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