Oct 09, 2018 City Council on 2018-10-09 1:00 PM

Good afternoon everybody. Welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council Tuesday October the 9th 2018. It is 1.03 p.m. Do we have any citizen comments on consent agenda items? We're moving through our work session for our agenda. Any citizens comments? Blue cards? We have none. Request for clarification of agenda items listed on the agenda for October the 9th 2018. Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. I'd like to pull item F because I'm going to need to recuse . I believe Councilmember Armenter is going to do that as well. I'd like to actually first I'd like to say it's nice to be back. Did I miss anything? Anyway, pull item F and item I as well. I think it merits some conversation. Okay so we want a presentation on that or some kind of staff report on I? Yeah. Okay. Okay anybody else? All right seeing none thank you. We'll go through our work session reports 3a. Receive report. Hold discussion of staff direction on filling the municipal judge position and the recruitment process. Before we get started on this one I know that in the responses to council questions that are sent to us before the meeting there were a couple of questions about calling a closed session that's not posted so is that still are people still wanting to do that? If we are let's go ahead and try to get that at least on the front end. Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. Yes I would like to do that. I think it'll be brief. Okay so on which which item? This one? Okay. So we'll just tag that on to the to the end. Any any others? Okay sorry. Do you want me to go ahead? No no go ahead yeah we're going to put that on at the at the closed sessions that are regularly scheduled. Well good afternoon Mayor, members of city council, Carla Romine, Director of Human Resources. As you know Judge Robin Ramsey has submitted his resignation to be effective November 5th so I'm here today seeking your direction on how you'd like to fill the position. You have several options available to you which are highlighted here on the slide. I did reach out to some consulting firms or executive search firms in the event you did want to use the search firm to assist you with your search. I've gotten three quotes out of the five firms that I reached out to which have been I've given to you at your place. I've summarized that here. The three that we received a response from is Ralph Anderson and Associates. They've done our search for our more more recently our police chief, the electric general manager, and our parks and recreation director and I believe they helped with a deputy city attorney as well. Robert Half we've not used as far as executive searches but we've used them for temporary assistance. And then Springstead Waters you use them to assist with the city manager, the city attorney, and the city auditor search twice in the last couple years. So you're looking for direction on these options? How you'd like to fill the position. If you want to use a search firm, if you want to promote part-time judge, if you want to contract. So there's nothing if we use a search firm there's nothing for preventing anyone who's internal to applying through that search firm is there not? You're correct. Okay all right. Yes Council member Briggs. I would I would like to hire Springstead Waters for for this. Okay Councilmember Armitage. Me too. Yes Councilmember Melton. Me too. Looks like they have a lot of knowledge of the the market you know within Texas for that kind of talent. Okay. Despite the fact that you know we got Todd through them. Right yeah okay. Anybody have objection to using Springstead Waters? Any other comments on this agenda item? Okay. You have your direction? I do thank you sir. Fantastic. All right agenda item B. Receive report and hold discussion . Give staff direction regarding the proposed agreement with Keep Denton Beautiful . Good afternoon. Brian Langley, Deputy City Manager. I want to spend a few minutes with you today talking about Keep Denton Beautiful programs and our relationship with KDB Inc. the non-profit agency that works with us on those programs. As you know we've been working on our non-profit agreements and trying to put in some aspects of those that are applicable across all those different agencies of how to be managed and how to clearly define roles and responsibilities. I want to bring the council up to speed on our overall progress and the negotiations that we've had and then try to get some direction from you at the end of how we need to move forward. So I have a short presentation for you. Just an overview of some of the topics that we're going to be talking about today is first of all I'll talk to you about some of the non-profit milestones that we've had over the last few months. Give you an update on the relationship with Keep Denton Beautiful Inc. and some of the things that they do and we do. Review the funding structure for all of our Keep Denton Beautiful programs. Discuss some of the key components of the draft of the agreement that we've been proposing to them and then look at some options for you and receive direction of how to proceed. So in terms of the non-profit agreement milestones as you may recall back in February of 2018 this year we had our Parks Foundation audit that was presented to the City Council and as part of that there were several different recommendations and there are three that really kind of cut across all of our non-profit arrangements that we need to look at. The first of those is to find the relationship between the city and the non-profit agency. In that case it was the foundation. There were blurred lines of responsibilities between staff and the foundation. I think you'll find some of the non-profit agencies that we're working with are also blurred lines or responsibilities there and we certainly found that with KDB Inc. We also wanted to establish financial policies and procedures and outline reporting requirements. So those are some of the things that we've been doing. Back in May of 2018 we brought forward an agreement for the City Council to consider with the foundation, the Parks Foundation. And then we had also a discussion about other non-profit agencies and how we look at that. Council gave us direction to proceed in a similar direction with those. In July we finalized that Parks Foundation agreement and started using that as a template for other non-profit agencies. And then in August you approved the agreement with the Parks Foundation itself. And in September you approved the Friends of the Public Libraries agreement as well. So the city's relationship with KDB Inc. is a long-standing relationship. It goes back over 30 years. Many of you have been involved in different KDB activities as well as staff in many many cases. The KDB Inc. board is function as an advisory board and as a non-profit, a 501c3 operation. Most recently we had an agreement in 2000 and in 2015 that was amended. But as you'll note in the agreement that's included in your your backup, the roles and responsibilities for the non-profit and the city really aren't clearly defined. And the current agreement doesn't have an expiration date. It's what we call an evergreen agreement. It's meant to continue in perpetuity and something that needs to be routinely reviewed in our excuse me in our Councilman Briggs. Go back. Oh no, right here. Sorry. Yeah so it was created as a city council advisory board? Yes. Okay. It's our research, yes. And so and is that still an aspect or function of it? I think it's unclear. I think they function as a non-profit. I'll show you in the slides a little bit later in the presentation. We believe that they're trying to have two roles both as a non -profit and as a advisory board. I think it needs to be clear in the agreement that we have within what role they're going to play. We do have many advisory boards as you know. Parks board as an example is an advisory board but we don't have any non-profit entities that are providing direction on city programs. So that's different. So I think they've gone back and forth in those roles as we've looked at it. Okay so KDB Inc programs, the city partners with KDB Inc. We have lots of different programs that we work with them on. Great American Cleanup, Red Bud Festival, Community Tree Giveaway and so forth. There's many of those that I know many of you have participated in. A lot of good programs. KDB Inc is supported by corporate sponsorships including some provided by the city of Denton and I'll show you those in a moment. Fundraising and memberships. And then here's the financials on KDB. The budget for the city and this is all on the solid waste fund for in the city budget about four hundred and six thousand dollars. That also includes our lease of some office space for KDB employees that we have. We also provide an additional twenty nine thousand and five hundred dollars in sponsorships on an annual basis and I'll detail those for you in a little bit. There's a staff of three and a half FTEs. Again these are all city employees, a program manager, event outreach coordinator, a program volunteer coordinator and an intern. And the role of those employees is to manage the KDB programs and assist KDB Inc with grant writing and reporting. So that's what we do on the city side of the equation. KDB Inc again the non-profit entity that we're looking at. Their budget is about thirty seven thousand excluding city sponsorships and if you if you count the 29,500 I mentioned to you before that's about sixty six thousand dollars in funding. They don't have any kind of paid staff. Their role is there's a volunteer board. They assist with programmatic direction and coordination of the programs for all these different activities I was mentioning to you. So two different roles. The budget primarily is is in the city budget and the solid waste fund but there are some other funds that they have as well. So as I mentioned to you before the roles and responsibilities are not clear in our judgment. As you look at each individual organization it's not clear who does what and what the city's responsibility is and what KDB Inc's responsibility is. As I