspections even once a week which we couldn't afford to do anyway will not decrease that that risk or the fact that that we're talking about very very dangerous operation and so we're talking about schools and children we're talking about renters who will who are renting a property who are not told in their their rental agreement how close they are to frack frack fracking sites gas wells I should say and there have been surveys done you know relatively recently I think it'd be great to do more surveying of how aware residents in Denton are that they live next to gas wells so we can talk about the health risks and the ambiguity of that but there's no ambiguity that is dangerous to put kids close to these things and and that's why for me it's as far as I'm concerned it's a no-brainer if it 's a risk either way I would much rather take the risk of being sued over a law that doesn't yet exist when it comes to reverse setbacks then not protect Denton's kids and places where adults work and live also from these unambiguous safety safety hazards so that's why I am for increasing setbacks and reverse set backs both to 1500 feet Councilmember Rouser I think it's pretty evident that particularly on greater reverse setbacks that we would protect health and safety better if we had greater setbacks I think the only really critical question is how we get how we do it and for me I do not insist that protecting public health and safety must come at someone else's expense when there's a perfectly reasonable solution that may exist if we're for willing to work together it's whether we're sued or not it's evident that if you take somebody's ability to do something with their land that you're taking something from them but there's we have at our disposal the ability to keep them whole we know that we've got a housing shortage in Denton we know that we need density somewhere I think it's a sleeves off our vest kind of proposal to you know in a very good proposal for the people of Denton if we swap some density for some open space and and get out of that the reverse setbacks that we need to protect safety and health of the people who live here I feel it's the challenge with going the other way you by doing it through you know regulatory approach is not that it's terrible that we would have a legal action it's that we risk the health and safety of people not just in Denton but across Texas so I feel that pursuing density for open space is the right choice for Denton and I think it's the moral choice councilman rise thank you so bear with me mayor for Tim so one thing I just want to give my thoughts on staff preparing that map I as far as a static map I think that's very dangerous because how often is it updated is it real-time obviously not so if someone prints this map and we've not updated it we're doing them a disservice I'd rather someone be forced to toggle a radio key on a website and get actual live information then provide them with dated information so I just want to understand that has a job to do but that's my concern and I just wanted to note that because I think it's a little short-sighted to have it where it's not as current as humanly possible and then when I look at what dr. banks touched on for me I've not heard any comment to the fact that these are the developments enc roach when we're talking about the reverse setback developments encroaching on an existing well where does that responsibility fall that maybe is deb atable for some but I would that I struggle with that that you're encroaching the other way and somehow we're to police that and I understand the health and safety and so that'll lead me to my next point I just think it does the conversation a tremendous disservice to live on the extreme so now we're challenged with kids dying in their home dr. banks have any kids died from explosions and didn't that you're aware of right it ignores the fact that kids die in automobiles unfortunately every day and so do we we stop using cars I think we can have a rational realistic conversation without going to extremes and eliciting death of kids to further an argument I I appreciate you Aaron and your insight and I it's unfortunate that the same people that would solicit it your info insight that don't offer their own insight then challenge it and ask you to walk it back it's a very complex position to be in so I appreciate you doing that and I'll just highlight that I personally took my family on a field trip to visit the general land office George P Bush joined that lawsuit I wasn't on council I didn't have a vote in it but I wanted to I think it's important for this body to put forth solutions put forth do your own research homework don't so simply find a study and say what do you think and then use that as a catalyst to challenge what you've just elicited and so I took my family down and we and we talked to George P Bush just us and and and it's important to note that he has the general land office has in its less than an acre I mean it is no land in the city of Denton that allows him to jump into that lawsuit at any opportunity and so we had a conversation about why he did what his thinking was and kind of what that leads into but but I'll say I'm not I'm not using some random study or something some second hand information I firsthand asked the guy that was in the lawsuit against the city as a private citizen we took a trip down there to elicit that information and so I think that's a different level of due diligence outside of this arena so for me I think my direction and I hope we can get to that part I think my direction is I think there is I'd like to see a reverse set back I think we can get to 300 feet with notification and so so we're not taking right because then you're allowed to give written approval to understanding or giving written notice that hey I'm this close and I think that it's fair to say that should be extended to renters so the it I say 300 feet it requires the homeowner and the renter whichever is applicable to be notified that you 're within this proximity of a gas well and I think that does two things one it I can't tell an individual that is aware that that they're their thinking's flawed I just don't think that that's our job to go into an individual homeowner and say I understand you've selected this house I understand you're fully aware of these the risks that come with living here they're no different than any other risk I mean I you hear it there's just three days ago a branch fell on someone our governor a branch fell on him when he was running so there 's no there's no safe haven where you're guaranteed to live forever if you just stay in this four inches I mean that just does not exist so dealing in with the reality I think if a an adult that's getting ready to purchase a home or an adult that's getting ready to rent a home is made aware of the risk and they decide to proceed with that process understanding those risks then I think we've done a great service to them to educate them and in conjunction with our continued monitoring and I you know so though that's my thought on how we can begin to wrap this up and and give some direction councilmember armatol so so thanks thanks I in in response to those comments I'd like us to think of the fact that while adults and and I appreciate your recommendation I completely agree that that renters and homeowners should be notified of proximity to a gas well that's extremely important children however do not get a say in where they get to live so you can have adults making a conscious decision and children still being endangered by the proximity to gas wells because it's gases explosive and we have and it doesn't take that much gas gosh it takes I mean just the gas in a gas stove can can can cause death so we're looking at we are I'm not afraid to I don't think that it's extreme to talk about about the likelihood of fatalities and we have had fatalities and serious injuries all over the country all over the world in all you know different kinds of methane accidents it's just it's explosive stuff it makes sense that that would happen so you know think about the example of asbestos if we just you know asbestos now you know cannot be used in development in new development and that's a material that where you actually have to deconstruct a wall to get at it and when legislation was passed preventing that asbestos from from being used in new development that the it it the argument that well we can just notify people you know do you you know do you agree that to live in this this new home with asbestos in it that that would not have have passed muster because the it because legislators understood that it was their job to protect the public health and safety and yes of children that certain kinds of risks we take risks every day and it's not the job of the government to prevent all risks from happening but there are things that with that that we can do in situations like this and I see this as a a an obligation again for the public health and safety for us to do that just as in the case of asbestos and notification wouldn't be enough so that's that's kind of my my answer to that argument I realize it's two different ways of of looking at the same issue but but that's my take on the matter thanks councilmember breaks so I have just a few questions for to wrap my head around this so we have D ISD which is a school and they have located some of their buildings very close to Wells and they are going to be building another location another school out in there is going to be gas wells on that property do we know are there any wells in our city that are closer than 250 feet and if we're talking about reverse setback does that mean that the district can go in on that property and build say the the main building 250 feet away from the current gas well on the property I mean are you by our current ordinance are you asking if there exists a are you asking for actual schools or just protected uses well engine well the first question was anything I'm just curious if anything has come into our city and it's closer than 250 feet I believe that there are I believe that that if you go back to the pre-existing ordin ances prior to I'm thinking around and then and Aaron please correct me if I'm wrong but I'm thinking around in the 2000 2001 time frame if I believe there are some instances where we have distances that are less than 250 from a protected use it's vintage one of those I think so yes yeah yes it is it 's the metal said hickory Creek some of those houses if I remember correctly there's one that's 187 feet away from the well but understand those were approved long ago when we were only the only reverse setback we had was the fire code and I don't know the exact measurement but it's way less than 250 feet and so you do have some examples of that in the city yes well I see that you know some of those issues were you know past councils the inability to to see the future and see the issues that come up and so I see it as my job to look at where we are and try to protect those in the future and I appreciate council member Hutz bitz comment on getting to 300 for the reverse setback I would generally love for it to be at least 500 but I appreciate that comment because I know that that is fire code and I believe that that would be 300 is better than than 250 on that and so for for just for the district just so people can wrap their heads around it under our current ordinance if they wanted to build or anybody comes in they can put a house within 250 feet and if it's a protected use it can still be within 250 feet on if it's a reverse setback that that is correct but I would point out and in respect to your your fire comment that the measurement methodology use of the reverse setback 250 feet almost always exceeds the 300 foot from pieces of equipment or wellhead that is required by the fire setback except for those that are 180 feet those that that were developed back before codes existed that that that's correct I mean you're your the question if I understood it correctly was comparison between the current 250 foot reverse setback if a new protected use came in and the fire code and all I would like to point out is that both need to be applied but almost always the 250 foot reverse setback because of how it's measured is going to exceed the fire code and so if we had a reverse setback of say 500 feet there's a way for a variance to be asked for and if I recall in our current code of ordinances there are some things there that developers or that people can do to get the wells closer or to reduce that setback if they do not develop a certain well can you can you remind me of that section in our ordinance Aaron I'd like to defer to you but I believe it's the ZBA process for reductions or there's two ways under the current ordinance in order to get a waiver to the distance requirement and that's one getting the property owners to sign off to or to go into ZBA but in no event shall that it go down to less than 250 feet so that those are the two mechanisms we have currently in the code okay so if it was greater there's a way for a process by which someone could go through to ask for that to get reduced yes and we currently have that right now yes that's my husband thank you just briefly two things this is it's it's off-posting but that asbestos statements are absolutely wrong and so I just don't want to put out bad information from this position so those that are listening research that that's wrong then regarding what to do right what if again there potential if we're talking about kids and safety that's if that's the key that's gonna continue to be utilized one week dr. Banks do you know how explosive gas stations are highly flammable right and we have those throughout our city correct atmosphere runs to every house in the city I assume or a large portion of the city portion yeah is gas flammable yes okay and so and then you take that I just want to take a pragmatic realistic approach to addressing this concern and and may I pretend what loses me is so we're we're passionate about we're all passionate about kids and and we all serve to the fullest in different ways in this community and we're talking again about reverse set backs I am and and so you're talking about someone encroaching on a well but then let's take that a step further so if I just take the look at the kids holistically if there's a kid currently living less than 1500 feet let's say from from a from a well does the city go then and condemn that house and kick them out and say hey for your public safety and for your better good decide your parental judgment aside you don't know what you're talking about y' all have 30 days to evacuate so that we can tear down your home so that we can now increase this boundary to 1500 feet across the city or are we saying we don't care about those kids because they currently exist in that environment so we'll set that aside somehow and then look forward and fix it for future kids or can we remove kids from the equation and be adults and make adult decisions without trying to use fear as a weapon and so I would hope that we can do the latter or we need to start condemning houses and have an equal pragmatic approach across the city. Councilmember Briggs. On this I would like to I would like to increase the reverse setback for protected uses to 500 feet and then the 300 feet to the regular the protected use being the daycare schools nursing homes hospitals I think that's not that difficult to achieve I would I would hope that's that's where I'm coming from on those protected uses and then that's where I am here and on the the schools that's one of my main concerns I know that we can't go back and change things but we can start and build build a better future. Councilmember Melson. If we can have 600 feet and developers would do it willingly I would sure like to know that so I would like us to all have that information would they willingly do it and what would it look like and I think we'd all give better direction if we had complete information. Councilmember Armitage. I would like to see this go to our committee on the environment for recommendation and also our planning and zoning committee to see what their take is on the issue and our sustainability department as well and I would just also ask my my colleagues here is it is there anybody here who thinks that 1500 feet is a reasonable setback or reverse set that level start with reverse setbacks since that's the I would say that's the easiest because there is no law in the books against regulating developers from setting up shop next to a gas well is would anybody be opposed to or put it the other way with who would anyone be anybody be in favor of the 1500 foot reverse setback? Councilmember Meltzer. You know if we have a general indication that 600 feet is found to be safe and if there's a way to get there without upsetting the apple cart for the entire state of Texas I prefer to do that I think at 1500 you're unquestionably into taking property which you know I just think we don't have the budget big enough to take that much property you know nor does is it indicated that that's what's needed. Councilmember Romito. Yes a question I guess a big question for legal I mean talking about taking property so wouldn't existing I mean it reverse setback only applies to new as in future development after the law would not be that that any existing development would just be grandfathered in is that correct? Well it won't apply to existing developments our ordinances generally apply going forward not in the past and so there was another point but increasing just I know that if you're going up that high of 1500 feet near talk about there is no claim the I think Kenny has pointed out it's it's a takings claim and it's just basically the argument is that a developer goes to court and says I cannot develop my land because of this regulation and so the court and basically at that point they're just we're trying to argue the value of their the lost profits of not being able to develop that property. Yes yes so that's when it would come to takings claim when when challenged by individual developers outside of whatever preemptive legislation might happen. Correct and you know a thousand feet I know that we 've done the calculus that's 72 acres that has taken out of development with a thousand foot setback and so 72 acres is a lot of land that's probably would you know give a motive to developers to come forward with those kinds of claims. Well so I I guess it looks like I'm alone in in thinking that that's a risk well worth taking if if that's the case then sure 600 feet I mean honestly the difference between 250 feet and 300 feet is really not all that doesn 't seem to me that much to make a difference but may as well be consistent with the with the fire with the fire department has proposed and I'm grateful for them from for having advocated for that for four years but so six I would be fine with 600 feet if I'm alone in requesting 1500 but I really hope someday we can do better because I think our residents deserve better. Dr. Banks on this chart you have up here is that when you do the radius is that that's just from the wellhead concern where it's centered that doesn't include the two acre pad so when you go out that you're already going out and two acres is what night eighty-some thousand correct about a 300 foot by 300 foot pad so you can add to that distance 150 foot off the bat before you even get to those so if you're at if you're looking at the 800 that's taking out 46 acres you're really taking out more like the 72 that you've had thousand or 65 there abouts that correct generally that's right that the difficulty is that the pad size are not regular but I think it's an important point and it's one that I made earlier with Councilwoman Briggs is that the the fire code very rarely gives a greater setback distance than the 250 foot reverse setback distance and it's because of that distance that you mentioned associated with the edge of the pad versus when you encounter the first piece of equipment right and so in a developer wanting to pay to have someone cap a well is going to be very expensive but having them move a piece of equipment to the other side of the pad might be a reasonable price for them to handle if it could be done and that was the reason for going from the edge of the pad so that we weren't dealing with well let's just play musical equipment or additional equipment gets added after the fact correct correct yes okay councilmember Briggs so I'm going back to ordinance 2013 and I I would like to have our set backs increase back to 1200 from where we were and this this would be something I would like for council to consider because it was it was on the books for a while and it was fine we were developing that way the reverse setback for protected use would be 600 and then for any other reverse setback 300 feet from the edge of the plat those are I feel like are a little a little bit better they're not where I would prefer to be I mean I would love to not have it at all and be there with you but it's not realistic at the moment and so what we can get if we can get anything better to protect the health and safety of our citizens I'm I want to do that so that that's where where I'm coming from well I think there's a couple of other things that we haven 't really discussed and that is why was gas well production an issue back in 2015 that it's not now and that has to do with the dollars and that's also right now the number of new homes that are going in if we if you want to see legislation and lawsuits happen as quick as what we're building that's now is the time to pass that because it's it's has to do with the economy and by doing this I mean the 250 doesn't sound good but when you really look at what it can do versus when the way that we're measuring it from the edge of a lot to to the edge of the pad site as dr. bank stated earlier that almost always is more than what fire code requires to begin with and you know I would be extremely concerned that our state legislature is going to be lobbied by both gas and the developing community to take it back to fire code take away our ability to set that set back at all and that takes that could take it both ways that could take the 1200 foot off the table that we've got right now or the thousand foot we've got right now I'm not opposed to continuing to look at this continuing to see what other cities are doing but I think we're we're on pretty safe ground right now with the distance requirements that we're doing I recall a person who owned a couple of acres over near the airport coming before council when this ordinance was being debated and with a 600 foot setback the this ranchette that they had been paying for for retiring on was going to be unde velopable they they could build commercial on it but they couldn't build their their dream home on it anymore because their neighbor had a gas well on their property and so it's you know no effect on them and they're willing to build that close to that gas well you know I think maybe more notification might be the answer but I don't think that you know or we can look at again it's tough to do apples to apples when you're doing different types of setbacks and so the the general idea of using the 250 was it was a compromise of instead of trying to go with the piece of equipment that again that pad could eventually have additional equipment put on it after the fact or you could move a piece to the other side just so that you could get up closer you know that was all going to change and that was that could change you to where you get a 500 foot setback you could you could still even be closer if you were measuring by different points if you're measuring wall of the house to the gas well versus the edge of the pad to the edge of the lot so I don't think it's it's perfect but again I don't want to get into a situation where our thousand foot gets taken away from us as well because it's the legislature very well could do that in my thought is that they might