mentioned to you before they function as both an advisory board and a standalone non-profit agency in the past. In our view there needs to be a policy decision made regarding the role they would like to perform. If they want to remain as a non- profit agency the role should be clearly articulated and defined as well as the city's role. It should function very distinctly from the city if it's a separate organization just like our other non-profit agencies do. If it's an advisory role, an advisory board role that they want to provide then they we need to look at an alternative structure. The understanding that council would appoint members to an advisory board just like you do for parks board just like you do for the other boards that you have around the city. So very different non-profit arrangement and versus an advisory board. That's the distinction that we're trying to make on those two operations. Oh yeah so just to be clear so have you received any indication from KDB that they'd be interested in serving as an advisory board? I have not. Okay I think that was my impression. Thanks. So the intent of the new agreement that again we've been looking at and trying to negotiate is to coordinate with KDB Inc first firstly to maximize their community benefit of the program. That's something that I think as staff we see is value in. We value the programs that have been offered by KDB Inc in the past so we want to try to maximize that community benefit of that non-profit agency. But we also want to comply with the Parks Foundation audit recommendations and the best practices for managing our relationships with non-profit entities and this again needs to be clear on what the roles and responsibilities are. That's important to have that clarified in any agreement and right now we don't feel like we've got that in the current agreement that we have. We also want to clarify that staff does not take direction from a non-profit board. They're a separate entity. They need to have their roles, their responsibilities, and staff would have their roles and responsibilities as well and they need to be responsible for managing their own financial operations. As we looked into this issue we discovered that staff, our city staff, was in some cases writing checks on behalf of the non-profit, reconciling financial information, working through financial matters for the board. That's clearly an issue for us, clearly a problem that we need to rectify. We did not find any problems with that, no issues, but if there ever was to be an issue with that discovered in the future we clearly want it to be separated the city functions, city roles versus the non-profit itself. Again, just like all the other non- profit agreements that we have. So some of the components of the agreement that we have and this is all part of the agreement itself but we've tried to break out for you just some of the more salient points about the roles and expectations of KDB Inc. Plan and coordinate fundraising and marketing activities for the city, maintain records and accounts accurately, prepare gift and pledge records in accordance with their financial procedures, prepare quarterly and annual reports, and engage in independent audit. So again, very similar things that you'd find in any non-profit arrangement that we would have. Oh I'm sorry, Councilmember Briggs. Are these things that already that are already being done? From my understanding they do have some level of these that are already being done. I think the question is exactly what kinds of reports we need to have and that's some some of the dialogue that we need to have with the board itself is we certainly don't want this to be a burden on them. We want it to be something that they can easily do. I think one of the considerations that we've had too is if they're not going to have any staff, what type of would they need potentially some funding to help perform some of these functions, administrative functions, and if so what would that what would that likely be? What would the cost for that be that we could consider? Yes. And what did our internal auditor look at this or have have you been in contact with him? I mean did some of this come up when you talk about best practices through because I see a lot of things to do here with finances. We looked at the Parks Foundation audit very carefully with the outside auditor that we'd used and we also use as a blueprint for going forward with other non-profit agreements but we haven't specifically looked at these provisions for KDB Inc with with the internal auditor. We could certainly do that but again it's the blueprint for what we've done for the other agencies. Right. Now I'm just wondering where where it came from. Sure. So some some of the roles of the city would be to help identify projects and initiatives where KDB Inc could provide fundraising and volunteer support. I think volunteers is one of the real benefits of KDB Inc. They've been very successful in that over the years. Provide storage and meeting space for KDB Inc when they're when they're having their meetings. They'd be allowed to meet at city facilities. Continue to provide funding support in the annual operating budget. So as I mentioned to you that over $400,000 in the city budget we're not proposing to change any of that. I think that's there perhaps has been some confusion on that but we're continuing to move forward those. Those are budgeted in the budget this year and we're proposing that those continue. One of the other things that we do is we collect donations in our utility bills. It's not a lot of money about $1,300 per year that we receive for donations from citizens. They can have an option to put something on the bottom of their utility bills to donate some monies to KDB Inc. When we get those monies we we disperse them back to KDB Inc. on an annual basis. So that's something that we would continue to do. Yes, Councilmember Amtrak. And how is that money factored into those numbers you showed us before with the 36 and the 66 that goes it's part of the 36? It's part of the 36 and part of I think it's called corporate sponsorships is how they review it. So the other thing would be to continue to allow city staff to assist with grant applications. We have a pretty significant grant application process for KDB Inc. that's done by city staff. We continue to assist them with that role. Those grant dollars then going back into the non-profit. And then the last one is maintain exclusive authority over decisions regarding the use of city funds, city staff, and other city resources. That's the clear dividing line again between the non-profit and the city that we're looking for and perhaps the biggest sticking point is that's not always how it's been over the last few years and that's what we're looking to make sure is clear their role versus the city's role. So Brian if you go back to that list so on this list I think you identified that the last one is one that might not if that might be a a departure from maybe the practice over the last few years. Is that the only one in that list or or have these sort of been occurring and they're just more of a memorialization of that in the in the actual document? I think the the others have been occurring. The other the other items listed on this bullet points but that's the one that hasn't been by practice. We've been taking direction city staff has been taking direction from the board on the programs as we've looked at it. Okay. So the contract term we're looking at again very similar to what we've done for the other non-profits is a three-year agreement initial term with an option to renew for two additional three-year terms . Really the purpose of that is just to make sure on a on a periodic basis we're coming back and reviewing that to make sure these are the terms they still work they're still to the benefit of both parties. The evergreen agreements that we've had on some of the agencies in the past we just don't think that's a good practice to have. It prevents there being a routine option to look at that on a periodic basis. Either party could terminate the agreement with 30 days written notice. So pretty standard contract terms. Some of the feedback that we've gotten from KDB Inc on the proposed agreement I wanted to share that with you. I don't have any specific red line comments at this point. I know that they are working through some of those for our consideration but I wanted to share with you some of the comments that we've gotten from their legal council who's been retained to help negotiate that agreement. It misrepresents that KDB is a fundraising arm in the city. Reports that the city owns KDB programming. It removes staff assigned to KDB. It removes KDB's ability to direct staff on KDB matters. So again those are two critical points in terms of the staff of how we manage this relationship with a non-profit and how we have those clear lines of separation. So I want to make sure I understand where the source of the this feedback comes from. So this is primarily from their legal council. I guess so it's you haven't gotten feedback from either citizens or board members that necessarily address a lot of this but it's more in your meetings with their legal representative. Yes this was the email to me by their legal council. They had indicated that they would prefer all communication to go through legal council rather than have any direct conversation with city staff so that's been the only source of information I've had. Arbitrarily increases insurance requirements. Again we were trying to look at some type of insurance that was standard across all the non-profit agreements. We're certainly willing to to discuss any of those. Misunderstands the nature of the non-profit organization the independence of KDB. Requires quarterly reporting and limits KDB's ability to operate donor programs. We took those comments and we prepared a red line draft that's in your packet as one of your exhibits to try to address some of those things that we thought we could address. But again we still haven't received back any red line comments. We hope to get those in the near future so we can see exactly what kinds of feedback that KDB Inc has. And we're willing to negotiate on any of these concerns and issues with the exception of the staff. That's a critical issue for us and again something we're looking for direction from council today on but you know that's a critical issue of having that separation between the non-profit and the city operations. Councilmember Armitage. So was KDB given a deadline on on when they had to have their their version of their red line draft in or it's just an open my understanding was that it's just an open back and forth contract revision process where they sent where you send them the red line we send them the red line version they look at that take as much time as they need it send it back etc. Well in this case I met with legal counsel from KDB Inc indicated to them that we were going to be looking to have a work session on October 9th asked for their feedback prior to that. Their process has been going back and forth with their board I don't know the exact status of that but I've been indicated to me that they've prepared a draft it's circulating through their board and it should be received back to us shortly but we tried to give them the deadline of the October 9th meeting that we knew we were going to have this discussion with counsel today and we wanted to to try to have something ready for consideration. So but that was not a hard deadline on when they yeah yeah it had to be it was just this is this meeting happening and no matter what at what state the contract is in we wanted to brief you yeah right so is this so what's happening now this is just more of an update is that correct? So it's an update I wanted to brief you on the key issues and and get some direction from the council which I have a couple of options for you to consider. Council member Meltzer. Thank you just you know if you say red line's coming then you know the next step is see what the red line says right I mean you know that's pretty straightforward but if you know prior to your having said that if you just show me what you have shown the impression it makes on me is well I think probably the you know the key word would be misunderstands you know right they just don't they feel like it seems to me hearing this that they feel force fit into you know a straight jacket into a different kind of agreement and that you know they don't feel this expresses the relationship and my you know seeing that my response to that is not to be so attached to the template obviously there are advantages if you have the template but if you're not really trying to gain advantage just trying to gain understanding I my thought is you know is to say don't be attached to the initial template you know if you want to draft uh you know your vision of what you think better expresses your role in the city's role you know let's start from your template and you know I think uh that 's like that's just my opinion that that that would you know likely lead to less of a feeling of being misunderstood we're certainly certainly open to any comments they have in any any language they'd like to propose certainly council member breaks well so yeah I I'm open I'd like to see the red line and I think that um I think that anytime you get legal counsel involved it m ashes everything up and I would have really liked to see negotiations straight between the city and KDB I think we could have gotten a lot more accomplished in a lot friendlier way because we're we're partners and we we work together and hopefully I mean we're going to continue to work together and I want to see that relationship grow and you know keep it beautiful is unique and it's not necessarily like the parks the parks foundation and so I I understand the differences and some of the concerns and that it might need to be not exactly like it but a little bit more unique and but as long as you have the same foundations for the parks you know the the blurred lines the you know the budget in there I think all of the other things could more than likely be worked out or I hope they could um so that's I'd like to see the red line version and I I think the conversation needs to keep going and the negotiations I'd like to see continue um so that's that's my understanding and I I feel like there's more specific things right here it's just kind of general but talking to some individuals there seems to be exact you know specific things that we could talk about if people would just talk you know and get it out in the open sure I think we could come a long way on my last slide if I could almost there so summary of the options that that I have before you is obviously option one would be no action continue with the existing agreement but I do want to point out that's not in compliance with the audit recommendations in our view the roles and responsibilities aren't clearly defined so that's an issue for us for staff option two is work with kdb board of directors clarify the type of role that they want to have whether it's an advisory role to the city or a standalone non-profit and to work through that as an agreement to the best of our ability to address all those points but I do believe that's the key issue that's on the table that's the key issue that's in front of all of us working with kdb inc and the council and the city staff is what type of role do you want to have and where are those roles and responsibilities articulated it's it's very unclear at this point that's my opinion yeah so to me so when I read this the the presentation and the backup and got to the summary of options I was I was confused about you know why we're being presented with these options since to me and your answers to my earlier questions seem to me to confirm that what's going on is actually just the normal process of the the back and forth which takes time of uh uh going over one draft uh and having that go through a board that has many members and and an attorney and then bringing it back it's a long process as we all know and I know our attorneys know that you know you can't that it's not never a good idea to rush a contract negotiation um so uh I don't um I mean I if I had to choose one of these I guess I would say whatever is the you know the uh just well actually I guess I'd say really an option three which is just um let's um keep doing uh keep these negotiations for negotiations up keep them along the lines of what um council member Briggs said keep it friendly along the lines of what council member Melter said um be open um to the possibility that there might be some significant misunderstanding and to you know keep our ears open uh to hear kdb articulate to us uh what they are what they do um and how they are different from the parks foundation um in terms of their mission uh even though there might be some similar issues that we want to address and of course I support that and I can tell from you know having talked to kdb um somebody from kdb over the weekend to clarify uh just doing my due diligence um what's going on uh my understanding is they they also want to you know be on board uh with um uh with the new audit recommendations but there are a number of different ways to do that and they want to do that in a way my understanding was that maintains the integrity of what they are so to me this seems like a wonderful opportunity for us to learn more about kdb and and I would welcome if there's anybody here from um kdb who can who might want to speak um to you know what their mission is how it's different from the parks foundation what they imagine going forward I don't know Mr. Mayor if that uh would seem appropriate I 'm going to struggle with that only for one reason and that is apparently and so I'm going to base it apparently there's been you know council there's been an instruction for us to not have dialogue except through their legal representative at least with staff is that correct that's correct okay so and correct me if I'm wrong Mr. City Attorney that I mean I know that you've had situations or you've shared situations where if someone's represented by council that for at least for attorneys to talk to them they need to get permission from the other council is that correct is that my understanding of the ethical rules that is correct for attorneys not for city council necessarily okay that is correct um let's chew on that for a second let's hear some other comments from the dais and see if we can't and then if that's the consensus of the council I just I really hate to do that with an outstanding um red line they were anticipating from the attorney my understanding is uh that when they had the meeting with the attorney that it was a meeting that was probably a little different than what they anticipated um so I'll make some comments about that but let me think about that sure um what about um possibility of having if their attorney is here that's the someone's pointing to okay you know having the attorney speak that's uh again let me let me chew on that a little bit yep what I don't want to get into is having a negotiation here in the council meeting so if there's some information that we can get that would be helpful for us let me see what the direction of the council is to see if that's the direction we need to go council member duff I can I kind of looking at this and I think I think maybe this is a case of gee we've been doing it this way for some time and that may be you know where the problem lies I think option two is what we need to do uh this is an this is something that's important to the city of Denton we need to work it out with them well option two is not necessarily something that the city council does it's more of clarification I that's probably what would be helpful to get some indication if there's a decision that has been made at the board level for option two because my hunch is I don't think that they're wanting to be an advisory board I think they're probably wanting to stay a standalone you know non- profit corporation which if that's different then probably it'd be good to get somebody up here to say that but I'm based upon some of the conversations I've had that's not what the desire is so I agree with you we need to work it out yeah yeah any any other yes council member Hesbeth