as far as you know it was mentioned earlier about as bestos that you can't you can't build with it anymore but you don't have to take it out but if you do take it out you have to go through a certain process to take it out and it's not just in walls it was used to insulate pipes that are exposed in other areas I've seen plenty of other than my day so and let's try and go around the horn and if you can bring up the options there and see if we can kind of get a feel for where we stand on this as far as which one of these three each person stands for it'd be great councilmember Duff. Option one. Okay so I'm option in the middle increase setbacks to but let me explain I think Councilperson Briggs makes a good point it can be confusing just looking at it looking at the two numbers so 300 250 that's how I get the 300 it's normalized through there then if someone wants to probe further to understand the measuring mechanisms of that you still end up with a greater distance you know so it reads the same on its face and then it also gives us a greater distance to to set as a minimum and so that's how I get to 300 so if someone looks at the fire requirement at 300 and then you look at the 250 setback you may think well the fire is further why don't we utilize that without probing further to understand that measurement requirement but if they read the same and then you probe further you say okay well this you know it kind of to my in my mind makes it easier to for the layperson to ingest and so that's how I get to to 300 to normalize the language and at the same time increase the distance see so it's increased setbacks to 300 okay with understanding those risk in an effort to have it read consistent for the layperson okay increase reverse setbacks to 600 through option three councilmember Armator if we kind of have your your major thought but yeah yes I mean I would so the last time I spoke it was before councilperson Briggs suggested the 1200 feet I would support the 1200 both ways with with no minimums okay councilmember Briggs that still you're standing well mine was the I kind of had a hodgepodge of numbers going through all the different ordinances the so I would like to increase the setbacks to the 1200 going back to our original ordinance in 2013 I believe it was having the regular reverse setback set at the 300 and then have a special carve out there for 600 feet for protected uses which hospital parks daycares schools and so that way a protected use will not be closer than 600 feet which has been proven to be by what was said earlier the safe distance can I ask a clarification so you're wanting to subset out a portion of the protected use for 600 feet my understanding what you said correctly because now that that generally falls under the 250 feet right that that's correct all protected uses right so yeah so those specific uses I believe need to have a greater distance from from the well because if we're talking about young kids and evacuation and the elderly in the hospital you're gonna need a little bit more distance to evacuate and remove yourself from the situation if there is some sort of issue but I seem to be the only one on that so sorry to speak out of turn expert this councilman pass I'm sorry I forgot I think we have consensus on I hope on render notification so Aaron is that well I'll ask that one but ultimately Aaron can you give me your thoughts on what the backlash would be with that requirement I'm trying when you brought that up I was trying to remember because it was discussed during 2013 and 2015 as far as providing rent notifications and I knew that I don't remember who on council brought this forward but there was a concern about how to keep track of all the renters you know the since there are many and changeover happens frequently being able to notify them individually so that that was part of the issue I think what council decided on from just general notification is for the new owners of lots as well as successor purchasers that they we provide notification in the subdivision sub chapter of our DDC that you know that all first-time buyers will get that notice through their clothes a document that's filed in the county as well as on the plat on the building survey and there's one more and I'm looking at Haley but there's another note so they get those four notifications the notification for a home owner a successor purchase that I buy somebody else's first-time owner of a house as I go forward and I'm sitting down the closing documents I'm going to the since I'm financing I'm not gonna be able to purchase a house outright part of my financing requirements will be to get the title history report and it'll show this this specific notice on there so that's how those successor purchasers the renters we the difficulty in trying to identify them and then also having landlords actually provide that information was problematic that's what I remember there was more discussion so but that was the g ist how do we get them that information and I'm not opposed to doing the 300 but I 'd like to see more data on again you had that radius distance chart as to how many acres get taken out that that's something that we need to try and figure out I know it's very difficult because every pad is a different size to try and figure out how much you're taking out with each one but if you just said the average one was 300 by 302 acres how what impact does that have and where does that change but anything above that 300 we're starting to get into in my opinion a true risk of takings claims and in legislative preemption so yes I'd like to know if if other council members are opposed to us finding out whether option three is even possible Councilman breaks I think that that would be something that the planning department would have in their discretion to do that's as they were as they were going through plats and if they notice is that not something that they could talk to the developers about at the time and then that would ultimately individually each time come to council it could I'd have to defer to Aaron in terms of how that would be a moral as my guess is that that would probably take a change to the DC but you disagree I completely agree it will involve a change of the DDC to actually provide for any increase in density vis-a-vis gas existing gas well sites and so that'll still come before you so it is viable option to consider at this time viable in the sense that it's proper for you to consider on if you would like to see more in more information staff could come forward with that and if I'm not mistaken currently if it's more than a two acre development there is some of that density trade-off as long as it's the gas wells on the property that they that they're developing but if it's on a neighboring property there would not be that sounds about right but I am going to defer to Haley who reviews these plats quite often did my question make sense if you've got 10 acres with a gas well on it and you've got an NR for zoning you can put 40 units on that 10 acres and increase your setbacks as long as your lot sizes your your lot dimensions and square footage of your lot fit the zoning but if if the well is on the neighbors property and you've got 10 acres you cannot adjust can you adjust I guess you could you could when the way the DDC is worded now if a subdivision is greater than two acres the minimum lot sizes don't actually apply setbacks within the lot for the building pad still apply so you a developer could willingly increase those setbacks at this point as to whether the well site is on that 10 acre property that we're hypothetically talking about the 250 foot reverse setback would apply from the edge of the pad site to those lot lines no matter where that well site was if it's on that 10 acres or on an adjoining property and to that within the confines of the code currently they could willingly increase that but there's nothing to say incentiv ize that happening at this point is there anything that would require them to put it into an easement or force or something so that if if the rules changed at a future date that they couldn't or I guess they could actually come in for a zoning change and do that as a office or commercial if they could get that change because that could be within the fire code you're saying does the gas well itself need to be within an easement is that your question well I'm I'm looking at the property that they're setting back the property that's undeveloped because of that setback just like we have ESA we're starting to get into conservation easements on those and trying to figure out how exactly they're supposed to be codified for the long term and who's responsible for the care get currently the way and we haven't seen all that many subdivisions affected by this 2015 ordinance but it's normally would be within an HOA lot or something of that nature or that those could be set aside if the zoning allowed for say commercial development or something like that that wouldn't have to comply with those setbacks and would only be held at the fire code standards so just respond to councilmember Melters question I'm I definitely find it interesting I'd be curious to see you know future staff report on it and be curious to know an interest there is in that just generally speaking I I don't like the idea of incentivizing public health and and safety measures that you know I feel if if these things are dangerous then they're if it's dangerous to live near a gas well then I feel that we need to use the increased setbacks through an ordinance instead of incentivizing people who do the right thing as opposed to say something like a a solar panels where you know not having solar panels on your roof that doesn't endanger your neighbor right it's so I'm not saying that I would be opposed to it if it came to us in the future but I'm not that's why I'm not excited about it but I'm interested and would like to see to learn more about it it's not the way that I think public health and safety should be addressed by by governments any other this comes from breaks it doesn't seem like there 's consensus on anything here but I would like to go ahead and circle back through the beginning of the conversation when a survey was mentioned and asked that the citizen the committee citizen on engagement look at that again to see the past survey and and talk about notifications and survey maybe bring it back to that committee to review those two things and I guess that's just wanted to make sure and get that to the committee well and we are one short today so maybe after it goes back through the committee and they get a little and we get some additional data that this would come back before us I think we we are close to a consensus that to move to 300 is not a problem you know that's almost like a minimum if once we get the data further and then we can look at the the additional ones at a later point but yet again I I need to see what the acreage difference is on that 50 foot because that as you get into distances out that can add up pretty quick and with the way things are building in this right now and the value of properties that could trigger that that lawsuit and you know maybe something we try and if it doesn't work well then we have to look at it down the road as to whether we reverse that or not I just wanted to remind you that there is the ZBA in the variants where if they did need to get back down to 250 they could just reminding you of that okay double check to so we know exactly what we're taking the community I'm sorry to me our engagement we're taking the notification process back and then there was a survey in that makes you familiar with what that is in the survey so those are the two items that we're going to discuss community engagement okay any other comments before we move on to our next work session item which been dr. Branks told me we do this in 20 minutes and close to two hours don't you know let's go ahead and take a short take about a five minute break welcome back everyone we are continuing with this September 11th work session it is we're returning from a break at 407 and before I move on to item B we do have a placeholder on our agenda on closed session to discuss any legal matters regarding gas well setbacks one kind of get a feel from the council if we want to go ahead and call that when we go into closed session or not I think if two of us probably good would agree okay yeah I would say we'll go ahead and call it and so and again it's a placeholder but if you have any legal questions I know we discussed several legal matters on that but there may be some more in-depth legal questions that we might want to get to on that all right with that I will call work session item 3b receiver report hold a discussion provide staff with direct direction regarding potential rev isions to the code ordinances to address tie votes right good afternoon mayor mayor pro time and City Council I'm Rachel wood assistant to the city manager and as you mentioned the purpose of the presentation today is to discuss the tie votes provision in the City Council rules of procedure so I'll briefly describe the perceived issue with the tie votes then we'll discuss some options that staff has developed based on desired outcomes of council and then we'll seek feedback from you all and how to proceed so briefly the current City Council rules or procedure requires a vote of four members or more to take official action tie votes in our current rules of procedure are treated as pending matters which are carried over to subsequent meetings until the full board is present and the tie vote provision applies to all boards and commissions including the City Council in instances where an official is absent or has to be recused due to conflict there's an increased likelihood of there being a tie vote and staff is aware of one recent issue with planning and zoning Commission where a member had to be recused and that caused the item to be stalled for a few meetings so it's that's the only known instance of this happening in recent memory so based on that issue staff has developed four options on how we could potentially proceed one would be no action and by taking no action the current rules of procedure tie votes provision would apply option two would be deleting the tie vote provision in the rules of procedure and by doing this Roberts rules of order would then apply and under right Roberts rules of order a tie vote is treated as a failed motion and by deleting this provision in the rules of procedure neither the City Council nor boards or commissions would have the issue of items being stalled so they the failed motion would just be I'm sorry the tie vote would just be treated as a failed motion under option number three if the City Council wanted to apply the tie votes per feet procedure only to I'm sorry only wanted to remove the tie votes provision from boards and commissions but keep the current rules of procedure provision for themselves you could clarify in the rules of procedure that the tie vote provision does not apply to boards and commissions meaning that it only applies to the City Council under option four if the City Council only wants to address this issue with planning and zoning this could be done through an amendment to the Denton Development Code and that would make any tie vote recommendation a denial for option four another consideration that you might want to make is currently that the Denton Development Code requires a supermajority vote of council to overturn a denial of the planning and zoning Commission so as a part of this consideration you may also want to address that by requiring a simple majority versus a super majority of council so I know I went through those really quickly Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah could we hear number four again slowly? Sure so if you wanted to address the issue solely with the planning and zoning Commission you could amend the Denton Development the Denton Development Code making any tie vote a denial recommendation so if you went took that approach the current DD C requires a supermajority vote of the City Council to overturn a denied recommendation so if the City Council pursued option four you may want to also consider revising the supermajority vote requirement in the DDC. Why I'm not sure I understand the thought behind the last point why what would be the reason to revise the supermajority vote requirement? We specifically mentioned that because it has come up in conversations that we've had offline with various City Council members. I can answer that question if I may Chair the reason why is because of the funny quirk in Texas zoning laws it pert ains to zoning amendments basically the zoning laws very jurisdictional so when it's at P&Z before jurisdiction transfers over to the City Council you have to have some type of a pause recommendation for approval or denial a 3-3 vote is in that gray area we don't know if it's because it doesn't carry majority is it is it a recommendation for approval or denial we don't have that so if you're wanting to fix just the P&Z. Then there would be a reason and so why the supermajority thought? And so well you know what as I'm getting there the the reason why we would amend that is to make it very clear that in the event of a tie vote in at P&Z then that'll be treated as a denial recommendation because you don't have a majority this you're also in the gray area as to how do you how does the council treat that since you didn't have a majority recommendation do you still do you also want to have the supermajority requirement to overturn that or do you want a supermajority? Cities have and City Councils and commissions have approached it differently some just want a simple majority others want a supermajority that decision is for you all and that's the the funny quirk about P&Z and Texas zoning law. So just to paraphrase this just see if I've gotten it ordinarily when you've got a denial it's with a majority so that's the rationale for requiring a supermajor ity to overturn it so so what I'm hearing you say is it's it's a denial but without the force of a majority that's right soften and ask just one further question is there anything that would prevent us from treating ties that are due to an absence differently than ties that are due to a recusal because it's the recusal situation where you'll never get out of it. There's nothing that prevents you from doing that. That's what you do right? Exactly. Okay. Councilmember Hussman. Thank you. Yeah I'm gonna go for option four with the removal of the supermajority that's the most extreme in a perfect world for me it would it would be that it comes to us basically creating an undecided category. I just don't want to I don't want to make ties punitive and so whatever gets us there I just don't and it needs to move on it can't get stuck you got to make a decision you know so if there's regardless of what causes it to stick or generates a tie that almost becomes a benefit to those that may not want it to move forward because it gets stuck there you know so it has to come to this body and so without being punitive and so whatever gets us there I'm all for so I'm against the Robert rules if it then triggers a superma jority but if you tie the removal of the supermajority to any of those then I can get on board with any of them. Councilmember Armitage. Yeah I actually I support option number two because it is it's across the board council as well as as P NZ you know and I think that that other bodies have shown that that works in in Roberts rules and then and yes of course it does mean if there's a tie vote then it's a failed motion but you get to come back and as far as you know public trust in the process that way they can see that that you know who that a vote has been decided that everything that we vote on has been decided by a majority by we I guess get counselor or any committee I you know and I I appreciate all of these options and kind of laying them out and seeing how they all would solve the problem each in their own way you know one thing I don't like about the number four is that or if number four is decided on if there's consensus for number four which is it's not my favorite I don't like the idea of taking away the super majority option because that is I I like that because that that gives a power real power to the citizens committee and I don't want to diminish the power of that committee so the latter is that's my recommendation if the consensus is for number four but my preference is number two so I I have a I like a little of each so I like option two that boards and commissions and City Council but I like option four as well because I I appreciate somebody who brought up the difference between the absence and a recusal because if it's a recusal it's going to keep on going and in that case I think ridding of the super majority is fine but if it's if it's not if it's if something happens and it's a tie or if a motion fails because it it fails then I think a super majority is is okay in the instance of regular failed motions that move to council regardless of tie votes so I think there's a way that we can specify absence first recusal if it's an absence and it ties then it could continue on in the process as we currently have it but if there's a recusal and it's never going to change then that would trigger the movement up in my in my opinion and I would like for that to apply to everything now I'm not really sure how if there's a recusal on City Council if that continues there's nowhere for it to go so then I guess it would be a failed motion and then that would be that as far as that goes. Councilmember Melser. If I understand what Councilmember Briggs said I think I'm in complete agreement that basically option one no action we understand it well works pretty well in except in the case of a recusal that it rolls over to the next meeting and it gets resolved and they're all seven member bodies and that's that so I think we just need to have that asterisk for if it ties because of a recusal that then a tie vote would be treated as a failed motion and then you know then it would it would come to council and and then I think on council then in the case of recusal a tie vote would be treated as a failed motion and that would be that. One item I don't see brought up up here that is a concern is I believe if it's a zoning case change of zoning SGP that unless there's a substantial change there's a six months before they can bring it back isn't there a time limit as to how soon something could be back brought back to council right if because I'm concerned with the absentee you've got one person absent it it dies on a tie vote now you've you've made that homeowner or developer or whoever's trying to do something SGP zoning wise is it stuck for six months before they can bring anything back. They are barred from bringing back the same application for six months but if they change make substantial changes and they could come back sooner. Councilmember Hussbeth I think was next then we'll go. Yeah I forgot about that I mean again it's just punitive for a tie and that's just not good I mean that is good and your point is extremely valid but even take that to reduce that to just someone's absence so we're tying this I mean we had a red let's use the lowest number I've heard before a restroom our last quote was $800,000 so almost a one million dollar project let's say and it gets hung up because one of the commissioners was sick or had a family emergency or whatever that is and I just don't think that is right to then make them delay their project at for something that is out of everyone's control and you can't predict when someone needs to be taking care of other business I mean you just this is the only board where this triggers that and and it's just not right to hold up someone's project it's minimum gonna be $800,000 round that up to a minute one million dollars and we're saying the city of Denton is gonna hold up your project because a commissioner had a family emergency had an illness