and um so in processing I guess my first ask is I need someone to walk me through let's start with council I want to make sure that nothing from the city side of the budget that is under our purview goes to pay for legal council against us so that's going to be problematic for me in the very beginning so whatever books we need to look at starting date of engagement forward to trace that money back and and if it if it is then we need to know that we're paying for someone to then argue with us so that we can make adjustments accordingly then does council represent Katie be trying to track with you does council represent Katie be ink and not keep it in beautiful council is over the city staff the city budget which is kdb uh the 406 000 so maybe I can go back to that slide might be a little bit so when you say council you mean city council or do you mean attorney I mean attorney yeah yeah sorry yeah I was losing my vern acular so the attorney that's been main retained represents kdb ink that's correct and not the other side of the ledger keep didn't beautiful it does not represent the city of den that's right that's correct he does not represent so that portion couldn't the three staff and everything can function autonomous of or better said kdb inks legal council can't speak for both sides of the equation right I mean there's so there's that's what I need help with understanding what falls under under under kdb ink and what falls under keep them I need I need a chart of some sort because really that because you can't you know if if this side can't enter negotiations for something that doesn 't fall under their purview so I need a clear understanding of what falls under their purview to argue or to negotiate then that helps me process going forward uh but and so whenever we can get that that that would be helpful for me and I think where I'm going with that if I may sure is um I think it's it's hard to say this has nothing to do with the parks board when it has in my opinion everything to do with the parks board right that experience and however they received that and read that interpreted that is driving decisions now which is unfortunate but that's the that's the situation we have in hand so I think that's kind of launching from that point I I think you do I mean I absolutely don't know that I can answer the question that I perceive is coming from the community market from other institutions that says okay we've given the parks foundation an fte we have three and a half fte's associated with this that then starts to say why not me you know and so I think that it is very difficult to to go down that path and continue to provide fte's for different entities uh that that we don't have um control over or can't model that throughout the organization we can't continue down that path and so that's that's tricky part for me so I my direction would be I don't know that we need a red line I'm fine with waiting for the red line that's no problem there I don't think we need a red line to to nail down the key point if you go to that slide it's it's are they going to have control is kdb inc going to have control of city of didn't employees and and that gives me that gives me uh concern because we then as a council have to answer to their hiring practices their contracts that are allocated how the checks are written you know the diversity of those the diversity of overtime the you know it's just there's a lot of stuff that as a city we're responsible with managing that a private organization does not and so I don't think there needs to be a whole bunch of back and forth to pinpoint that one key issue are you okay functioning without our city employees uh yes or no and if because if that's the sticking point you can start there and then uh work out the rest of it I believe and so but I can't be at peace with an organization dictating our city to our city employees because we can't properly manage that and I think and I I do think understanding that this is the document is flawed to some degree as far as the checks balances all that good stuff I just don't think that's wise to um continue to turn a blind eye to that right I think now it's exposed we know we we've got to expedite things or even if we don't expedite things monitor at a different level because if something happens you know during this month two month negotiations and and all of a sudden you know that becomes you knew this is coming you knew there was a potential issue and you did nothing it's hard to defend versus saying hey we knew there was a potential issue we're in the contract negotiations we're monitoring at a closer level during the contract negotiations to make sure that everything stays the same no different thing if you file you file litigation the judge lays out sends out a order it says hey no one close any bank accounts everything stays static while we process through the case so I think that is is a good thing to do now is to put some things in place it says nothing moves until we solidify this agreement versus beginning in October we had this much in account end of October at the negotiations we have this much in the account okay all right uh let's go council member mayor pro tem and then come back to council member robert well and I do agree that we need to continue talking our way through this work our way through this if i'm not mistaken as i've been trying to think through the other groups any other organization that we provide an fte it's not really the fte we're providing we're providing funds for them to hire their own ft is that that's correct with cvb park's foundation several other entities of that type and that's what makes us a very unique situation and how do we get to that point then I understand the cities need to not allow an outside board to direct staff could that be through a program of services that they would you know present to us on a on a regular basis you know annually or so forth if they want to make a change to it and then we would just adopt that as that's what so the the direction of staff is still coming from within the city but we're getting what they want kind of coming through council I would guess is that yeah I think certainly I thought to be yeah I think it's it 's the joint employer kind of issue it is very problematic to have employees managed by both city staff and an outside entity there's all kinds of potential issues with that but certainly if there was a program of work or a series of programs that they could articulate and provide to us that we could then take to the council and the council could adopt that as a this is the basis for how our programming we'd like to have some programming then that's certainly something that we can do I think it's just got to be really clear that the execution of those programs and the use of city funds and city staff is in a city managed process to execute that vision but that's certainly something we could do it could be a contract situation where we wanted to provide money to to the non-profit to do certain things and here's a contract payment and that's what they would be doing just like we do for the parks foundation so they hired an executive director and do the things that they think are important with those funds based on the agreement that we have with them but that's not what's happening here and I think that's that's the source of the the issues it's very it's very unclear because I would say that I mean they're a great organization we've had a great relationship with them in the past but don't want that relationship to disappear we may have to think outside the box as to how things are are worked through council member robert so yeah I just wanted to go back I'm touching on something that been mentioned recently just to go back to um council person uh brig's point about the importance of having uh conversations you know not doing everything through attorneys obviously contract that is you know you need an attorney to um to be able to read a contract with an attorney i but I think uh if you if you were to talk to if anybody were to to talk to kdb board and say you know do you want to control city staff I think they would they would say no we don't you know our goal is not to control city staff so I'm again you know I'm seeing even in kind of the language that's being used to to articulate what the problem is it's trying to be solved um it uh a sense of misunderstanding as council member melzer called it or you know or what I would say is just the you know the need for um you know direct communication maybe I had thought you know maybe this is a mediator situation where at least somebody have a third party to make sure that everybody's listening to everybody um you know sometimes it takes a third party to do that I'm not saying hiring somebody you know but uh maybe somebody would be able to volunteer to do that but just to make sure um you know because I mean one thing that we've learned from the situation with the parks foundation which ended so well for everybody um but there was so much misunderstanding um on on all sides leading up to it and a lot of um uh you know kind of bad feelings and those bad feelings I as I understand aren't there anymore um but I think we want to make sure that uh that that we don't go through that again uh so and that we're not kind of premature in trying to sum up a situation which is still uh a work in progress in other words and I'll just say this and end with this you know I think that the reason it's unclear is because um this is a moment of of of movement right it's not a moment nobody's turned in a draft that we 're analyzing and deciding is this clear or not uh there's no there's no there there you know for us to discuss because the process is still ongoing which is exactly how it's supposed to be um the back and forth uh so anyway just that's just just to say I think it'd be great some sort of meeting um between staff and kdb and maybe a third party maybe council to I'm open to all kinds of things uh but but I want to make sure that these misunderstandings don't don't persist um and and that we're we're all listening to each other council member riggs for clarification um council member has just brought it up um so the kdb inc that is who we are um speaking through their council for this contract the three and a half city fte's for the city are not in negotiations um that's right that's city staff and we're negotiating with kdb inc the non-profit and the specific feedback that we got back from the legal council representing kdb just to be clear is that they did want to supervise and direct staff they were concerned about that being eliminated out of the agreement so that's a that's a that's a critical issue all other things I think are things we can work through but that is the that's the heart of the issue okay and but it's city staff right right okay so it is it is complicated like when you look at it and um it's different from any other situation we have and since i've been on council i've been like okay so we pay the rent but there's a separate board and you know um it it is it's unique but it's special and it where you know there's there's a lot of good that comes to our city from it um what what do other because there's a lot of keep so and so beautiful organizations around how how are they usually in in other cities i mean not to compare i'm just curious because they're managed various ways um i've never seen one like this quite structured like this doesn't mean it's it's a bad thing i think it's been very effective um but they're managed differently across um the cities that we've looked at um i think you know the point that that i want to make is the goals of both the city operations and k db inc are good goals they're all trying to do that we're all trying to do the good things that are important and i think that's the thing we need to try to keep our eye on is how do we get there but but by maintaining the compliance with some of the things that we're doing so i think there's a way to do that um but it needs to be clear that we need to have those separation of roles i think that's the that's the thing from city staff perspective we 're trying to get some clarity because that's a negotiating point that um is a critical point it's not something that you can finesse it's either you have it or you don't any other comments i've just got a couple any others okay trivia question the first one who identifies the movie will get a glass of water from me it looks like we have a failure to communicate who is it what's the movie is that it is that it i don't know yeah so you might be right uh so what i don't and i appreciate councilmember archer your comments because the mark of a good organization is to not make the same mistake twice when confronted with things that may look similar we went through some very tough situations with the parks foundation not it's not blaming anybody but it's just saying that i think what happened was we got into a place where it became adversarial fairly quickly and it's very difficult to recover from an adversarial perspective i'm not saying that's where we are here that's that's not saying that that's what i'm saying is i don't want us to get there because i feel that there's absolutely no need for us to get there so what i think would be helpful is um first of all we got to get the red line because you know you've made some some pretty strong comments about well this seems to be the key issue and the controlling of the staff and that's what they want and let's make sure that we understand what they want so when we can get what their what their concerns are we can look at those and evaluate those and then i would really hope that in subsequent conversation that i think it would be helpful if someone uh and i so i don't know when y'all met was there somebody from the board with you in that meeting with the attorney or you know it's easy yes or no no no okay so i would really encourage that in subsequent discussions if there could be people there that you know i mean obviously they can't make decisions because it's a full board decision but it's just very easy for things to go down a path that nobody really intends by a simple word a gesture and and it's just i think we don't want to go through this with this situation because this organization has been one that we've partnered with for as long as we've partnered with the parks foundation we there's no reason for us to people to walk out of this meeting saying that somehow there's a contention between the kdb ink board and the city of denton denton city council that would be i think a real misrepresentation of what i believe is occurring so i would like to get the red line continue the conversation if there can be meetings between you know some of the board members and staff and and then think outside the box if the employee thing is is an issue well maybe this is a chance to do it differently there's this chance to explore is there better ways to do it for everybody or how do we move forward i mean this is a blank slate which is not a bad thing but it becomes a bad thing if you get off on the wrong foot then it you really it just narrows the the options tremendously so i would just encourage everybody to just sort of take a big deep breath and a step back because i sense that there's battle lines in a sense that are not formed yet but they're they're kind of and i just don't want that i don't think it's necessary i could be wrong in the end and that's certainly happened before but i'd hate to see it start out that way this early in the process and if we got to walk back a couple things and then regroup and and move forward that's fine this is the first we've seen it this is the first this denton city council has seen sort of the the perceived issues the red line we haven't seen the response as far as the red line in the contract so i don't want to personally i don't want to jump to a lot of conclusions not having very much information on hand so i think there is an option three option one i don't think is anything that we want to do just because we can't leave things untied that need to be tied up option two i believe i would just assume we're going to move forward with them wanting to stay an independent non-profit agency i don't see anybody jumping up and shouting no we're not going to do that we don't want to do that so i'm that's probably a fairly safe safe assumption and then we can move forward to see if we can iron out an agreement that is a win-win for the organizations and to make sure that they everybody understand each other's interests i think that's critical because sometimes you can get when you get positional interest no longer come through so that's a long way to say long time to say let's just keep talking let's try to and i know there's several i think board members and councils here for kdb so you know they've heard the comments of council and i think it would be helpful to to do that let me ask the council because i noticed that you raised your hand so it's typically we don't allow comments during a work session but i will yield to the de ference of the council in this regard and if y'all want to hear from the legal representative my only concern is that this is the first time they've heard what we're saying and i don't want to get in i don't want the comments to be that's not what i say i don't want i don't want to start having a tit for tat at the dais i mean quite honestly and if that 's where it goes i'll cut it off so if there's information that can be shared that would be helpful i'm okay with that but also this is a council this is a council workshop so this is this is a council decision that i will defer to to my colleagues on that yes oh yes go ahead just wanted to ask the city attorney first i just wanted to add to what the mayor said is that i would be very careful on if the person the attorney comes up and speak that it doesn 't become a negotiation between the council and the attorney so we're not posted for that so that's just an additional caution i want to throw out there appreciate that um okay council member huss bett no i not that i don't want him to speak i think i'm sensitive to your comments and i think you're spot on and i i don't know that um we can stay on track i just i mean i know there's a lot of questions there 's a lot of concerns there's a lot of delving to do and i just don't see i don't see the appropriate value in an introduction with no substance or um a response to what what they've heard without talking to his clients the entire board huddling and saying here's our response to what council said i just i i don't me personally don't see the value in that i think it's more valuable to go back reflect bring a unified answer forward okay all right yes obviously since i suggested it you know it's it's something that i want but um with respect to that concern you know i would um i would add that if the if the kdb board members who are here would like their attorney to to speak uh then i'm fine with the attorney speaking if they don't want their attorney to speak then i would imagine any good attorney wouldn't want to speak if their client didn't want them to speak so you know if it's okay with the board um it's okay with me and i mean to me this seems and i completely agree with what you said i wouldn't want don't want this to go into what about if we did this what about if we did this but um since there is at least i believe there's tension i i um have uh felt the the tension uh and this could be just a really good opportunity for us to show the public and each other hey look we can each have our say and uh and uh and and just listen to each other and then say to be continued after that so that's my what what i would want okay so i want to throw something out there um because i believe the board president is present is that correct yes yes sir so personally uh this set the the caption is receive a report and hold discussion give staff direction regarding the proposed agreement keep dentin beautifully um i rather than hearing from legal counsel i'd rather hear from the board president because the board president i think has the pulse the board president is someone who has i presume been elected by the board to be the president however that process goes and um i value that opinion and so that's that's that's something that i can i can get on board with