or whatever so you're gonna have to do it again and or we're gonna take your project because of a tie not because it legitimately four people didn't agree with it because of a tie it becomes the same as a four three decision and now you're out six months so now you take your one million dollar project your deadlines your times your construction and kick it down the road for half a year before you can even come back and then is it a guarantee there everyone's gonna be there that time I mean it just it defies logic if you put yourself in a position where you're coming to this board to ask to move your project along why would we delay that any it once that if that project at least at that level right City Council can can do what we need to do and there's and there's consequences for that but these boards are appointed and they're there in perpet uity you know whatever six years and there's no there's no way for the citizens to get to them to then right that wrong at this level recall pet itions can happen any day so they can then take out that aggression on us and that's where it belongs not at this level point of information does it come back in the next week or in six months if it's a rezoning item and it basically was three three and they have and it was a failed motion at council level unless this age is totally excluded they're barred for six months of bringing back that same rezoning application unless they do something differently ask for a different zoning designation under current rules if there's a tie they can't come back what it's well under current rules that's not the case because it keeps coming back until you actually have until you have until you have seven members however if you were to change it and just so that it's applicable to council then the three three would actually can be considered a failed motion and so it's denied at the council level and so they then they would be barred from bringing them back for six months but if I may I also wanted to address the absence issue an absence just isn't somebody who just doesn't know council member or board and commission member who doesn't show up at one particular meeting it's also include somebody who's out from an extended period of times whether they're they're sick sabbatical or even when they deceased all of those are absence that could lead to a vacancy so if you're saying absence I'm going to ask you all how are you defining that if you want to go down that road because it will encompass all those different scenarios it's not just somebody who misses a meeting councilmember breaks and then council member death well for me there hasn't been an issue until this one issue and it was because of a recusal and it just kind of got hung up so I mean we don't need to go back and fix something that wasn't broken we just need to address the issue that that came up so I mean as far as I'm concerned because now if if somebody is if there's an absence someone is sick then it moves to the next meeting it doesn't wait till six months right it just keeps coming and that that works so I is the issue that applying this to City Council is that where it gets complicated in the the tie of the three three so what happens if there's a rec usal in City Council and it's a tie so we're saying then that's a failed motion but then would it keep coming they could keep coming back every six months even if that same councilmember under recusing under our current rule which is we move it into the next agenda until there's a full council that recusal the same problem that occurred at P&Z can occur at the council level on a zoning item or any any other item if they're just recused because they're that maybe they have an interest or their spouse has an interest in the in the item before you that item will continue to come back before you because of that rule currently so I don't I personally don't have an issue with an item that is a tie in P&Z when it comes to council I don't necessarily think it needs a super majority because I don't I mean I would be okay with doing that but if if a if a item actually fails in P&Z due to a majority for three or whatever I still believe that should be a super majority on council so that 's where I am on that point on that aspect of it Councilmember Duff. Yeah I think I'm good with option four you know if you end up with that P&Z ends up with a tie of three three then you know let it come to the council and majority vote don't need a super majority for that. I guess my question would be is if if we only apply it to P&Z what happens if let's say PUB has an item that comes forward somebody's just out sick and it's a three three will that still come forward to council as a three three vote or would that prohibit it from coming forward? It'll stay at PUB because of this rule. Okay I guess the direction I would probably like to go is just a time limit that says that it can see if that's possible that we just it does go on to the next agenda as a tie to see if it can be resolved and possibly maybe a two week or two meeting it could go go for two meetings as a tie and at that point it's considered if it's not resolved a that the tie is considered a failed motion and move forward accordingly. If I understood you correctly that would apply just to all the boards and commissions you know that it would you know if there's a tie vote for whatever reason comes up comes back to that board for maybe two times failure to you make a decision at the end of that time it'll be a new three three vote would end up in a failed motion and then it'll come to you all. Is that right? I think it can be used for council as well that if it goes to two of our meetings it's posted on the next two ag endas and and we still stay in a tie that it that tie then on the second meeting would be the failed vote. That can certainly be done it wasn't an option that we consider but that is a viable option. I mean it keeps moving forward on all all different levels and handles that situation. Councilmember Armatov. So as I understand it so what you were just suggesting that would be like depending on how broadly it was applied that would be like a either a tweaked version of option three or a tweak on option two option option two with with a clause about how many times it can come back or option three with a clause. Is that correct? Option two option two would be including council. Yeah if that I think that's a good idea and I would I would support that. I would say it's basically an option two with a two meeting extension. Yep. I would support that. Because you you do have people who will be just because you're in a tie vote this time if we're talking about a zoning case the person may come back and say well I 'll do this instead I'll you know do 30 foot setback instead of a 10 foot set back or something that you may change the people's minds as it comes back as a tie vote as well. So council member Husspard. Yeah just Mr. City Manager who can we call up to I mean because everyone's very flippant about this one week delay so I need to talk to someone up here at the podium about what I mean we 're we're using it as though it doesn't cost money right I mean it is absolutely punitive and so who in this room can speak to that? Are you talking about who can speak to the amount of money lost or what are you asking? That exists that we are we are absolutely saying we're gonna punish this developer or this this applicant to the tune of a week and then to add to the emails we're gonna receive let's then if someone recuses herself that's not gonna change and so we're then gonna put you in this hamster wheel to do it all over again understanding you know how to there's a good chance how that story is gonna end then we'll kick you out you know so it's like that that to me is absolutely no good and so and I'm not everyone's like okay like there's no way hey they just it comes back the next week you just have to delay your project for a week and then it rains and then next thing you know you can't get started and you're getting kicked out of your existing building and you have building delays or supply delays I mean it's just I know it's maybe no one else on this on this council operates in reality but I'm just we see it on a highway construction that's nine months behind now I mean it's just weather patterns and and life happens and then oh by the way City Council then puts you in a hamster wheel I mean I just I want I just want to have a clear record that we're talking about real money for that week from someone there's there's no question we're talking about real money and I'm not gonna have you get up here Scott your point is your point is exactly right I think the other thing which makes it a little challenging that I would sort of draw the line I can get into the type of zoning case right because when you're talking about certain rezoning there's an obligation by the developers to in that's how the process is set up at P& Z there's an obligation on the process part of the developers to work with the community to listen to staff to heed their advice on you know what kind of project might make the most sense in some cases we have developers completely ignore staff and decide to play Russian roulette with the plan and zoning Commission you can't fix that with a process amendment here you know there's and so I'll just keep it to that one because I know the one you're talking about in particular there's no question it costs money there's no question that perhaps you know there may have been a different way of getting there but we find ourselves in the unfortunate circumstance I think I really am a great I'm gonna agree with Councilmember Briggs on this one that you know if we can address the recusal issue and how we get it to you because that's how this started initially was how how do we get this to council you know and I heard from several of you base frustrated with this in my 20 months with the city that's the only time this has happened and with this one recusal we do have people with real lives to have businesses who will have conflicts from time to time these boards and commissions and so we just need to recognize that it's a fact I think if you can get to the point where in a recusal situation or if you have somebody out an extended illness or you know and Aaron's gonna have to an interesting definition there what is it how does it get to the council and in what is a tie vote mean and is it a simple majority or or a supermajority the supermajority was there to overturn a vote typically that was a negative recommendation to you that's not what we're talking about in this case you're talking about a tie vote not a negative vote and I said so I think if the only issue is let's let's keep it to something out of that person's control or recusal does it require a supermajority or a regular vote and I think you've dealt with the issue at hand for the most part but if you 're gonna ask us to get into the behavior and the conscious decisions of developers that's that's where this thing took things a turn that staff can't help out and and I will submit to you you're absolutely right in terms of time costing money if we can't get this process fixed but I think it's really that simple and I just encourage you right now to work your way through this with that narrow question three three vote it's not a denial and you know is it a superma jority or a simple majority of the council and I would agree and I know you know time is money on these things but that six-month delay is what my concern is I would be fine with the caveat that if it comes forward from someone else as a tie that it's not a denial it's it's a tie but I do think that it is possible that other things in the future could get caught up and it could get caught up with us and how long do we want to let something stay on the table and you know as you talk about developers sometimes not willing to work with staff not willing to work with you know hoping playing that Russian roulette with with P&Z it does this give them the option to make those minor changes that will make P&Z agree to it the six members go to a fourth or two instead of a three three you know that that could be beneficial for the community as well I think the I think the role that you put in place has a real impact on the front end of any process yeah so I would be I would be in favor of leaving everything the way that it is except for the one recusal or extended absence and if it comes if it's a tie it's not a denial for that one for those two instances and then it would not need to be a supermajority for council and council could review that and it would just be a regular vote if if it if it's regular majority of denial then it would come and it would be just as as we do it it would have to be a supermajority and if if it comes to council and it continues to tie and then I think we would just need to continue with the rules that we have where that motion would die I don't think we need to change those rules that we have in place for council just the ones from the other boards and commissions coming up to City Council that's what I think does I understand it right now if it comes to council it ties and stays tied because of a recusal it's just gonna it doesn't ever die well I think it should it should it should die on the first time when someone is out for no one week or should it have some time to time for cure so it would need it I guess it would depend on the rec usal or the extreme absence and we would need to discuss that councilmember Melton if I can I think build and I don't know if I fill end up addressing your question or not so you can pose it again if I don't get it right but I think for for a tie to come to council it has to be considered a denial right even even if right but but couldn't sorry only for PNC is because of the way the law is yeah well okay restrict myself to PNC but could we not have that special case where it's a tie due to an extended absence or recusal that comes as a denial to council could the supermajority vote requirement only not apply in that circumstance in other words this suggests that we get rid of the supermajority requirement for denials all together is that what's intended or only for this case I think that's what was intended if you amended option to take option for a tie tie vote at PNC a tie vote I'm sorry at PNC would end up as a denial recommendation and then it would be kicked to you and today or in the future you have to decision the discretion to decide simple majority or supermajority on a tie vote on a tie vote okay okay that's so right so I'm proposing what I think is substantially where councilmember Briggs was option one except in the case of extended absence or recusal in which case for planning and zoning in which case option four would apply you know with the supermajority vote requirement lifted in that narrow case of the the tie now is there a question there that that still didn't answer for you mayor Patem or or what have I missed no I mean this handles what our previous issue was but I'm just wanting to look forward to would we have issues in with the council at the council level somebody has to recuse themselves that's one thing you know there that might be I think council but but if it's like for example this week where the mayor's out if something comes into a three three tie would you want to call that a loss or would you want to let the mayor put it back on the agenda for the following week where you have all seven members so if I may address that the case is just an ordinary absence like today I think the current rules are fine and then a tie would have to roll over until we have seven members and I think it's not yeah I realize that there costs everything but you know it's a the concept of majority rules important worth defending to me so I think that's fine if that rolls forward but in the case of a recusal where it could never be resolved then then on council then I think then I would advocate tie vote is treated as a failed motion in the case of recusal on council so completely confusing yes completely confusing I mean I'm trying to fix things that we haven't had problems with yet so I guess I'm pretty much okay with option four as long as we're not requiring on the top that the tie vote is not requiring the super majority is that are you the record I think we all are pro majority rules I mean I don't think that's some huge step forward for for this body I think that's that I think that you have consensus there so I appreciate the the highlight but yes is where I started was as long as it's not punitive on a tie I can that's all that I kind of I'm gonna hang my hat on that that to me is a hiccup Councilmember Belser are you good with that then option four with with the tie being considered a just a flat vote and it still be a standard majority need to turn your mic on okay I think so I haven't although I stipulated that I'm specifically addressing the case of recusal or extended absence and I'm not with apologies I'm not quite sure I'm clear whether council member Hudsbeth intended that distinction or not did do whether matters rec usal well yes I think I think the shortest answer I can give you is as long as it comes to council on the first I wanted to come from planning and zoning let's say to council the next week so if an absence or recusal causes it to repeat at P&Z level then no I don't want that at the City Council level ultimately we'll have to make a decision I do think the the tie provision that's been put forth puts people on edge and makes them if you get to an impasse at this level now all of a sudden that recusal you start getting creative in your thinking then you're like okay well now I don't have to recuse myself because I got to break this top you know and so it puts pressure where it doesn't need to be but that's that individuals option but there's nothing to stop them there's no way for you if someone is in recusal and then comes out of recusal there's nothing this body can do to fix that before that vote happens and so I just want everyone to know what they're signing up for just again looking forward to future problems but if it doesn't get hung up on a lower level and comes to us that following week matters not so those are the two the two things that are gonna be sticklers for me you know I don't actually hate that idea that every every tie for any reason might you know come to council as a denial without the supermajority I think it's okay I mean I think you're still delaying to another meeting either way you know one case it could get resolved at PNC you know because you got seven voters then but you know I don't I don't hate that and we don't have ever not voting here right we're just giving direction yeah so no there's no motions or anything so are we so it looks like we have do we have consensus on option four with without it requiring a super majority if it comes to us as a three three right I just want to clarify and make sure that that's in there and that it's just not any denied recommendation doesn't have need a supermajority vote it needs to be very specific in there that it's a tie due to recusal because if we just you know just put that broadly in there and then you know we get rid of that supermajority from council on any denied vote and I want to make sure that that doesn't accidentally get left out of here so we would need to define recusal and define extended illness or extended absence and yeah I agree with it I agree with the time but I think what was important is it was why they were tying right so it's the it's the is that correct so we'd need to put a definition of those two our supermajority I mean because I'm clearly okay with that I don't think that if those two reasons it's denied it should be punitive I think it should just come to council as a tie only and then council can decide that but if it's if it comes to council not as a tie or as a sorry recusal or extended absence I want to make sure that that supermajority in there doesn't just get lost and that we still have the ability as it is now like I don't want anything to change as it is now if it doesn't need to be we're outside of this one specific special circumstance okay I just I just wanted to be sure that we were capturing the thought process because I I tend to agree with councilmember Huntsman as well that you know it's it's why somebody misses is sometimes out of our control but if it's a recusal which would typically require some type of an ethics disclosure for financial reasons or relational reasons right so that's fairly easy but then it's the extended absence let's say somebody's you know out for a month because of cancer treatment or something like that they couldn't hit the means we're limiting it to those two items correct yes okay the idea was to limit it just to the recuse recusal well that's why I'm asking is because we had also talked about an extended absence as well so if that's off the table that's fine but I just wanted to don't to make sure that we were on the same page that's my husband thank you no I think for me either way works because it would immediately come up to us and at this level it would just r attle around so I'm okay with either whatever wherever the majority falls councilmember I'm not sure I understand why it would make any difference why it's a tie vote it's a tie vote okay well I think that I think the concern was we find ourselves on a treadmill that you can't get off of on this one on this particular case and it's a matter of you know if it goes if it goes to the next meeting and all seven show up and can vote fine problem it's just a matter of how it gets out of P&Z in this particular instance so in this case there was no way for it to get out of P&Z unless you start having people miss so it was a very strange circumstance so do we have as I understand it let me just kind of recap this that we're going with option four that a denial from P&Z would still require a super majority and a tie or a recommended recommendation for approval would would become would only require a simple majority and and that would come out if the person if someone had recused themselves or will have to define extended absence but one of those two cases happened as to when when that would trigger that to come forward to counsel that way and I understand wanting to bring it forward quicker but again I bring up if we had something that's time we're only at six does that mean we wouldn't look at it again the following week so I think that this is and we might have to address that in the future a little bit under what you just described if it was not a recusal or an extended absence if it was simply the person one a P&Z commissioner did not show up maybe they got sick on one meeting the next week the next time they were on vacation that's going to continue to remain at P&Z because it's not an extended absence or recusal is that what you all are intending and I think you know differentiating the reason absence I mean to make it clean to apply above board so that the developers or applicants are before you to them it doesn't really matter the reasons they're not there and so it may be easier just to for whatever reason a simple a tie vote and one person whatever the reason is they weren't able to vote that doesn't matter it 's all everybody's being treated the same you know all such circumstances for a board member not being there are being treated the same otherwise we're gonna keep coming up with these high pulls that are unintended consequences of what you all decide here and that's what makes the drafting very difficult for us to define those instances so are we I know I've got consensus over here get it over here are you okay with if it's if there is a recusal or an absence not necessarily an extended that it just moved forward to us no I because I I mean if it's just a random absence then that means that because there are some unforeseen things that a council or that a P&Z member may not yet and they really want to speak to that item but say their child was in an emergency and they had to be in the ER I