because i don't think it will turn into a negotiation i don't think it will turn into but it'll be able to express some concerns or some clarification that may be helpful but i will so i want to hear from city staff or the city manager if you have any comments um because i know you've stayed relatively signed during the discussion yeah i just want to you know reiterate for our new council members when the park foundation audit came out i mean i i agree that that was handled there was very different issues there they were actually it wasn't as if there wasn't anything wrong there was actually money being spent uh uh and placed over in the park foundation that really should have been city copper so that that was really the issue and why this became a major issue is with the third party organizations is that public funds are being co-mingled within nonprofits and external agencies and that was i just want to remind you that was the crux of the issue when brian is talking about uh outside agency not directing staff that's exactly what he's talking about it's not a control issue it is it's a flat-out expenditure of public funds and making sure that we can communicate to the council and to the public where your money is going what what you're paying for and what's been derived so and council member hudspeth is absolutely correct we get frequent requests from other agencies to you know absorb them into the city organization and we have to make very difficult decisions so this this issue really comes down to one thing and council member ryan hit on it we can we can create a very simple agreement that states that there are certain duties and programs the city staff agrees and at the direction of council provide and partner with kdb or like with the park foundation there's a list of services some of that those dollars that they're currently in the city budget can be repurposed and possibly moved over to kdb to hire their own staff with no budgetary impact to the city but it's really it's really not i don't i don't want to blow this up like there's some massive contention going on i think it's really just a simple issue about co-mingling of city assets and there really is two very clear paths and we should be able to accomplish quickly kdb's goals the city's goals it's a great organization but we were given very clear direction to go through and clean up every one of those agreements and you know there's no i don't i don't want it to seem like it's a power struggle or anything like that there's definitely different ways of getting there within our same budgetary dollars that you would have to agree to and and we can accomplish the same thing and make this partnership just as strong as it needs to be i did not want to ask our internal auditor to audit this agreement i knew exactly what would come back to us and there's no need to start that and poke the bear because we know exactly what they're going to find and you know and and so i i think it's one of those things where it was just much easier to to try to try to basically drop a list of duties and responsibilities and say how do we want to how do we want to be performed and if we can get into a room i think we can probably get this hammered out in 30 30 minutes but it's that one single point that we just kind of talking around i just wanted to come loop everybody back to what caused the issue with the park foundation it wasn't that there's anything illegal anything necessarily bad it was that co-mingling of our resources so all right so everybody okay with uh ktb board president giving her a few minutes to just share on okay all right yeah you bet if you'll just state your name and address your time will begin oh yeah yeah well four yeah four four minutes is that is that do you think that i think that'll be more than enough my name is ali silva my address is 815 quait street dentin texas 76201 i am the board president for keep dentin beautiful i really appreciate you guys may are you letting me speak um i would agree that there's a fundamental misunderstanding here and a bit of a miscommunication um i think we're a little premature coming to you guys uh but that again wasn't our choice um i think there's definitely more discussion to be had um i don't think we're there yet but i am very confident that we will get there uh we value the city as a partner we want to continue the 30-year relationship that we've had with the city and we agree we can you know more clearly define those roles um i i want to kind of clear up a misunderstanding about the non-profits um i understand that you guys had uh redesigned the relationships with the three non-profits the friends of the library uh spca and uh the parks foundation those non-profits are fundamentally different than kdp um we are a separate 501 c3 non-profit we are not a fundraising arm of the city the friends of the library specifically fundraises to uh fund the library the parks foundation specifically fund raises to build parks for the city that is one op branch of what kdb does so i think that there's a fundamental misunderstanding with that and i just want to make sure that you all are aware of of that difference um we don't fit into that mold um and i agree with uh the comment about uh starting on a clean slate that they're different and we uh we've got to look at us differently at kdb differently um and uh councilman hudspeth i just wanted to clear up any miscommunication about funding for our attorney um you know i'm good at picking up trash and planting trees i am not good at reviewing contracts that's not my job i wouldn't be doing my due due diligence as the board president and we wouldn't be doing our due diligence as the board for our non-profit if we didn't hire an attorney to review our contract we paid for that attorney through our own funds we did not pay for that attorney uh through any sort of uh funds received from the city i i just want to make that abundantly clear uh we would never uh ever do that so does anyone have any questions all right oh yes i'm sorry yes sir yeah uh would you mind stating just for you know general information what you see as the briefly you know it's the main things you do that are very different from just fundraising sure so we uh all of the programs that you see the redbud festival uh the great american cleanup uh the uh community tree giveaway which is my personal favorite it's coming up in october i hope you all got your tree um we run those programs uh so we are a separate 501 c3 non-profit those programs fall under um our affiliate status so we're an affiliate of keep america beautiful and keep texas beautiful and we work to fundraise for those programs uh we work in environmental education uh so we uh provide grants to schools local schools for their environmental education butterfly farms that kind of thing um and yeah blanket on anything else it's a little nerve-wr acking to be up here with you guys councilmember thank you and then yeah go ahead then we'll try to wrap it up yes sir yeah um can uh can you speak to what would you like to speak to how how you understand uh your relationship with city staff uh how that's been and where you'd where you'd like to see that going forward in terms of boundaries absolutely and i understand that it says directs city staff and that's kind of more of a a word smithing um so we see city staff as facilitating the work of the non-profit um i don't know if you've had the opportunity to review their job description but that's what the job description says um so they facilitate the work of the non-profit we put together a strategic plan and they facilitate that strategic plan and i will point out that our 2018 2020 strategic plan says to maintain and expand kdb's partnership with the city of denton so i don't you know that's one of our goals this year so um but we in no way think that we have uh the right to direct city staff uh we in no way think that uh we are their boss that or anything like that um much like you all do uh request reports request information that's what we do uh with city uh with city staff and we are honored to have uh our city staff they're wonderful uh we couldn't be more thankful for uh just how competent they are how engaging they are and how on mission they are we really appreciate that all right thank you very much thank you very much for giving me the opportunity yes ma'am you bet you bet okay so uh direction how do you interpret the direction that you have heard so far and if anybody disag rees with his summary then please be sure i think the direction i've heard is to keep talking to facilitate a conversation with ali uh try to um get the red line version uh from their attorney and try to work through that and bring you something back that would address these points but to to i think the thing i also heard from the council was clarify roles and responsibilities of each each organization in accordance with the audit recommendations that's what i heard any yes councilmember melcher uh what i heard that uh also that i'm inclined to agree with this to at least be open to exploring um a different arrangement possibly with the exact same people doing the exact same things but you know where it's very clear that that uh the funds might come from the city but let those people be part of this independent non-profit i think at least i at least be uh from based on the comments here be open to having a conversation about that it's definitely an option that we can bring back to you yes sir if if there's a consensus i haven't asked that that it's in line with that and that is other organizations are going to ask as a city manager so whatever that solution is needs to be universal and so or easy to apply to other organizations and i think the question i think it's fair question but i'm not certain i'd like to see the funding i guess on one page for the other organizations because if if if they fundraise to meet the same needs but they have greater needs because they don't have staff then those things kind of counsel themselves out right so if we give enough money and staff then do they need the fundraise i don't know the answer to that question i just want to see side by side because that seems to to come