think that's punitive to that Z member by not allowing them to take part and voice their opinions doing that I mean it punitive it can go both ways so I don't I miss don't necessarily it should be that way if I keep coming back to if it's a recusal up and no supermajor ity because the way that it is now everything's fine it's working except for that one instance and we don't need to fix something that's not broken the one thing that we need to address was that one situation and if that can just we can put something in the books where it moves to council and then council can figure it out like that's really all we need to do what about because I agree with what was just said and since we're working with number four now that there is a that there is a big difference with recusal and that that is the problem we 're trying to fix because with some other kind of absence even in an extended absence someone will eventually come back you mentioned in the case of a death in the case of a death they're gonna be I mean hopefully that doesn't happen but but but but but that then they'd be replaced on that committee so then that 's no longer an issue so I just recused recusal is just defined as someone has filled out cues will form and then on P&Z when someone wants to recuse themselves they'll make sure to fill out a form and I'm asking kind of from a legal perspective does that work of what have how recusal is defined I mean just the easiest way that I've had is making reference to the ethics ordinance because the recusal is going to be based on the ethics ordinance which we still don't know what the impacts may be in the future going forward with the conflict of interest standard that you all adopted so you know we could certainly tied to that definition I think being from a drafting standpoint was not necessarily the the recusal but you know you're gonna have that I guess the way it's going to be worded is that in the event of a tie vote if it's not based from the cues on extended absence which are defined elsewhere then it stays in P&Z and board can be met however if it's these two situations then the rule is different so you're gonna have your in essence going to be having a rule that that's still complying with your general role of keeping rolling over except for those special circumstances which are two that I've heard defined and so that's what your rule is going to be specifically for P&Z I mean that as I'm envisioning drafting that. Councilmember Malister are you willing to go to the the number four that it's just an automatic that it would come forward to council on that when there are tie vote regardless whether it's an extended absence or yeah I'm not you know I hear you have the objection about that but I'm I don't think that that's you know the compelling fact it's good they're gonna go to a second meeting either way whether it's a council or it you know at P&C I mean I you know if if I don't actually know what our numbers are because we're not voting now but it doesn't trouble me either way frankly so I think we have consensus just to say if if it is a tie at P&Z that it would come forward to council as a requiring just a simple majority. I have a big issue with that if it all tie votes are coming to council and none of them have need a super majority and I just I'm just completely I'm against that for certain reasons I I think we're messing with with things we don't need to mess with honestly we're changing we're changing roles that don't need to be changed and I feel it it is it's disempowering the committee. I'm just curious how many tie votes have we had in the last you know some within recent memory. Boards below you I'm only familiar in the last seven years with P&Z. I'll accept the last seven years yeah. That's I since I've been here in the last seven years but it has happened sporadically with this council if there's any board where the tie vote has impacted it it's this council we saw that recently with the election from Mayor Pro Tem you know that that the 33. I remember that one so I'm really talking about P&Z. For P& Z just that one time. Seven years one time. Yes that is correct. So we have direction. We will move on to work session 3c. Receive report hold the discussion give staff direction regarding the fiscal 2018- 19 proposed budgets. Placeholder to cover any concerns. Yes Mr. Mayor Pro Tem City Council Tony Puente director of finance. We certainly have some items to recap with you on some changes you've made to the various budgets and certainly have a presentation on that. We've also provided to you a follow- up memo on some number of questions that you had and then also the Parks Department is here to also make a presentation as a follow-up as well so we'll go through that here in a minute. I just wanted to just quickly talk to you a little bit about the budget memo and seek your direction if you have any direction today. I think that issue really was the $20 late fee the council has asked us to go back and gather some additional information. We've provided that to you and so certainly that's part of your backup. I can totally pull this up up here if you'd like but we are seeking your direction if there are if you are contempl ating any changes to that late penalty fee and I think the options were you know to remain at $20 5% or a 10% I think the council wanted us to really look at commercial so we've given you some stratification on that so we certainly want to seek your direction today. We don't believe that there'll be any changes to the budget if there are any changes that are made to that penalty but certainly we'd be happy to to go through that with you. Yeah so about the $20 versus the 5% obviously I was the one who had kind of brought that forward originally and I still stand that 5% would in most is be better for residents and small businesses and be be better for the bottom line of our utilities when it comes to the big business that have an average utility bill of what was it $24,000 something like that and I really appreciate the information you provided to me in the backup to me it shows that a 5% would be it is a good advantage to both benefit the oh thank you for putting that there to both benefit small businesses and residents by that I'm including multifamily especially multifamily look at big savings for on average six dollars and 93 cents is a lot less than $20 and you know while at the same time holding the big the big businesses with defined as roughly 20 24k and up monthly bills holding them more accountable so they have more incentive more more reason to pay on time if we went to 10% then you can see it's for a small businesses and for residents they're built at $20 so that's why I don't like the 10% for the for small businesses and resident heard based on what you've provided it to me it just residents in the bottom line as opposed to 10% but I really appreciate you're showing this couldn't have been able to you know to really see see how that works out with a no-brainer and I hope I hope others can get on board with that utilities get small councilmember Nelson being commercial and residential differently I think the percentage approach makes a lot of sense for commercial because I think you know a twenty dollar late fee makes no yeah it just has no none know some of these large balances I just take the evidence of you know I I take the evidence of the results that we've had you know great reductions and great increases in people paying on time with the $20 thing so I'm fine with the status quo on the residential comes from a breaks I would prefer that the 5% all around but I'm okay with the commercial how if someone had a high bill that if they were late that the $12 would because it's my understanding that once that late fee applies that whatever payment that you make goes to that late fee first before it can be applied to your to your bill or any any other fees that are charged on your bill have to go to that and so the quicker you can pay that amount off the easier it's going to be to start paying your actual bill so that's why but the 5% reduced cost for residential I I think would be would be good information can we find out where so the Tony Thompson customer service manager the balances paid are going to go to the oldest balance first so it would go to the past two balance and then the late fee with that and I think to that point I think councilman councilwoman Armento brought up the potential with breaking out the fee between small commercial and then residential and we do only have the functionality in our customer information system to do a certain fee for commercial and a certain fee for residential I can't break it out in between the types of commercial so I wanted to provide them to that so council in in relation to the information that we provided to you we certainly have given you kind of a breakdown of where the uncle we've given you a comparison of where we were before we made these changes in 2010 versus where we are today as you can see commercial tends to be a very small piece of that overall pie and then within the various categories of commercial here you'll certainly by far the largest bulk of our uncollected debt is related to miscellaneous billings and also solid waste so certainly not you know resident small commercial or even even large commercial but certainly there are some some some unpaid balances within those categories as well councilman Romer so so I go who are support five percent across the board and as as Tiffany just said it would have to be across the board whatever we decide you can't so for commercial but yeah for commercial oh yeah that's what I mean sorry that's what I mean the different as opposed to the breaking it down in terms of the different types of the three different size of businesses excuse me small in large you can't you can't differentiate we can do a percentage based on commercial and a flat on residential I just can't do a certain percentage on commercial small and that flat on the on the deal so we could do flat on residential that's the direction or percentage on commercial and vice versa yeah yeah so so thank you and so knowing that I still support five percent across the board even though it it could be broken up residential and commercial so my position is the same and so I anyway but I counted the two for that five percent any other for that in favor of the five the five percent those figures that we saw before including how it even benefits on average small businesses has our local small businesses pay a little bit less on average as well but based on how well this has helped us with collecting our bad debt the efficiency of it the consistency of it I prefer to stick with the $20 I think that's the better route but across the board we could we could potentially I mean because we can't break out large commercial and small commercial that's otherwise you're going to end up penal to penalizing the small commercial by changing the way that you're doing it in order to hit the big commercial heavier thank you can you go to back to the uncollectible debt make sure I'm reading this right right so multifamily is the larger portion of that is uncollectible debt it's actually residential right but it's pretty close yes yeah right so then the suggestion from this body that's duty to collect that money is to lower the amount that those people have to pay for late fees that's supposed to incentivize them to pay their bill okay no no I don't I'm not okay with that I mean good is collecting the debt to take the burden off the citizens that do pay their bill that's good making it easier for that side of the pie chart to get larger is not the goal it's it's that that's no I don't I'm not okay with five percent council member Dove yeah I'm good with sticking with the $20 just the way we have it now you know I wouldn't have any that much of a jack objection to doing a percentage on the on the commercial but you know I kind of wonder what the impact on the commercial would be did we have any data that showed I mean right there we 've got how much is bad debt but how much how often the large commercial are actually being charged a late fee or the the commercial types are being versus residential or so there's a sentence above this let me that the majority of the customer accounts that pay later small and percentage of that it's like 75% is small and the rest are proportionate between medium and large so it is those the smaller commercial types are the ones that are they're paying late when they pay late with that and the amount that's made up of that bad debt for commercial that thirty seven thousand that was 80 approximately 82 accounts that that was and so and then we have the breakdown of what those those were and this is again pretty proportionate types with that so we do know I did we did dig into that and it's about 75% of the time is this one commercial okay so two points are first a math point and then I can point about causality so going that and moving to a percentage might negatively affect small small businesses if you can you go back to that that's the one right before that that has the different yeah that you know you can see that now of course this is just on average but for a small business in the 5% example on average it would be a little bit less than $20 that 17 you know $17 and 68 cents so just to clarify that and pie charts and and and and maybe you can help me out with this Tiffany that when when I first think it was explained to me that this is shows the effect not of the increase in the late fee from the $10 or whatever it was before to the $20 but of the the new deposit system I say new but which was introduced in 2010 the credit-based deposit system because prior to the interest and I realized that both seems happened at the same time but I I would I just can't believe that raising the if if we're talking about causality the the hypothesis that raising a late fee from $10 to $20 would cause such a massive reduction in commercial debt you know that those big that that that all those businesses said oh my goodness $20 now we're gonna pay up to me it seems to you and that's how it was presented to me before when I was on the Public Utility Board and it makes sense to me that this is the the commercial-based deposits which make I'm certain I got credit-based deposits which require that businesses with bad credit history would have to our art get have to put a month or two down and then depending on their you know behaviors as they move forward a month or two extra so if you could kind if you see this difference in commercial as a result move from yeah to $20 or is this market credit-based deposits it's a valid point that coupled with the late fee changes in 2010 in addition with the deposit changes and requirements definitely were influencing factors on the reduction in debt but by putting those in place this was not just for commercial but residential multifamily with that additional late fee it did influence the behavior of customers paying late paying less or late often and so that has resulted in the lesser amount of bad debt as well with that and so that you are correct but I think it's coupled with the deposit changes that we made in addition to that and so you're really seeing the when the roots were laid and now the fruits of that today thank you yeah and then the reason why I was singling out was because that change and also the biggest in terms of dollar you know dollar amount going from six hundred seventy set roughly six hundred seventy seven thousand dollars in uncollected debt to thirty seven that's huge I've also seen pie charts provided by staff earlier that that show kind of the breakdown over the years and you can see that that kind of multi-fac there was a big change in a short time in residential and multifamily and collected debt and then you see it kind of remain stag past few years anyway that's why commercial but thank you thanks for that and and counsel I certainly you know not avakin for you to kick the can down the road but I just want to remind you you know there was some changes that were made to the credit collection policy back in January we committed to come back to the council in February for an update certainly I don't disagree with you that there was a number of changes that may have impacted you know the commercial and as well as you know the various mixes between the 2008 9 timeframe and the current timeframe and so there was a number of changes that were made all at once it's difficult to really try to pinpoint what those issues are with some of the changes that you've made the credit and our commitment to come back to you in February the council certainly take up this particular issue then as well once you kind of know what the impact has been to the various changes that you've made as an option certainly if the calendar chooses to make changes now you know we'll certainly move forward with that as well I think we have consensus at least on residential to stay at the 20 or we for right now we can revisit in in February on that and Marshall if we're good with that just that gives us an opportunity to get more data on what is the breakdown of of late fees to each one of those levels you know more data is always interesting at least to me but councilmember armature tried to do nose count on the commercial side I don't know where that ended up the site but I had the feeling that there might well have been consensus for making that change the change to the percentage of the commercial side we can we can pull through I think I think we're on the previous agenda item here on this tie vote I think so but we can go we go down the road and see okay got some of us with refraining what's a we're trying to determine what do we want to go to 5% on commercial now or do we want to wait until the study comes back in February to to evaluate at that point yeah I'll wait and see the study I can count noses pretty well I'm fine okay so we'll just stay at 20 for now and then we'll reevaluate in February when that comes back we can turn so what I'm gonna do is ask Gary to come up here and kind of walk through the the park presentation and kind of let you know kind of where we are based on the direction we heard from you at your last council meeting good afternoon mayor city council Gary pack and director parks and recreation wanted to give you some additional information as a follow- up from our last presentation about fees and charges and a little history and some changes that we've made since then just some background information on the aquatics facility specifically the water park 2016 we developed a supplemental for the operations of the water park to include the wave pole at that time we identified an anticipated ninety thousand patrons entering that facility and built the performer around that model this year obviously we're going through the first year we achieved you know I think last time we talked we're at seventy two thousand we finished Labor Day weekend at seventy three thousand Labor Day was a wash because of the weather so that was an additional rain day so we obviously finished well below what the anticipated projection was for the water park back in 2016 based off of that mall and the pricing structure so we made some adjustments adjustments to that based our off our year end actuals a year-to-date actuals for it for an average day we generated about nine nine thousand dollars in revenue now that can fluctuate by about three thousand up or down based on the day of the week Monday Tuesday's a little slower obviously weekends are a little bit higher obviously if we have a rain date on a weekend we lose more money than we would if it rained on them on a Monday so that helps that that causes fluctuation in our revenue projections we operated 90 total days of this year we had 20 well we had 27 actual rain dates another five days were heat related days where we had the high temperature back in August so in essence we kind of had 32 weather impacted days our average impact is about 25 days per year that does not include weather forecast impacts so if if the forecast for the weather is it's going to be rainy and cold and it's sunny and warm that impacts us as well but that's not included in those days so our total admission ended up for this year at 73,000 people our average daily attended active daily attendance based off that 90,000 90 days that's a thousand per day obviously we fell short of that so we we regenerated a projection budget based off of 70,000 admissions for fiscal year 18 and 19 with 500 increased admissions yearly from that point over the next three to five years we did make adjustments based off of the three dollar decrease in the daily admissions we removed the marketing components and the discounts related to that total cost of that or impact of potential loss of revenue is about a hundred twenty five thousand dollars based off our model and from an expenditure standpoint from projecting out we just finished identified three percent increase across the board compounded just as thumb and then our revenues increased the only increase that we had in our revenues it was based on the 500 additional attendees coming to the the park we didn't anticipate any fee increases or adjustments at that point in time so from the deficit sorry no Melton actually I could probably do in my head I was about to ask if you've done a break even for how much of an increase in attendance would the would you have to have to break even if if that were a result of decreasing the admission price I could see it's gonna be something like 25 % well there's a lot of impacts to it and you change one number he changed admission numbers it changes other things as well it also can possibly change the impact of the past sales because in prior years up to this year when we had the lower price more people were coming through through daily admissions this year won't want a lot last year when they increase the price we've seen a higher increase in the past sales so those flipped was reversed so we haven't really gone through a full year of any steady data collection so we're still kind of in the dark and there's a lot of assumptions being made in regards to how our revenue is gonna develop but this is based on assuming that reduction in price would bring in three-year average admission so it sells well we were three seventy three seventy three thousand so we're anticipating our two thousand additional admissions okay it's based on but I guess you'd have to turn a few dials at the same time and make some assumptions but it but I guess I'm still coming back to that question of you know what what kind of result plausible is that yeah so so we just talked briefly about the weather days and there 's a lot of factors but we'll just go through some some assumptions average year and we had seven additional days that were open I can't tell you if those were complete wash days or they were partially impacted days and we're gonna develop a formula for that we can exactly say what that is that's loss admissions so if you just figured our average is 820 but if it was 500 people that day that we lost times seven that's 3,500 people that's pushing us you know over 75,000 people so that's gonna help the budget from just based on average weather days so there's still some assumptions here and the weather is a huge impact on on that could swing these numbers did I answer your question well I mean you know you're kind of telling me it's it's it's it's there's so many variables it's essentially unanswerable yeah well I have a little graph that I put together this afternoon before the meeting I can show you kind of how the swings of some of those variables so from a deficit standpoint this year we finished that anticipate $135,000 plus or minus some of the things that contributed to that obviously our missions and our projections were extremely high so we've made adjustments for next year's budget with with the finance department getting that from 90,000 all the way down to 75,000 our concession sales were a little bit lower than we projected as well our programs we had to cut some of our programs because we couldn't get enough staff on board so we're gonna start this fall in regards to recruitment of trained lifeguards and instructors so we can make sure we're providing all the programs we want to our utility estimates were a little bit low and they were a little higher than we budgeted for electric and solid waste and then and then the staffing situation I had just mentioned from a fiscal year 1819 we're anticipating a $268 ,000 loss so a little bit more than this year we're anticipating that 135,000 just kind of carry forward as a potential challenge that will continue to work through the hundred and twenty five thousand dollars which is a reduction of three dollars is lost potential revenue there are some other impacts that are causing that such as the chemical increase that we just signed a contract for that's a significant increase in costs our staffing where we are projecting a little bit of a potential pay increase to our staff because competing for competing forces for staff has been a challenge that we want to try to work through and then just our utilities are contributing to that $268,000 councilmember Amatole oh yeah so I had a question about the reduction in fees will result in a loss of revenue to $125,000 now correct me if I'm wrong but that's just a conservative estimate right we try to quantify that as much as we can based off of the amount of admissions paid through those through dailies lockups and yeah yeah so because we and I'm saying this and I'm sure you've thought of this already but can't fit for it you know anybody who's listening including colleagues on on council that it is possible that the reduction in fees could cause the number of attendees to go up enough that of course it would depend on how much but I just wanted to make that clear you know that that we don't and I think it's a good idea to you know always budget can spudget conservatively so I think I'm not objecting to putting that figure up there but just to make clear it the law there might not be a loss at all so I'm not predicting but just to say it could actually cause that because this number is based on the attendance that we've gotten because we can't you're not assuming that reduction in fees will raise it's trying just trying to get honing on what that value was or what that change the impact was obviously we'll find out at the course of the end of the year you know if it really impacted our attendance which is good we get that revenue in through the door but also from concession sales or rentals or upgrades from the facility that could all trickle down and improve the bottom line as well so we really haven't had a consistent pro forma for the operating of the aquatics facility for a number of years even going back as far as when we had the rain in 14 and 15 and lakes were closed our attendance was through the roof so we've had a little bit of Evan flows and then we had a new facility into the mix with both the wave pool and the concession stand so so from an impact standpoint this is a little bit of me was there's a number of things we can do to try to move the needle deficit and there's impacts that caused that deficit to move either way obviously we're expanded cooperation with DIS advertising for student employees as well as in discount fee in cooperation with them so we're hoping that we can improve that as I'm there it could be cheaper to get into the set we just opened up this year there's some eyes our business as our attendance where people are coming regards to passes and how they're being you naming rights opportunities so that's one thing I wanted to share that that the lowered fees heard from a lot of the especially moms on a moms or people said well any possibility of bringing back what it's called but but until hearing about this I'm kind of checking this out with you now whereby for you know number of guys you could buy four or more to get the discount and they did not have to be a family member family member that lives under the same four four two hundred counted through December so we all with our marketing the deal right it's a lap okay I like the idea not just families but groups of a community this sense I'm to you before any other kind of consensus yeah I think having a special promoting we're ready to move forward and if we say we're not ready to move forward we're not ready to distress by this conversation because it bring us back what we what we ask you to bring back so is disconcer ting to me individually so thank you yeah I do councilmember I'm cool just a question while parks is still here in case you're about to go away for the next presentation I could bet Tony this my segue in in the budget in the part of the the budget presentation that you're about to present which we have in our backup it meant there's a figure under the general funds and I and I'm fine waiting to address this till you get to your presentation but I just wanted to see what to see what you're before you leave the room says here that there's a in the presentation you're about to give on the general fund slide it says a reduced thousand six hundred forty six dollar from revenues due to reduction in fees at water park then the figure that we had you is 125 K I was gonna wait to address that I see you had about and so the difference proposed budget was a much higher revenue projection than what Gary's been about another hundred and fifty thousand dollars that was included in the original projection based on last year's projections and so again what Gary is has shown you the different things yeah absolutely thank you so much anything else for Gary we hope stick around in case here does what's the council wish to go ahead and grab it now session because we do have a couple of closed session items to get to as well okay okay so mr. report am City Council Tony point the director finance just have a few slides here to go through with you so when I recap some of the changes to the overall budgets for the city and including give you an update on the general fund budget and forecast additionally just want to go through a couple of little graphs and then talk about next steps and and so some of the changes that we've made kind of based on your direction also with some additional discussions internally that we've had and you know we're only a few days away from closing out this fiscal year at our expenditure estimates revenues where things might be and so as a result of that you had previously already given us direction to include the 285,000 for one- time capital projects for parks that was already in the forecast subsequent to that we've added the 200,000 for the master thorough thoroughfare plan and 150,000 for the mobility plan you know we're feeling very confident that we 'll be able to fund those in the current year certainly if if things don't shake out as well as we thought you know there'll be a one-time drawdown of fund balance that I think is still manageable we'll continue to evaluate where we end the year and so we still have the the air truck out there that that you've given us some direction on and expressing interest in and so we'll certainly continue to evaluate that as well as if if the fiscal year ends much better than we thought there may be some additional things that we may come back to you with so that's kind of a recap of where we are for 1718 for 1819 as as you know we've made a number of changes that are related to to the water park we've also added a new assistant police chief those expenditures and reduced revenues have been included we've also shifted about a quarter penny and I'll talk a little bit more about that from you between the debt rate and the operations rate still maintaining the same tax rate that we had previously talked to you about the 62 cents and so that was a way to also cover any potential loss in revenue from the water park it's not a dollar-for-dollar exchange and so we are projecting to draw down fund balance a little bit as a way to try to keep 1819 somewhat balanced from these changes we've also moved a hundred thirty five thousand dollars of expenses related to the four personnel for police personnel there were some vehicles that were included to be funded from the general fund we have proposed to move that out of the general fund and into the police confiscation fund that fund has a little bit over three hundred thousand dollars it's a one-time expense we think we can certainly do that we've done that in the past and so we're very comfortable with with that change in the electric fund you know based on discussions we came back and talked to you about we've done some grossing up of some of the revenues and expenses related to the deck that was there were previously unedited within the within that fund that created our need to to gross up both the revenues and expenses to about 36 million dollars again it's it's no change of the overall budget other than how it's presented and how you approve and appropriate those expenses for that fund in the downtown turrs if you recall we did shift a hundred thousand dollars out of the general fund that was previously being funded in the downtown reinvestment fund with mixed beverage taxes and it's now going to be funded out of the downtown turrs and so that's a hundred thousand dollar additional expense that we've added to that particular fund in the tree mitigation fund if you recall there was conversations with the committee on the environment came back to the council we've added an additional fifty three thousand one hundred dollars to that for the various items that you have listed up here and of course then the police confiscation fund as I already mentioned we've now shifted 135 thousand expenses out of the general fund and to be funded out of that particular fund for next year's a one- time expense councilmember breaks could you remind me the intern position for the tree rate tree rebate is that going to keep it beautiful or is that part of our sustainability department who's that intern belong to that intern will will belong to the sustainability but it's going to be shared between KDB and sustainability and managing the various programs okay okay so just briefly and this chart here I've tried to show you what the original proposal was for the tax rate distribution between operations and debt again this is the recommended proposed budget as as a just as a reminder this includes this is one cent above the city calculated effective rate as you can see here the the state calculated effective rate is 68 cents and we talked about why that number is the way it is well we're this revised proposal and shifting this quarter cent between debt service and O&M still maintains the same exact rate that we've been discussing that generates about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the general fund that previously wasn't there and just thinking through with you about this you know we've we've gone through and reevaluated where we think our upcoming bond sale that will be in front of you today on the CEO issuance we believe that the market has moved in our direction and as such we've updated some of our desk edgels in our forecast and we think that we're able to afford this shift that we won't need the full one penny on the debt side to cover and fund all of that all of that debt and so again just a concerted effort between staff and our financial advisors to really kind of shake the trees we are anticipating to have that bond sale tomorrow pending council's approval tonight of that bond ordinance and so but we think that we're will certainly be in in the ball park on on the interest rate from what we originally thought we were going to be at so this is the revised general fund forecast as I mentioned in the budget we are still proposing to draw down some fund balance to tune about 1.4 million dollars still keeps our budget well within the the established policy at twenty two point nine percent out in year five certainly you know we get below that I will tell you that you know these are things that this is a living document will continue to to look at that in the coming years and just just for your information the rating agencies while this you know we share this information with them and while they're certainly cognizant of that we do fund budget on a five-year basis they really concentrate on this kind of three-year time frame that has a little more certainty and so within that five-year time frame we believe where we are well within our current fund balance policy and don't don't anticipate any negative impacts from from our rating agencies matter of fact we've shared we've shared this with them recently in in again a rating for our upcoming bond sale and there was no issues expressed from them on that we have it answer any questions that you may have when this includes all the changes that are already outlined for you within the general fund itself so just to recap with you we've given you a kind of side-by- side comparison of what the original proposed budget that we delivered to you and discussed with you on August 2nd and where we are today as you can see the net change in revenues is to the general fund is minimal certainly the shifting of the tax rate has certainly helped that as well as a slightly slight drawdown in fund balance the change in the general in the electric fund is reflected here and within this miscellaneous funds is included certainly the police confiscation fund tree mitigation and also the the downtown turds and so on the expense side and what we'll be asking the council to approve in on on the 18th of September will be an overall city budget of 1.2 billion dollars a slight increase about 36 million what an increase of 36 million from the original proposal of 1.18 million a billion dollars and so if you have any questions certainly be happy to go through those with you but this is this is our revised total city budget councilmember Meltzer just because the numbers are are so big could you just one more time address this the electric fund my understanding you to say that you're making an adjustment on sort of both sides of the ledger that it's you know more or less an accounting issue not an actual proposed change in any resources or expenditures is that inaccurate that is that is correct Charlie gives a little more transparency based on what the council directions been on I'm just looking at that performer by itself and so in looking at the combined performer those revenue expenses have been netted we've we've now shown and shown the true revenues true expenses and that required that we bump up the expenses to balance that out and what is it that wasn't being shown that is revealed by doing it this way so it so we weren't showing was a true revenue and expenses within the overall DME performer but it was being netted purchase power costs are being netted out by the income derived from the operating the deck so yes so so we're showing fully loaded on all sides so this just gives you kind of just a graphic for you of where that 1.2 billion goes 10% of that is general fund certainly the electric fund makes up almost 20% followed by the various funds as we've discussed before with you certainly the city's capital program makes up the lion's share of that of that 1.2 billion dollars so finally next steps certainly tonight there'll be a second public hearing on the tax rate as well as the the first and only required public hearing on the proposed budget per the city charter on September 18th we will come back to you and ask you to consider adoption of the city's tax rule the tax rate the budget and it'll also be a separate item which is a state law required item for a ratification of the budget I just want to make sure and just note for the council that because the proposed budget is below the effective rate the 60% requirement is not applicable here within the the tax rate so it'll just be a simple majority of the council to approve the tax rate if you had been above the effective rate then it will require it would have required five members of out of seven to vote for that again that's consistent with state law well also on the 18th we back to you budget amendment to amend not just the general fund for some of the one-time expenditures out of 17 18 but there'll be some cleanup items on a couple of other budgets that we 've been reviewing and and looking at where they're going to end the year and then finally the various rate ordinances for electric water wastewater drainage parks and all those fees that we've already discussed with you will also come to you as individual items for consideration or they can send it they 'll be in consent agenda but they'll be individual items listed out for you so that I'll be coming to you on the 18th that concludes my presentation be happy to answer any questions that you may have any questions thank you very much time and that brings us to the conclusion of our work session items so we will now convene in closed session at 552 we'll consider the following items consultation with attorneys under Texas government code five five I'd like to welcome everyone look we do have a quorum present this is a regular meeting of the Denton City Council and you know let's start at a few minutes late is now 642 and we will start with the first item on the agenda is the pledge to the allegiance so stand with me if you're able to apply honor the Texas flag I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God one and invisible okay we have a couple of proclamations to do tonight first one is National Falls prevention awareness day we have anyone here to like to come on down and welcome if you'd like to introduce yourself tell us who you are and where you're from how do I address am I on the am I on the pan I'm Steve Edgar I'm the CEO of medical city Denton Dana long is our director of marketing and community relations and we thank you for this opportunity fall prevention in the home as well as in our hospital is top measure for us from a patient safety standpoint so thank you so much for this recognition glad to do it and I know I've had neighbors in the past I would have to go over and help them up and it's not a good thing so proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton Texas to all whom whom these presence shall come greetings whereas individuals who are 65 years of age and older sometimes referred to as older adults are the fastest growing segment of our population in the United States in the number of older adults in the United States will increase from 49.2 million in 2016 to 82.3 million in 2040 and whereas one in every seven or 15.2% of the population is an older American and whereas more than one of four older adults in the United States falls each year however falling is not inevitable result of aging and whereas falls are the leading cause of both fatal and non-fatal injuries among older adults every 11 seconds an older adult is treated in an in an emergency room for a fall fall every 19 minutes an older adult dies from a fall and whereas in 2015 medical costs of fall related injuries for older adults were more than 49 and a half billion dollars if if the rate increase in falls is not slowed the annual cost of fall injuries will reach 67.7 billion dollars by 2020 and whereas evidence-based programs reduce falls by utilizing cost-efficient strategies such as exercise programs to improve balance and strength medication management vision improvement reduction of home hazards and fall prevention education now that therefore I John Ryan on behalf of Chris Watts the mayor of the city of Denton do hereby declare and proclaim September 22nd 2018 is National Falls Prevention Awareness Day and encourage all businesses faith communities individuals federal state and local governments that the public health community and the health care providers to work together within their living communities to raise awareness of falls in an effort to reduce the increase of falls among older adults in the United States all that was contained in the next one is on pain awareness month don't know if we've got anyone here on this I can definitely relate to this I've got two herniated discs to all whom these presence shall come greetings whereas pain where as pain is a major public health problem for children and adults and the number one reason for Americans to seek health care medical care and whereas the Institute of Medicine has found that 100 million Americans live with chronic pain as a result of serious illness or injuries and whereas chronic pain can cost the nation an estimated 560 to 630 billion dollars annually in medical expenses lost wages and lost productivity whereas pain negatively impacts almost every aspect of a person's life including their ability to work sleep and engage in social activities as well as adversely impacting pain sufferers families and caregivers and whereas the US pain foundation mission is to educate connect inform empower advocate on behalf of over 80,000 members throughout the country and all those who live with chronic pain and whereas the US pain foundation provides education on pain managements skills and constructive ways to cope with pain and find fulfillment in life and whereas increase awareness about the effects of chronic pain result in better outcomes increased access to good pain care and empowerment and validation for those living with pain and therefore I John Ryan on behalf of Chris Watts the mayor of the city of Denton do hereby declare and proclaim the month of September as pain management awareness and encourage all citizens of the city of Denton to part partner with US pain foundation in seeking awareness about the effects of chronic pain and finding constructive ways to cope with that third one is Constitution week yes please do not fall or you will have pain okay well if y 'all would like to introduce yourselves and tell us who you're with I'm so Russell the region of Benjamin line chapter dollars of the American Revolution and Denton I'm Keely Briggs recently new member Marilyn Sims member I'm Suzanne Barnett vice region of the chapter proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton to all whom these presence shall come greetings whereas our founding fathers in order to secure the blessings of liberty for themselves their prosperity do ordain and establish a Constitution for the United States of America and whereas it is of the greatest importance that all citizens fully understand the provisions and principles contained in the Constitution in order to effectively support preserve and defend it against all enemies and whereas the 231st anniversary of the signing of the Constitution provides an historic opportunity for all Americans to remember the achievements of the framers of the Constitution and the rights privileges and responsibilities they're afforded us in the unique document and whereas it is the privilege and duty of all Americans to commemorate the 231st anniversary of the ratification in the Convention of the Constitution of the United States of America with appropriate ceremonies and activities therefore I John Ryan on behalf of Chris Watts mayor of the city of Denton do hereby declare and proclaim the week of September 17 through September 23rd 2018 as Constitution Week and urge all citizens to study the Constitution and reflect on the privileges of being an American with all the rights and responsibilities which that privilege involves and further to vigilantly protect the freedoms guaranteed to us through this guardian of our liberties to come and say here the reading of the Constitution join us in all of that it's at one o'clock and at three o'clock the ringing of the bells we'd love to have all of you there all of you thank you thank you thank you okay the next item on our agenda presentations from members of the public we have no one who has signed up to speak and we have received no blue cards this evening so we have no presentations so we will not need to roll art the tape of rules and procedures as we normally would so we'll move on to item for the consent agenda