up a lot in this conversation that uh the the fundraising mechanism do or don't you know so what that looks like so library library how much do they get how much do they fundraise how much they spend kind of on one sheet one kind of column that i can see side by side that would be helpful for me and then um um yeah i i think if you can give me a side by side of the keep getting beautiful because i i even now i i think if someone can help me understand president of keep getting beautiful board or president of kdb ink ink yeah and so i think those i think that we need to it's it's a it's a mashing of that that that those terminologies that i think uh when we're making a decision we need to understand that it's it's not there are two different things and so that helps uh process the decision at least for me to understand and and because you have different corporations set up different ways but have similar similar names so it helps me kind of uh process the information knowing which entity i'm referencing okay we'll work on that we can certainly put that together for you okay anything else thank you sir appreciate it for your time appreciate it no sir i mean we yeah no sir i'm sorry well sir i'm sorry sir sir thank you i appreciate that receive report and hold staff receive report from staff hold discussion give staff direction regarding decision and construction of industrial park i can hear you right now okay all right let's let's uh let's take the discussion outside please okay look at that yes sir good afternoon mayor city council gary pack and director of parks and recreation thank you for the time this afternoon to talk to you uh give you an update on industrial park development uh presented to you back on june 26th a preliminary proposal uh an update to where we're at at that time council had directed staff earlier throughout this process to hire uh tmp to conduct three designs and then subsequently staff created one internally and that's what was presented to you but just to kind of give you a brief quick update uh industrial park i'm sure you know where it 's at it's on industrial street just a few blocks away from the county courthouse uh it's located 108 industrial street it's a vacant parcel that's currently all turf and it's a lot approximately 60 by 100 surrounded by restaurants town homes public parking restaurants uh bars uh that that nature it does slope approximately four feet from the parking lot heading east to industrial streets that's that's a site challenge and also at that same time slopes a little bit to the north towards the uh towards the businesses on hickory street our project goals were simple at the very beginning they were to provide park space for people to socialize relax uh have a stage for small entertainment events beautification to the community integrate art whenever we could uh stimulate economic development and enhance our city's identity and community pride what's passing around is uh some of the artificial turf that we talked about when we were here last june we told you we'd bring some back what you see in uh sports fields or on tv where that artificial turf is embedded with uh crushed rubber or shaved rubber this is actually a green bead uh substance that goes in between there so that just gives you a little idea of the artificial turf could look like as i mentioned earlier tmp created three designs for city council to consider they varied in uh in costs from approximately 655 000 to 319 000 staff created this this design here in the bottom right hand corner which was about 350 360 000 in concepts during that process uh from from both sorry council member breaks i'm sorry to interrupt you council member breaks had a question you may have answered this when i was um not paying attention but what happens if a dog pees or poops on this i mean because it i mean i just got a notice about not having bags out there like you know because we have people that live on the square that have animals and they walk them and when there's grass they're gonna point of order they can only have artificial pee and poop on it they're gonna do their thing and so that could get really gross especially if kids play on it the same thing so i'm just because it's got a backing so that's why it could be cleaned up uh and also we'd still have irrigation on there so we actually still water the artificial turf periodically and then periodically we have to go out there and power wash it i think they've seen it okay um during the presentation in june uh we shared these four designs with you uh feedback from council was options three and four which are the two on the two on the right side here which are the two the more affordable options at the same time park board had recommended option four which is this one down here in the bottom right hand corner which is the one that was completed by staff at that time we moved forward with option four kind of as our base in the community meetings to generate that feedback this was the design that was done by staff at the time uh just some some different designs that you could see all of this was artificial turf along the perimeter i'm sorry along the perimeter as well as this tan area here was all proposed to be artificial turf at that time during the community feedback in the meetings we had with some of the neighbors and businesses six areas were the major points of discussion shade in the in the interest of more shade as much as possible trees and landscaping natural versus artificial turf facility impacts to the neighbors and the businesses uh the retaining wall for drainage and then the integration of art from a tree standpoint and a shade standpoint uh we did have some some questions regarding the removal of removal of trees um the the trees in blue there's 10 trees that would be removed uh there's one existing tree that would be maintained which is this large oak back in the back corner here and then these other uh kind of oct agon shaped pentagon shaped uh trees would be new trees put in so there would be an additional six trees that would be installed uh one of the feedback was if we put trees in could we put in larger trees so we were looking at putting in 65 gallon trees to help expedite the the shade councilmember armatray then councilmember briggs yeah so for me so when i read this in the in the backup um this gave this gave me great pause uh and i gotta say i did not i can't get behind any uh parks concept that is going to be removing so many trees uh i mean really removing any trees unless the tree is sick or uh in in such terrible shape or public safety hazard so for me this is this this is for me um a problem with the plan uh and you know the and i understand the um planting of the of the six trees uh new trees so you know then um we would be down only four but still we're still talking about removing trees so anyway just i just wanted to be totally upfront about that and that i guess that's all for now about this slide thank you councilmember briggs yeah i um i had reached out to you prior about the trees and it looks like the they're kind of the ones you're moving are kind of in the same area where you're going to be replanting new ones i mean except for there's a little bit of you know canopy overgrowth right there where you may need um some trees so i'm just wondering what the thought process was because after you um it takes a long time for a smaller tree to get established um it's going to use a lot more water it's not going to provide shade which is you know a big concern um so i mean what is the the reasoning for it if they're already in the location that you're going to be adding the trees so um so unfortunately the way we have this designed every tree is in except for one is in an area of concrete um just for instance these two here are right where the retaining wall is going to go that's right where our property line is so though that whole area would need to be excavated to put the retaining wall in the way we have this designed there's these trees are located right in the concrete sidewalks here this is this tree is not so that one could be integrated in this one is located right on the property line where the the retaining wall would be that probably could be worked around and these two are right at the edge where there's going to be some concrete work we could try to work around some of them um but that doesn't mean they'll survive during the excavation for the concrete um some of the trees i i don't like cutting down trees either in a sense that uh it's providing shade it's it's providing that resource some of these trees um aren't the preferred species we probably would plant uh that doesn't mean they're they're not less valuable by any means um but we we're trying to replant trees and that's one of the reasons why we're looking to put in a larger tree as as much as possible to regain that shade yeah and then we'll go to councilman brings has a follow-up then we'll go to council member deafening council member armature i i was absent when we first had this uh discussion so i wasn't able to really input on the designs um so my original choice was not to have so much concrete and so that's when you you keep talking about removing trees and you put the word concrete in there it's kind of but um so i just wanted to say that i wasn't here for the first um meeting so i really didn't get the input on which design i preferred so i just want to kind of throw that out there that i i'm not really on board with this complete design council member death yeah i think you answered my question is what kind of trees are that you're taking out um i have a report i didn't bring it with me i think they're sugarberries hackberries uh the one tree they're keeping is oak um i think the majority of them were hackberries and um there was one other species over here i can't remember i would probably want to take the hackberries out anyway council member armature and then council member melzer so just to kind of um phrase it in a different way so you had mentioned that the the reason for the removal of the trees is because they're in the way of the the the uh planned concrete i kind of see it the reverse i see the plan with the