we entertain a motion on the consent agenda I'm in this chair tonight so I can't make motions councilmember has moved approval before I recognize a second I believe during work session there was a request to pull item D is that so move approval but for item D to be presented individually thank you councilmember armator second all right we have a motion a second any further discussion please vote on the board and the motion carries six to zero and just to correct the record we weren't voting on Constitution week we just we were voting on the consent agenda I'm in favor of the Constitution as well all right then we will move on to item D consider that individually and call the call the item consider adoption of an ordinance the city of Denton providing an authorizing the execution by the city of manager to extend the purchase power agreement between the city of Denton and Texas women's University thank you George Morrow general manager of DMA before you tonight is the agreement as described by the mayor pro tem and I'm here to respond to any questions if that's possible councilmember Briggs so I asked to have this pulled but it 's just that it is an extension of a current agreement that we have and so that that's pretty much all where it's just for a year this is an amendment to extend the current agreement yes okay thank you thank you any other discussion councilmember has been moving approval of item D we have a motion to approve item D just see a second Councilman Berm elter all right we have a motion and a second for item D let's vote on the board and the motion carries six to zero now move on to items for individual consideration is my understanding that item 5a has been pulled for consideration that is correct okay then we'll move on to item 5b which is considered option of an ordinance approving an agreement between the city of Denton and the Denton Chamber of Commerce regarding economic development partnership good evening mayor pro tem and council members I'm Caroline Booth director of economic development and I will be presenting the item to you this evening you did have a work session on this item a couple of weeks ago so I am going to move quickly through the presentation the chamber and the city of Denton have had an economic development partnership for over 30 years and as part of that partnership the city provides funds for the chamber's office of economic developments administration and operations this year the chamber has requested two hundred and thirty eight thousand eight hundred and thirty six dollars in funding for fiscal year 1819 that is the same amount that they requested for the current fiscal year this year's operating agreement with the chamber was significantly different from prior years and that we added goals deliverables and metrics and some enhanced clauses to protect the city to date the chamber has met or exceeded the terms of the current year's agreement the fiscal year 1819 draft agreement follows the same format as the current years with some changes regarding addition of shared strategic initiatives revisions of some of the goals and an additional duty related to engaging the business community through the EDP investor program chamber staff and board leadership as well as the EDP board reviewed the agreement and did not request any changes in the work session that I presented to you a couple of weeks ago council directed staff to go ahead and proceed with the agreement as presented while working to develop an ROI methodology based on the data that has been collected in the current fiscal year you have two options this evening you can renew the agreement as presented or choose not to renew the agreement and the staff recommendation is to renew it as presented and I 'm happy to answer any questions that you have councilmember Melter just wonder if you could clarify for the public is this the sole source of funding for the chamber does this in any does this actually fund the operations of the chamber the money that's requested under this agreement only funds the chambers economic development operations which is a specific subset of their activities and the agreement does require the economic development division of the chamber to raise a certain amount of private funds to contribute to the efforts as well thank you councilmember Amato so once again I want to thank you Carolyn and for all the work that you and your staff have done to really raise the bar and have more metrics in place to be able to trace the return on investment so I greatly appreciate that and look forward to more of that in the future I'll just reiterate a concern that that I will continue to have which doesn't affect my my vote on this but I've expressed before and that is that there's there are two spots on the economic development partnership board set aside for the top 20 percent taxpayers top 20 taxpayers and I believe that that sends the wrong message to the taxpayers in general for whom paying taxes is a big deal big contribution no matter how much you're making it's still a you know significant percentage of what you make I don't have a problem with people in that tax bracket being on the committee but I think that those spots should be open to any business owner regardless of how how wealthy they are just making it an at-large position would be fine by me so I'll keep mentioning that every time this comes up you know and I hope to see that come before council at some point in the future whenever staff it sees fit councilmember breaks so I to appreciate all the metrics from this agreement from the past year I think it's been very beneficial and I think it's been beneficial to the chamber as well I just wanted to say again that I have I'm okay with the agreement now but in the future in the coming up budget years I'd like to see this funding come from the general fund and not necessarily from all the utility funds those are already way heavy on our our citizens and our customers and so I will go ahead and vote for this tonight but in the future for other funding I would like for just to see it come from general funding and not utility thank you councilmember I'm a door I second that thanks for mentioning that councilman Briggs I would also like to see come from general friend in the future councilmember husband I move that we approve item B councilmember Briggs I second all right we have a motion in its second to consider adoption of an ordinance for an agreement between the city of Denton in the chamber on economic development partnership let's vote on the board and the motion carries six to zero our next item is to consider adoption of an ordinance the city of Denton authorizing the city manager is it designee in the decommissioning escrow account between TMPA the city of Bryan city of Denton Garland Greenville and so forth good evening again George Morrow general manager of DME before you tonight for your review and approval as a decommissioning escort agreement with the Texas municipal power agency as mayor pro tem mentioned there's four parties to the TMPA Denton Garland Greenville and Bryan in 2016 a joint operating agreement was executed which established a decommissioning escort agreement and that's the objective of the partners in the plant now is we're looking forward to a day sometime in the foreseeable future that that plant would be decommissioned so it's time to start setting up the procedures and process for doing that and this decommission ing escrow agreement does a number of things in that regard it allows us to select and establishes duties for the escrow agent establishes the escrow account which is very important and it talks about the procedures for making payments into and disbursements from the escrow account so this so there's actually a prototype of this agreement that 's attached to the JOA that you know the city of Denton is a party to so it's not too much more complex than that and I'm here asking for your approval of an ordinance to authorize execution of this agreement councilmember Briggs have all the other member cities approve this to my knowledge yes yes okay that's my armator I'll just say I can't wait till we can finally say goodbye to that to that plant so I'm pleased that we're finally at this point councilmember husband thank you I move approval of item C and council member Briggs second we have a motion and a second for establishing an escrow account between TMPA and its member cities all those in favor please vote on the board and the motion carries six to zero thank you next next item five e consider adoption of the ordinance considering all matters incident to and related to insurance and sale of three oh I'm sorry I apologize I skipped one here we are on item D I flipped a page and there was no title at the top consider nominations and appoint appointments to the city boards and commissions and probably this was probably a Freudian slip because I do not have any of my you know don't even bother asking me I had one of them call me back but I haven 't had chance to call them back so mayor and council as noted I will skip mayor pro tem Ryan there are just a few of our boards and commissions that still need some nominations and we'll see how many we can get done to this evening on the health and building standards Commission there's a place for the nomination from mayor pro tem Ryan and also councilmember Meltzer and I see no movement so we'll go on to the alternate position I just wanted to mention that Glenn Fer ris is the current person in that seat and he is eligible for reapp ointment if anyone would want to consider him for reappointment we just councilmember Meltzer he's the alternate the current alternate I think he's I think he's moving okay all right for the Historic Landmark Commission mayor Watts has nominated Angie stripling we'll skip the library board traffic safety Commission councilmember Armentor has nominated Henry Jason and zoning Board of Adjustment there's one other vacancy in addition to alternate two and councilmember Meltzer has nominated Emily missin missin nice nice nice near thank you did you want to vote on those separately from the City Hall what steering committee and the Oak Gateway yes a couple of comments before we get to the vote councilmember Armentor yeah yeah so in the backup folks might have noticed this it's somebody else's there's somebody else who had originally nominated and I had to make choose make a different nomination and and and and the reason why is because this was some bit the person I had nominated and this is the second time this had happened I wasn't aware of this rule before getting on council but there's a rule that in order to serve on any committee other than a an ad hoc temporary committee one has to be a voting a register to vote in City of Denton and while that you know seemed to to make sense to me and on the surface I've kind of encountered twice situations where the person I wanted to nominate was very involved citizen in the sense of citizenship but because they're of another nationality and are not United States citizens no matter how long they've lived here they can't serve and contributed to the community they can't serve on a border commission so I would love to see it some future point that changed or at least considered and you know to see a staff report on what the reasons are for that if there are any legal reasons to have that rule or if that's just at the discretion of council so that's just for for future reference but I wanted to take this opportunity to mention that that we have a lot of members of our community who are contributing a lot who are not citizens but display citizenship in every way so thank you councilmember breaks my question is about City Hall West steering committee I know that they had a public meeting and that committee is winding down but on here there's the the three vacancies and I believe that no one has the intention to fill those and so I'm just going and throwing the question out there do we need to if they continue to meet a few more times do we need to decrease that amount on the board by three for quorum sake or just keep moving and not worry about it I would say we probably just move forward we haven 't had it we didn't have an issue we only have one meeting laugh left in the last meeting we had a quorum at it so okay so did you want any do we want to vote on these separately or we can put them all together are there any nominations then for the City Hall West or the gateway or is there openings there are two openings left one was for mayor Watts and one is for mayor pro tam Ryan I thought the prior conversation was maybe that those weren't all going to be filled but that's up to you you can vote on the ones that are here if you'd like me to try to read their names councilmember Meltzer has nominated Christopher Wilkins councilmember Meltzer has nominated Shah Ruk is that correct if honey councilmember Armentor has nominated Vanessa Reams and councilmember Armentor has nominated good run rushing close and then there as I said there's the two other vacancies well and I his mr. Owen resigned from it the last I spoke with him he was still attending so I can't answer that okay I'll give him a call afterwards on rounding up my other nominees so what gets your vote on them as a whole no councilmember husband yeah I was gonna suggest we vote on them as a whole and then also make the note that I think that maybe a policy could be that the alternates if willing could be bumped up in those instances where's where no one's appointed there's one board where it has two alternates in line and two vacancies so that may be something to consider in the future just they they get if they're able are bumped up to fill those those positions if they're not a field easily councilmember Meltzer just want to point out that mr. Wil kins nominee for gateway is a resident of sub area 3 and mr. Muthani is a resident of sub area 2 councilmember Briggs I move approval of all of these nominations councilmember armator I second we have a motion and a second any further discussion all right then we let's vote on the board to consider appointments and nominations to the city boards and motion carries six to zero now we are on to item e consider adoption of an ordinance considering all matters related to the sale delivery of up to three thirty one point eight million dollars in certificate obligation series 2018 mr. mayor pro tem city council Tony point the director finance I just have a very short presentation for you on this item if you if you recall back on August 7th the council approved a notice of intention ordinance that then kick-started some requirements for us where we had to publish the notice of intent to issue certificates of obligation in the local paper for two consecutive weeks that was done on August 10th and August 17th there is a 31 day a wait period before we can issue this year's we are beyond that wait period so what you have in front of you is an ordinance approving the sale of thirty one point six five five million dollars for projects an additional hundred fifty five thousand dollars for cost of issuance the total maximum principal is thirty one point eight one million listed here for you are the projects to be funded with that thirty one point six five five million just want to quickly just remind the council that the council has already approved the contract for the radio replacement system the contract amount versus the amount that we originally brought to you was a little bit a little bit under a million dollars less than what was originally projected what staff has done is we've built in that million dollars and converted it from a ten ten year debt issuance a twenty -year debt issuance and have included it in this ten point nine five million for street reconstruction we've included that in there as a conting ency could we'll be coming back to the council with a plan on how we're going to utilize that million dollars can go into a number one of the number of these projects or other eligible projects also included is the fire eight fire station eight design the constructional common in a future year four point five million for rehabilitation of the of the service center three point two five for some small transportation projects we've spoken with you at length about those five million dollars for our local match on the May Hill Bridge a project at the DCT a crossing that is our local match six hundred twenty thousand for the police firing range that's to complete that project that was part of the 2014 bond program one point three million dollars for a very simple of roads in and around the the airport or on the airport should I say and as I mentioned earlier ten point nine five million for street reconstruction on the radio system replacement what I what I've listed out here for you is that the water department the water fund wastewater fund electric fund will also be contributing towards that project because they'll also benefit from that particular project just quickly on next step certainly you have in front of you consideration to approve parameters ordinance authorizing us to sell these CEOs if council approves that our preliminary plan is to issue those those CEOs tomorrow as early as tomorrow principally because we want to make sure that we're able to close the sale and have delivery of funds before the end of the fiscal year it saves us on some accounting entries that that could pose some issues for us and so that's part of the timing unless there's some type of market movement that isn't advantageous for us that would be the plan is again assuming that the council authorizes this ordinance today that concludes my presentation I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have councilmember Hussbett thank you Tony do you have that image the entire stretch of Mayhill by chance or I think the city engineer does okay thank you it's awesome so this image right here shows the limits of Mayhill from I 35 e to the south all the way to the north University Drive us 3 80 okay and so my question is to the south what does that connect to once it where you have it in the picture terminated what is what what does that connect to it goes just south to the next intersection right at the front entrance the hospital medical city Denton and that's just north of I 35 in the Mayhill intersection interchange that tech stop will be going to construction on next year okay and so I ask this so my comment is this that I just want to create a clear record that this traffic then funnels towards on to 2499 and what is the connection there 24 night may Hill does become 2499 as it crosses under I 35 e so this is a clear connection from the north universe northern segment of town and the University Drive traffic that we're getting today there's significant amount of traffic on that stretch of 380 between us and McK inney this diverts a lot of that traffic south 2499 all the way down the DFW airport and vice versa all the way back north and so potentially it will increase it will ease traffic but increase the number of cars that travel on 2499 potentially yes okay thank you so my statement is this when we're looking at future projects to be consistent in our messaging I just want to create a clear record that we're authorizing spending of funds that will then increase traffic potentially on 2499 and so by by approving this everyone's well aware and so I just want to I want to stipulate that that's my estimation and my summary of approving that and then part B of my comment is I want to thank city manager staff Todd everyone involved 11 million dollars going towards streets is significant and gets us well on our way to right in a lot of wrong so I want to thank you for maintaining fiscal responsibility while doing so but ded icating 11 million dollars to our streets and make sure that those that live here in the city didn't understand we take those concerns seriously and are addressing those as quickly as possible thank you councilmember Briggs if you could it's for the the money guy yes ma'am on this the list of projects could you go back to that if you could just help me for clarification so we issue the CEOs for these projects but if one of the projects here something happens how does that work out this is the money specifically designated for these listed projects or if one of them falls off and doesn't work how does that happen or if something we want to get replaced is it just the CEOs for the amount of money total and then we these are the ones that we're hoping to find with it so so a couple of things you know first of all the the radio replacement system that the council's already awarded a contract for that and so that's gonna happen some of these other projects like the police firing range a street reconstruction which would be the bulk of the money is tied to the 2014 bond program likely will and not likely but we'll continue to have conversations with the bond oversight committee if for some reason there needs to be a reallocation of some of those money to another project we would do that first with that committee likely we'll also have a discussion with the council's audit finance committee and then also move with the council for these other projects certainly if there's any changes to those projects we'll certainly be coming back to the council if there's a need to reallocate those dollars to another project certainly if it's a new project we'll be doing that and as I mentioned earlier with the additional million dollars that we have as a contingency once one staff is ready to make a recommendation how to utilize those those monies we'll come back to the council certainly if it's a new project or if we're gonna just simply dedicate it to street reconstruction we'll continue to have those conversations with the council and so so there's been conversations out in the public about the amount of CEOs that that we issue that is a lot can you just speak to to why we choose the CEOs and why we were doing it for this project well first of all I just want to clarify that whether you issue CEOs or Geos it still has the same tax pledge as whether I was a voter approved geo bond or a CEO certainly there's an expediency if in issuing CEOs there's only a 30-day wait period after you've published notice of intent there is no bond election it has to be had those bond elections you can only hold them on the general election dates which normally November and so there's certainly a timing and a benefit to issuing those CEOs we did previously as part of one of the budget requests submit to the council a 10-year history of how many projects we funded certainly this year for 17 18 is an exception but generally speaking over that 10-year period the majority of the debt that the city has issued for general government purposes has been voter approved bonds okay thank you very much just ma'am councilmember Alta you just want to just want to highlight for the public that this is there's 11 million here that's for street reconstruction that's for the the really poor or very poor roads that need to be built almost over again this is paired with street an increase in street maintenance that will be part of the budget that will you know be presented for the public to speak about and that's an increase of I want to say off the top of my head something like four million to 11 something in that range so it's a it's a massive commitment to making it no longer true that den roads are terrible but we're going to be coming into a period of time we're you know for that over the next couple of years there's going to be a lot of roads torn up and so I'm just kind of giving the public the heads up to hold us accountable that as we go into this period of time that we do it with great communication with neighborhoods with businesses that we have thought through alternate routes so that you know we get through this together because you know the thing that people hate almost as much as bad roads is is the period of time when you're fixing the roads but we're gonna get through this together and get to a state where Denton roads are in good shape most of the time any further question from staff this is an item for individual consideration so it does require a blue card for the public to speak I did receive one blue card from mr. Robert Donnelly if you come down state your name and address and your three minutes will begin my name is Robert Donnelly I live at 3900 quail Creek Road Denton Texas and my I just have some questions and so I'll go through a little history when Mayhill I'm glad you brought up that time was first funded the the county split the match with us I think it was 11 million dollars and they paid four or five so now y'all have received more funding and as he showed you which is one of the questions he says the match is five million dollars I had this document and it's from RTC RTC which is who you're getting the money from and it says the match is three million seven hundred and eighty eight thousand so I was curious a widen the county helping with the match and and if they are that reduces our amount down to under two million about a million nine so my questions are basically I'm sure it's something I've missed but where did the city come up with a five million dollar figure because this is a city dog got this from the city so it should have been three seven eight eight if the city told us we're not in on this but if the city and a wide in the city I mean what in the county split this match I know they're not obligated from the first funding agreement but but they were willing then and basically you know that puts it at one nine so we got a three million dollar difference and so there's probably a simple explanation but I don't know it and that 's why I'd like to get it since it's not citizens report and it's on the agenda we can talk about it I can get an answer so if you have any questions for me I'll be happy to councilman breaks well I'm gonna ask if our city manager can speak to that difference in funding and the discrepancy in the in the dollar amount sure yeah and on August 10th in the Friday report I sent out for the council public media an overview of the revised budget for this particular project and there's about a 20 million dollar difference part of that is the most of that is made up of the additional regional funding commitment of the 15 million there is a three point seven million dollar match what was what is making up the difference of that is there's additional design costs for the bridge the amount of estimated amount about 750,000 additional corridor landscaping that's going to need to be approved additional franchise utility relocations the amount of three hundred thousand dollars and right away acquisition costs so the adjusted budget for the project takes into consideration all those accounts and the additional one point two million dollars was necessary to offset those costs and ensure that the project was properly funded as to the accusation that the county did not assist with the project that that is true on this particular project and partly because they've been extremely helpful in helping identify additional funding for Bonnie Bray as well as moving helping us with some RTC money to offset some of the costs associated with other projects around the city so they are a an excellent partner and have been willing to move some of their share dollars around in order for us to complete other projects around the city so I don't think it's really accurate or fair to state they weren't a partner with this they've been actually helping us make other projects around the city move quickly including airport roads another example of that councilmember Armatov um yeah so just a question for mr. city manager can we get that documentation on that you mentioned it was from the August 10th did you say Friday yeah I'm reading the Friday report right here so yeah that could and I'd be happy to pass that on okay or someone else to pass that on to you sure to mr. Donnelly does that what can I can I respond to the comment I believe councilmember Armatov is asking if that satisfies yeah yeah that's fine I was about to ask you I guess what threw me is this is labeled as match and the funds you were talking about with those not come out of the 18 million they wouldn't be part of that's not part of them it's probably a wording thing that I get a little OCD on but among other things but our match is not five million dollars our matches you're correct it could we could have retitled it may Hill project improvements and yeah three point seven of that five million dollars is for the match that we promised cog that we would provide and the other one point three million dollars is for additional design costs as well as other project costs that I just outlined so you're talking a million two above the 18.9 the total is 18 now you get 15 from there's there's a one point eight million dollar difference one point eight four five million dollar difference in the in the budget in so the the mayhem road project is initially funded was fifty seven point two million two nine five million the revised budget was seventy five point six million and the final budget is seventy seven point four four five million dollars so with the additional one point two million dollars the project budget as we from what we know right now would be fully funded including their contingency right but are those totals inaccurate I guess is what I'm asking math is not my thing they're not inaccurate that was our match on the construction dollars and we've got additional design dollars acquisition dollars landscaping dollars that go above and beyond that so that was to actually build the bridge it's it's not an all-in-it's not an all-in-project budget it wouldn't include it wouldn't have included the additional design fees the additional landscaping and I understand you probably still got some money from the original I think it was 56 million and because it's up to 77 million but that's what I was getting the million eight that you outlined in the Friday staff report is that coming out of this money no it's it's all combined this these are contributions towards the total project budget of seventy seven point four four five million so this is this is one component representing roughly a third of that budget okay so basic bottom line RTC is going to give the city of Denton not give well yeah they are gonna give us its toll road funds they 're gonna furnish 15 million hundred and fifty two thousand and we're gonna furnish three million seven hundred eighty eight thousand in mr. Donnelly I think we're getting a little over the board on this what it is is basically if I can interrupt real quick just to try and explain it we're looking at the total budget right and what you're looking at is is the expansion budget and there's some other expansion items that aren't included on that piece of paper that are included in the overall budget that's where that difference comes about exact okay so okay that's correct so that that's what was necessary in order to get in order to make this project complete in order to make our contribution that was the three point seven but in order to make the entire project complete was the additional five million so hopefully that will answer your questions but our match is three seven eight eight not five million for that particular component yes sure for the right home and four million and a half before the 40 for the to make the budget hole itself because of all the other costs outline it's yeah that's where the additional point two comes in okay and then the county just didn't want in this time I didn't mean to say they didn't like it or whatever I'm just the first time they said yeah we'll split it this time they just didn't want to which is fine you know they're the county we're the city so you don't have to thank you mr. mr . husband councilman rest all right council member house all right councilmember Meltzer I second we have a motion and a second to consider the adoption of an ordinance for the sale and delivery of thirty one point eight main dollars worth of co bonds any further discussion saying none let's vote on the board the motion carries six to zero we will now move on to the public hearing segments the first item 6a is conduct the first of two public hearings for the voluntary annexation of approximately eighty six point four seven acres of land generally located north of Hickory Creek Road thank you mayor council members for the record I'm Cindy Jackson senior planner with the development services planning division and we are here today for the first public hearing of lakeside place a voluntary annex ation of land it is located between creakdale Drive you can see Creek Creekdale up at the north here and Hickory Creek Road down here at the south we're annex ing approximately eighty six point four seven acres and the plan is to develop the site with single family residential the annexation schedule is approved by council today is our first public hearing September 25th will be our second public hearing October 16th will be the first reading of the annexation ordinance and the second reading of the annexation ordinance and adoption will be November 27th that concludes my presentation the applicant is present to answer any questions and she also has a presentation for you any questions of staff before the applicant comes up thank you thank you Cindy Abra Nasser and I'm with ideation planning at P.O. box nine three two one one South Lake Texas seven six zero nine two we're here before you tonight to talk about a new project a new neighborhood possibly going into the city of Denton with that it would need to be annexed and z oned I have with me here tonight Matt Johnson with four star group and J Volk the project engineer to answer any questions so I'll where did Matt go hi I'd like to give Matt a moment to talk about four star group and their role in the project hi thank you council members Matt Johnson with four star group one four seven five five Preston Road in Dallas Texas just a little bit history on four star we've been developing home lots in Dallas Fort Worth area for over 25 years most notably a couple of subdivisions you may be familiar with is the Preservative Concrete in South Denton and also Lantana which is nearby we we pride ourselves in building communities that last the test of time and I'm just here to answer any questions you guys may have so thank you thank you Matt so just to add a little context this is where the proposed project is it's in the Wishbone if you will in the south portion of Denton you can see it's an area that would be logical to fill in this is a close-up of the property like Cindy said it's at the terminus of Creek dale here and on the north side of Hickory Creek and this is Ryan Road if you're not familiar this is also a railroad track here the whole project is 92 acres the northwest portion of the project is actually I'll get to that slide in a moment but the northwest portion of the project is actually already within the city limits so if you notice two different acreages as we move forward does the annexation is a smaller acreage than the zoning so just know that that 's normal this is an aerial of the project currently used as Calvert Paving Corp and it's off of this private drive sometimes labeled as bitty by Lane it's actually a very beautiful property very picturesque it's got environmentally sensitive areas and lots of natural features that we plan on preserving this is the future land use map for the city of Denton and it designates the property is low density residential which is consistent with our proposal again here's that northwest corner that I was telling you about that's already in the city limits the proposed unit the proposed zoning request that will come later will actually rezone that to need in our for as well so proposed zoning which is not under consideration this evening will be in our for which is low density residential this is our proposal generally to have attractive homes with manageable yards and we plan on proposing to keep the natural features of the property this is just some snapshots of the property like I said very mature trees and lakes as we're calling them for lakes ide places why the name is for so next steps we intend to have annexation by Thanksgiving time and zoning for Christmas and then we will proceed with the plotting and building permit process I did want to note that we have already had a neighborhood meeting on September 6 last week it was a very good meeting we had good attendance some concerns about traffic which are already existing in the area and we're not directly related to our development and they 're already they've just had some historic traffic concerns with cut through in the neighborhood do mainly during peak times so we had some discussions about that and we're going to provide some additional connectivity that should help alleviate some of that and provide some more access there's also a project to the east of our project that will also be adding even more connectivity to provide additional routes for people to travel through with that I'd be happy to answer any questions any questions for the applicant thank you very much and I do have one blue card to speak on this item Karn Catharwood you come down and state your name and address and your time will begin good evening my name is Karn Catharwood I'm a resident of Thistle Hills which is the neighborhood directly to the east of the area that's proposed to be annexed and and do a development built which I think will be named a lakeside place my main concern is that the hundreds and there will be hundreds of new residents of lakeside place not seek access to Ryan Road by cutting through our neighborhood we're not unfriendly and I'm not bringing that up as something you know frivolous right now we have a lot of traffic in the neighborhood because of other neighborhoods off of Hickory Creek that seek access to Ryan Road and they view us as a shortcut it concerns me that that would happen once again but this time there would be hundreds and hundreds of homes or people seeking that kind of access because we're a fairly new neighborhood there are no stop signs in Thistle Hills the city told us 10 12 years ago that it was against city policy to put in stop signs so we have many relatively dangerous T intersections where the traffic just zooms through and I 've seen a certain number of very close calls I've had one car ending up in the lot next to my house just roared through a location where there should have been a stop sign since we don't have stop signs we're all very sensitive about increased traffic flow through our neighborhood so I have one or two quick suggestions some of them were answered quite adequately the other night in the other meeting one suggestion is to definitely work it out to provide access to Ryan Road for this brand-new neighborhood called Lakeside Place directly north of the neighborhood not through our neighborhood to the east but through their own neighborhood through Ryan Meadows past past the school to Ryan Road that way they're not seeking a shortcut they have a shortcut through their own neighborhood I think that's important that may be on the planning stage but I would like the city to be aware of that need and to give the necessary supervision so that that access is there one other concept which I think may not be workable but it might be and that is not to extend creakdale from the lower end of thistle hills into Lakeside Place and Ryan Meadows why join the two neighborhoods at the lower end of them I'm not quite sure what the benefit would be the non benefit for us would be easy access out of those neighborhoods and then up into our neighborhood we just have so much traffic already people with children I know one case where a family simply moved out of the neighborhood because they were afraid for their kids running out in the street and people from outside the neighborhood obviously driving tending to drive faster because it's not their neighborhood there was one those aren't their streets and the kids running in the streets are not their kids so that's just something to think about at this early stage before annexation even occurs just to have that in your minds and I think the developer the promoter the people involved and interested in building there already have that in their minds so I'm not technically against annexation I think Southnet needs development I'm happy to see that come I simply don't want my neighbors and my neighborhood and the kids in my neighborhood to be put in a difficult position because of increased traffic one other little point and I'm sure the City Council is aware of this Hickory Creek this will be the southern limit of the neighborhood sir if you could cover if you wrap it up and we do have a couple of council members with questions that was that Bell was that your time was was up okay it does fun a lot so okay we do have a couple of questions for you so yeah okay okay so anyway thank you for speaking and I'm I'm curious to hear what you have to say about Hickory Creek I had another question for you but if you wouldn't mind just yeah just about the Hickory Creek issue and the only issue I have again is my concern for the people moving into the new neighborhood Hickory Creek does flood once or twice a year at the far end that abuts Country Club Road when it floods it closes some years is closed for a week I remember about eight years ago it was closed for a month because of flooding when that happens then neighborhoods that are trapped along Country Club Road seek again a shortcut to get to Ryan Road since they can't get out on Country Club if this new neighborhood is put in the same difficult position and they will seek a shortcut too and I would have I were them so I'm not blaming them I'm just saying that's the nature of the of the beast so I say long term the city needs to have in its planning doing something about the flooding and maybe redirecting Hickory Creek so that it meets Country Club at a slightly different location that avoids the perennial problem of flooding this new area will have to deal with that and the people living there will it worries me also where Hickory Creek reaches Country Club it's a very dangerous stop it's on an upgrade it's hard to see what's going on the neighborhoods are full of teenagers who just gotten their drivers licenses it really is a dangerous place and I think in the planning the city needs to have that someplace in there well thank you and thank you so much for bringing those issues to our attention I wanted to ask so you had mentioned that ten years ago I think you said you had asked about stop signs and traffic calming you know in the neighborhood yes have you talked to staff recently about this issue okay I I would I would strongly recommend and I'd be happy to you can message me I'd be happy to kind of set something up and we've we've got really great traffic engineering staff who is interested in precisely these kinds of issues and I think you know I wasn't there back then and and I don't know your neighborhood as well as you do obviously because I don't live there but I have been there and I know that we've got staff who are now really attentive to these kind of issues so I'm not saying just don't worry about it what I'm saying is I think you should go and talk to them and I think you'll find they'll be very interested yeah okay you know the residents are the our experts in their own neighborhoods and the traffic patterns and there's always something to these kinds of concerns and so I thank you for for speaking and being so diligent in representing your neighborhood helping keep us informed and it sounds like something will be able to be worked out that is good for the development and good for the community with everybody communicating with each other so thank you that's very helpful thank you and I will mention that the previous item that we had with the thirty-one point eight million dollars worth of bond that there was a section in there that included small area traffic solutions and one of those smaller area traffic solutions is the intersection of Hickory Creek and in country clubs so that is slated to happen as soon as we get the engineering done and get it done this year and I believe councilmember Briggs also has I was gonna actually mention that as well I feel like some of the roads that you mentioned in the issues are some of the things that we're already started looking at and so if you could leave your email information somebody could get in touch with you on those improvements that we're planning to make so Mike my question wasn't necessarily for this gentleman but it was for staff and maybe you could get with him and explain the process after the annexation because I did hear some concerns with mobility plan and drainage and I think all of those things come after the the annexation process and so just having clarification on on the stages that that those things come to us would be helpful so if you could just give your information to somebody around they we could get that to you thank you thank you thank you councilmember house but there was a question for the gentleman part of it mr. Kathar would we have one more question sorry I just I want to set the tone because I've had that very conversation you're having and the stop signs are generated by traffic so I'll just I'll give you a heads up to set the expectation that's going to be you have to increase the traffic count so then trigger the stop signs and I have a brand new neighborhood that fights the same fight and so staffs very familiar but I didn't want you to think that it's a it's there is a process and account to it and so unfortunately it's it's it's it's a balance so I know you don't want to increase traffic but increasing traffic trigger stop signs and so there'll be a there'll be some I'll leave it to the engineering staff to give you those exact numbers and they'll have those counts but I wanted to at least not have you think you were misguided I just wanted you to know that that kind of I think what may have happened to that is when we were told the city has a policy and the word policy was used not to put stop signs and it was almost like any place just isn 't done but that was seven eight years ago and since then the number of people in our neighborhood has doubled or tripled 20 30 40 50 additional houses have been built we were a rather thin little neighborhood when that decision was made so it's it's entirely possible that a different decision could be made now because our own population has increased it's just the amount of traffic from other neighborhoods but our own traffic is greater exactly and and I want you to know I share your your your concern because I tried to get a few stop signs arbitrarily placed and they told me no so very familiar with the process from firsthand knowledge I sympathize thank you thank you sir right there with you councilmember this is a public hearing so it's not necessary to fill out a card so anyone else wishes to speak they can come down just come down to the mic and state your name and address and your time will begin my name is Mark and I also live in this old Hill Estates and I'll keep this really short because Karn just said every literally everything I wanted to say so we have a serious problem there we have a cut through traffic problem and it's it's dangerous just dangerous it needs to be addressed and I think one thing that he didn't say is why couldn't we widen Ryan Road and Hickory Creek Road before we develop this area these roads are still two lane roads that were country basically before this these neighborhoods started going in there so it seems like logically they would be widened before the population of neighborhoods is put into the area anyway that's all I have but everything he said is true it is a serious problem and it really really needs to be addressed believe me I wouldn't come to one of these meetings if it wasn't I never that's what it takes to get me to come here it's a serious problem thank you and I will say that I our city's engineer has disappeared from the room and he knows that I have been pushing on both those roads quite a bit I can answer a little bit if you'd like me to Ryan Road is currently being studied traffic counts are out there right now being taken as is Creek side which is right behind Thistle Hill and so there will likely be improvements are at some points I'm just gonna have to be impact fees likely contributed towards Ryan Road Hickory Creek Road is in the pot to be improved next year from Teasley to what's that yeah no not 24-9 it from from actually teaser there's another project from Teasley to 24-99 but from Teasley to the small street that 's right next to Ryan Ranch and what's it I can't recall my name so River Pass you're right that's right and so that will be that will be completed sometime the next year or two is taken out to a four lane road the issue is from River Pass to the intersection at Country Club and Hickory Creek is County owned not city and so you're right that part of that road is in the floodway and in the in that's gonna be part of the engineering in the mobility plan long term is how does that get resolved because city doesn't currently have jurisdiction over that that part of the area so there are plans in the mobility plan to also widen Country Club at some point I'm not sure what triggers that that widening but all these questions can certainly be answered for you shortly and the connectivity of the in the traffic patterns so there's gonna be a major source of evaluation for that development I would like to add additionally that right now the applicant is having a traffic impact analysis reviewed by the city for their for Lakeside and we hope to have a lot some recommendations that may help alleviate these situations as well anyone else wishing to speak is state your name and address hello Lou Anne Autry 210 Stroud from this presentation I was happy to hear that there's gonna be some preservation of an environmentally sensitive area but in so many new developments I've seen so many other areas of it are just stripped of the trees are y'all doing anything to keep some of the other trees still present thank you anyone else wishing to speak councilmember Arm ator did you have a question for the actually knows it was a question for staff and follow up to that so I just withdrew my I'd like to invite the representative of the applicant to respond about the tree preservation question we just heard sure as you can see here we have a number of mature trees on the property and one of the beautiful things as a planner looking at the zoning ordinance it allows us to generally congregate all of our lots in this northeast portion of the property and preserve those environmentally sensitive areas but in addition to that we get to preserve even more and the the open spaces you see here are conceptual we're still in very preliminary preliminary due diligence phases still drawing up concepts and whatnot but there will be a significant amount of open space preserved and the area you see here has a number of mature trees all through here has mature trees just stunning actually very stunning property so that will only add value to the neighborhood that we're trying to create and we plan on preserving as many as possible as we look forward to designing those final concepts councilmember armator so can you go back to the last slide with it so so is that area the orange area or the trees in there those that you anticipate would likely have come be coming down we're not sure yet you know this is the general area where development would take place but in terms of actual tree preservations and and and where pad sites will go we're not sure not clear at this point yeah yeah and it's gonna depend on a number of things there's a there's drainage going through this area and whatnot so all of that will have to be designed further to know what's coming out and and where but generally speaking this is all ESA here so this this won't be touched and this blue limit here is the floodplain line so obviously that is very restricted well thanks and I would just um request to to staff that when it does come to that point I know that that's a ways away that whatever is decided on kind of what's gonna happen with the trees that that be clearly in writing and that the residents be involved I know you plan on this anyway but you know I'm saying that you know because I've seen in the in the past and distant past not well now that is where you know there have been oral promises made and not by this developer but but things that have nothing to do with you but but the public has you know gotten I think for good reason kind of cynical about about any kind of oral promises and wanting to see things in writing I know you understand this and you're and if this is just at the early stages so I'm just mentioning that to just let the public know that this is something I think council is concerned about two staff is concerned about I appreciate that you you value the the natural beauty of this area and that you want to live establish a community amongst the trees instead of on top of them and you know I hope that that continues in this kind of communication as you move forward and just make sure to have everything in writing thank you any other questions all right anyone else wishing to speak one last call anyone else wishing to speak seeing no movement I will close the public hearing I believe this is the first of two public hearings so there 's no action necessary on this so we will move on to public public hearing be item B hold a second public hearing on the proposed adopted tax rate of sixty two point oh four seven seven cents maximum allowable right at sixty three point seven eight five six mayor pro tem city council Tony pointed director finance and I apologize mayor pro tem but I only have one presentation here so I think generally in the past we've opened up both public hearings the same time you know I'll kind of leave that up to you how you want to handle that council's okay with that since I have to call the second item so that we can hear him so jointly okay all right I will also call item 6c hold a public hearing and receive citizens input on fiscal year 2018 19 proposed budget and with that I will also open the public hearing so so I have a very brief presentation to go through talk to you a little bit about the the tax rate proposed tax rate also the proposed budget this does reflect the most recent changes that we discussed earlier in your work sessions I'll go through kind of what's changed from the original proposed to to the current so just briefly the budget priorities continue to be cost containment organizational efficiency this proposed budget does include a one cent increase over the city calculated effective rate that is now split between between capital projects or three- quarters of a penny will be on the debt side and then a quarter of a penny will be on the operations side as we discussed earlier due to some of the changes in the water park fees the budget continues to focus on enhancement of street maintenance and inspection capacity expanded public safety response capacity and in maintaining a competitive compensation plan as we discussed earlier the original proposed budget did have a slightly different distribution between operations and debt the revised proposed budget does shift a quarter of a penny from debt to operations but still maintaining the same proposed tax rate that we had previously discussed 62 cents roughly the state calculated effective rate is 68 cents the rollback rate is 72 cents and in the maximum tax rate the council set as a ceiling was 63 cents again we've had a lot of discussions about the state calculated effective rollback rates and what's impacting those primarily related to the first year impact of the tax freeze so just briefly the revised proposed budget for the general fund includes 127 million dollars in revenue the majority of that revenue 36. 2 percent is associated with property taxes 32 percent is coming from projects that come from sales taxes and then you have the various mixtures of other revenue sources that fund general fund operations the general fund expenditure budget is a hundred and twenty nine million dollars this is a distribution by category of expenses as you can see the majority of expenses 67.6 percent are related to personnel within the within the general fund after that you'll have operations cost of service are the next two highest categories from a department level this hundred twenty nine million goes to fund 25 percent is associated with the police department twenty three and a half percent fire department followed by the parks department 8.3 percent and in libraries of 4.6 and you see here the various distribution of other departments within the city's general fund that are funded by that 129 million dollars one of the major items that we've discussed with you during this budget process and certainly the council tonight approved the sale of CEOs was focus on capital improvements certainly councils dedicated three quarters of a penny to fund these particular items I won't go through all these items but it is a total of thirty one point six million dollars that will go to go to fund and the majority is that the lion's share of that funding is associated with street reconstruction to complete projects from the 2012 and 2014 bond elections just to recap on the overall city budget back on August 2nd we proposed a budget that that was approximately 1.1 billion dollars that budget has now been revised and totals 1.2 million 1.2 billion excuse me we had some changes within the general fund the lion's share was associated with the electric fund to just bring some greater transparency and really related to some accounting treatment of how expenses and revenues are recorded associated with the Dent Energy Center and then finally there was some about two hundred eight thousand dollars of changes to miscellaneous funds included the police confiscation fund the downtown reinvestment fund the tree mitigation fund as well and so here you have the expenditure side of of the city's budget again this budget has increased from 1.1 billion to 1.2 billion on August 18th the staff will be asking the council to adopt the budget of 1.2 billion dollars I've already given you distribution this is just a visual of the 1.2 billion ten and a half percent is associated with the general fund 19 almost 20 percent associated with the electric fund certainly the majority of this funding is associated with our capital budget so very significant amounts that are going into into the city's capital program for the various funds the next step for you will be you know certainly today is the second hearing on tax rates and then also the first hearing only hearing required in the charter for the city's proposed budget we do plan to come back to you on August 18th for your consideration of approving not just the budget itself but there's a rat ification requirement of the budget the tax roll the tax rate and the various rate ordinances for the city's utilities and clean parks and the fire department that concludes my presentation I'll be happy to answer any questions that the council may have councilman never mal sir for anyone who's just tuning in for the first time to this review of the budget Tony I wonder if you would mind just very cursorily describing the process you've gone through the very lengthy and thorough process you've gone through reviewing the budget in each of its pieces with council so certainly in in the October November time frame actually November time frame the city initiates budget internal budget deliberations on our utilities and internal service funds and so it's almost a continual annual process that staff goes through we then go through a process with the public utility board where we present all the various utility funds with them before they go to the City Council in March we do a kickoff of our general government budget and then we begin to have preliminary discussions with the council on the various budgets in June July time frame there are a number of presentations and work session all open to the public to the council on a on a almost a weekly basis it seems but we have a number of deliberations with the council there's a lot of takeaways the council provides and feedback direction that we go back and do research ultimately culminating in in a proposed budget that that goes from being really the city the city manager's proposed budget to the council's approved budget in late August and excuse me late September there's also a number of public hearing and other disclosures that the city must make regarding the tax rate and also certainly be a public hearings like we're having today regarding the budget thank you for that very brief summary of a very thorough process and thank you for all the work that your staff has done to really take us through and feel very confident today thank you any other questions the staff this is a public hearing so we anyone wishing to speak on items 6b or C please come down state your name and address your time will begin Lou and Autry to 10 Stroud on behalf of Stroud and Proud a neighborhood group I ask if the street reconstruction line item does that include sidewalks as well in any capacity for example where Stroud meets Pierce Pierce doesn't have a sidewalk on either side we've seen traffic increase in that area dramatically in the last few years we do have a separate funding area for our sidewalk budget in fact we and we bolstered another six or seven hundred thousand dollars next year so I would definitely encourage you before you leave this gentleman in the back Mario Kenna's ours will take your information and we're in the process of updating our sidewalk plan and our ADA compliance plan so I'd love to hear about about what your concern is so we can get it on our plan councilmember Briggs did you want to wait until after that we've closed the public hearing I believe I have to read it during the public reading so it's yes it is a public hearing item but I wanted to make sure that there wasn't any well I'll see you read it and then I'll make a final call for another call for anyone else wishing to speak so I 'm going to read a constituents letter that I received into the record he asked here on his letter to read it at the meeting so all citizens can be made aware of the content Aaron Kundal of 423 Sherman dear City Council members as an non ambulatory disabled veteran I am unable to attend your meeting scheduled for September 11th I am relegated to a wheelchair currently I do have concerns over the eight point eight point six two increase of over five point five million dollars much of which will come from taxpayers like me who live in owner occupied homes within the density limits you folks seem hell-bent on tax ing us to death you plan and propose projects that are not needed or wanted by us taxpayers you do not need spacious new buildings for your workers who provide very little usable services for people like me a new City Hall is not needed there's nothing wrong with the one you currently have the ratio of city employees to residents is one of the highest in the state and I see employees driving around in town in new pickups or larger service trucks doing virtually nothing they wasted a great deal of time and make it look like they're working what I do what do I get for their eight hours not much the streets in my neighborhood are disgrace ful yet I see limited infrastructure repair in Denton you folks are tax ing me to the point where I have to leave Denton and live somewhere else it's not fair at all you spend with great abandon without looking at the bigger bigger picture as well as I watch mega apartment complexes rise on once arable land I questioned the wisdom of my elected officials common sense which is me very soon Denton will be if not already more than 50% rental property rather than owner occupied houses is this what you want didn't to become I graduated from DHS and NTSU then I left Denton the day Elvis Presley died only to return in 2012 to community that has been forever changed by unchecked growth and over development yet you folks invite behemoth 90 plus pump gas station into my community and to further taxes what is up with that I watch a strip mall after strip malls built on the west side of town where longhorn cattle graced natural Texas prairie it was something I looked forward to seeing once I neared from the West didn't from the West do these developments pay taxes or do they get Buckees good old boy 20-year tax break you're overzealous greed to becoming ever burgeoning is ruining a once beautiful North Texas town it's a sad picture indeed so in closing I say to you rain in your spending stop or put on hold tap capital expenditures that are outside our means to finance we the citizen didn't pay for these projects the salaries of your employees and the electrical monopoly force upon us and we are getting sick and tired of being taxed to death my home needs repairs but if I repair it you will tax the bejesus out of it and it will become even more uncomfortable for me to survive here I do not get pay raises I do not get colas I am a retired disabled veteran who lives as frugally as I can to make ends meet and every time you raise my taxes or give commercial developers like Buckees a tax break it hurts me and other residents like me I request that no new taxes be assessed in any way concerning this budget live with what you have and stop greedy nonsense of taxing your residents to death so I say completely sympathetic with the feelings expressed in that letter and have borne similar sentiments in mind through the processes I think that's the case for for many if not all of us first regarding taxing we have approved for presentation to the public what will be an increase of on average eighty dollars per year but it's at a time when we've also recommended approval of a reduction for the average rate payer of $120 a year in utilities so we're you know on average there's going to be some fluctuations holding the lid and if anything slightly reducing the burden and you will find that there is no element of an additional City Hall in this budget and there some of support and some of them will bring it up again you'll hear their arguments I I was vocally opposed to it but and it is not in this budget so if that's a concern for others you know let me lay that to rest that that is not part of this budget the complaint about streets is duly noted and you've heard us address that more than once tonight and it's a massive effort to bring down roads and I think that once we get through all the reconstruction and maintenance I think we'll all see that we're at a new place and that won't be the persistent complaint and then anymore and lastly I'll say I miss the Longhorns - this is a public hearing so anyone else wishing to speak please step forward to the microphone last call anyone else wishing to speak seeing no movement I will close the public hearing and these items will be on our agenda next week for a vote at that point that brings us to concluding items councilmember breaks so I thank you for letting me read that record into the letter into the record I appreciate that I'm sure he does too so I just one announcement Sunday this Sunday is my district to meeting from two to four North Branch and we will be talking about trees just everyone's welcome councilmember Armadon thank you and I wanted to announce I have a town hall meeting not conflicting with that on a Saturday Saturday morning at 930 at the MLK rec center that is for for kids dentin kids to come and and speak about their ideas for the city and ask questions one more thing I want issue I wanted to raise and the concluding remarks and this is in because we have that pain awareness month this month I thought this would be an appropriate time to ask for a report staff report from legal and whatever public health or public health department anybody in the in the community on the option of medical cannabis for people with epilepsy and other chronic pain conduct conditions in city of Denton there's been a lot of talk about you know with the the 2019 legislative session coming up that there's some strong bipartisan support for medical cannabis in the in the state of Texas so you know I would like to you know staff to look at you know what the possibilities are with that legislation in mind maybe talk to you know health professionals in the area however you want to interpret that but kind of something in writing on on that issue so that after the legislative session depending on how things turn out we could we could address that it's really really good way for pain sufferers in in city of Denton and anywhere to treat their condition at little risk in much less costs so that that that was the end of my concluding remarks councilmember has with thank you few things here first I want to thank thank staff and whoever kind of falls under that umbrella for the AV and public announcement upgrades at Martin Luther King Center in addition to I've mentioned it before the the wireless throughout the building it's I toured today and lots of great usage lots of great things happening there so I appreciate that attention to that as you work through the different all the rec centers and then I want to call out Lauren and I'm gonna say her last name wrong probably Cordo va she lives in Sequoia Park neighborhood and I think this is just fantastic she posted the pictures on on Facebook but she has a borrow and rent rental kids vehicles for the new trail and so she has these scooters that she set out and she created on sign and so if your kids walk to the trail you can borrow the the scooter you're prompted to bring them back but I think that 's just fantastic because I've seen my daughter on the on the rail trail enjoy the scooters and so it's neat to in very inclusive and thoughtful of her to do that so I just wanted to really call attention to that and that the spirit behind that that decision then that so today being a lot of communities recognizing that nine nine eleven today I just want to thank those that that one put themselves in hard what harms when our in our city but then also those that are affected by that in any way that live in our community so thinking thoughts of them and just prayerfully they'll continue to to heal from that and I enjoyed the presentation last year at the fire department the stories from the individual that was actually there that day and just really dynamic individual and then I'll conclude with Paul and I are co-hosting a town hall on the 17th so that's Monday the 17th from 6 to 730 at the Martin Luther King Center in the compute computer room and I do believe you'll be there mr. city manager or representative or I mean we're having all kinds of celebrities lots of help yes I've helped from city engineer from code improvements so much help so yeah awesome thank you well I just want to give a shout out to goes along with what Councilmember Hussbett said with today being the 17th anniversary of 9/11 then high key club if you saw them in the paper put out this is the second year in a row they put out over 3,000 flags with the names of each victim on campus they did that on Sunday so it was in the paper I believe today or yesterday so I just want to give them a shout out and any other concluding items all right in that case well councilmember Brooks I just want to thank you for leading the meeting today and I know the mayor's been out several times and just doing a good job so thank you I appreciate you stepping up thank you oh okay on we have a on the let's see is that Saturday is that Sunday that's Sunday September 16th the first responders are having a event at the Denton County Fairgrounds from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. looks like we've got Steve Helms band from 530 to 7 along with several other blank bands prior to that so please come out and join them again that's on Saturday the 16th from excuse me Sunday the 16th from 2 to 7 anything else then we will adjourn