concrete as being in the way of the trees uh and and so and uh and i'm not sure if there was um kind of lack of clarity on on um on council's end or my end or why but but i was surprised to see and after the one public hearing i uh or public meeting i attended which was really grateful that y'all had that listened so well to people's concerns you know i seem to be hearing that people like green space and they like trees and um people didn't want um all this all this concrete um all this um uh you know i mean it it looks the picture looks beautiful um but my sense is that people just want uh really a kind of bare minimum some you know some bike racks picnic table have those you know keep the trees uh solve what solve what irrigation problems need to be solved um but you know that was my impression kind of coming out of that meeting uh and at the very least that's how that's how i feel so sorry if i didn't you know successfully communicate that but um but i still feel that way okay uh and i think council member but mel sir yes uh carol would you mind going back to the the photo of how the park looks today uh i don't have i guess you just have that with the yeah i mean i can pull up a different the original slide that can give you a picture of the park i mean we can kind of infer you know a bit from even from this i um you know i gotta be honest with you uh i prefer that i really do and i know really good work has been put into some very creative designs but i i kind of concur that what people want out of a park in an urban space is a bit of a bit of a natural oasis you know not not more of a built environment uh i think you know retention wall if you need it or it's going to wash away otherwise more shade benches like and i know you've got you know response ready on kind of what uh more of a build from current uh solution might look like and you know i wonder if you'd be willing to share that with others sure uh can i go through the slides so i can get that point okay okay so following the meeting i think that councilman mel ter and and armature were at the meeting the public meeting we had in july we took that information as well as meeting with the neighbors and some of the businesses try to integrate and update the drawing that we had presented to you originally uh just kind of going clockwise we had a piece of artwork back in this corner here uh the actual the person that lives in that unit right there said well i 'd like to actually see in the park uh as opposed to being blocked from the park and and we were thinking kind of the opposite so um we took that panel out that was it was nice to have but it wasn't mandatory by any means uh we wanted to preserve that at least that large oak back in the corner that is a very nice tree um in regards to trying to expedite the shade and the balancing the removal of some of the trees we upgraded the planting of the trees of 65 gallon trees uh in in the entire park area we had a railing that went around here uh since there is a four foot difference between the parking lot and industrial we stepped it down so each each one of these planting boxes are actually stepped down to deal with that grading and it changed the elevation so we didn't need to have a railing there anymore so we took that out just so we could have some clear views through the park which was an issue that people wanted uh we we actually did have two trees up towards the front here and the feedback from the community was they wanted to be able to see through the park from a safety concern so we took those out um were those new trees yes okay yes um the the stones here are giant stone looters so it's natural stone look and feel uh we we made this stage a little bit smaller and we actually made it a straight line as opposed to a curve just to provide some additional green space the artificial turf that you passed around uh every meeting had pretty much the same concerns is it going to be hot how's it going to work you know we're just not sure so we we pulled it out um and we put in natural turf the benefit of having the artificial turf was if you go over to the park now in the back especially the back i guess right-hand corner or the northwest corner uh that turf is dead uh because it doesn't get any sunlight so that's the benefit of having the artificial turf is that you don't have uh bare dirt so that is something to work with uh the planners do provide that opportunity because while the trees are still immature we could put uh plantings that are uh sun tolerant and then when they do mature then we could switch those plantings over to shade tolerant plants so that was one way we could we could work around that we had bike racks in they asked us to put in the little d's so we made that adjustment um the park sign we were going to integrate into the wall here with just simple words industrial street park um the one big thing at the public meeting was they didn't like the turf they wanted more opportunities for the master naturalists and gardeners to come in and plant flowers and help maintain plantings that type of thing uh so that was one of the reasons why we switched from turf to to planting beds and then the use of solar power whenever we could we looked at integrating that and then the string lights which you don't see here uh they're not pictured but we're going to put festival string lights across the park just to kind of give it that little flair this is just a general overhead to see so we we're one of the big things we're working with is the neighbors uh so we have residents on this side and we met with residents that actually uh live adjacent to the park and gathered feedback from them as well as some of these businesses over here so we had most discussion with the business in the middle in regards to they use the park as a way as in and out of their property so we wanted to try to keep this wall as low as possible so if they needed to get out for any emergency reason they could actually jump over the wall um it's it's probably you know mid-thigh area in regards to its height as it's kind of stepped down um from an access standpoint if they need to get to the parking lot they would walk out onto industrial street and then up and around um and then we'd also actually add a handicap parking space over here and access for for that activity from a budget standpoint uh we're at roughly three hundred and sixty thousand dollars with option four in the original june proposal and we're just about right at that same amount we did add a 10 contingency or just just for case of what ifs which would take that project about 398 thousand dollars this would all be from 915 916 funding we have a 404 thousand dollars from 915 and 66 thousand dollars from 916 have to be used within a half mile to one mile area of that that park specifically um from a construction standpoint some of this is being done by city contracts some would be done by staff and then someone would be hired by outside sources so we could do that so we would be the the general contractor on the project as as proposed and then from next steps this is the the kind of timeline we've been working through there's a few additional meetings in here we met with a public art committee in regard to the art that's in the the proposal as well as some of the businesses and neighbors along the way we told you back in june we come back in september october and that's what we're here today to talk to you about so three options one is we could maintain the park as it currently is and make some additional enhancements to that i would suggest retaining walls so we have we can stop the water from going on to the the property to our north side if we wanted to make some additional enhancements we could do that as well if it was a sidewalk of sorts through the property just to provide access option two is move forward as presented with construction or option three is take the existing design and make some amendments council member bracing council member usb council member armat I don't even know where to start one of my main concerns is that this park is not kid-friendly at all there's not any structures there's not a swing there's not a fun seat to sit in there's nothing downtown and when there's a ton of events there's a lot of kids and right now I mean you could put a pile of mulch in that area and that's where all the kids go to anytime there's event you know and they're in this area and there there's other things set up for for kids to do right now it's kind of what that area is treated for and a long time ago part of the design that we saw had some sort of like water feature in it I know that's not year-round but it was some kind of water feature that could be interactive or played with and then also in Seattle there's a it's like a music kind of park where there are things that you kids can go and they could play with and they they look like structures but you can recreate music and since this is down in that area I thought something like that would be really cool that you could do you know along the wall I just I feel like there's so much more that we can do that we haven't um vetted or even looked at so I mean I'm not really I'm not really gung-ho about moving forward just yet though the one thing that we did have in the original designs was a fountain more of a decorative fountain that was the water feature and the feedback from just about everyone was no no water fountains no decorative fountains right yeah because it's decorative it's not you get in trouble for you yeah it wasn't a spring ground yeah well yeah yeah council member hudspeth thank you so my direction would be option two I've spoken with the neighbors I've spoken with different business owners I spoke with nctc in the and each of those individuals kind of came to the same conclusion I just grabbed the the web link for the work session and sent it to them and and asked for their their comments and so I didn't prompt them and each person kind of highlighted the fact that we don't have a nice amenity downtown that begins to upgrade our park system Gary I'm certain is sensitive to the to the green space needs I mean that's his that's his profession so I'm comfortable with his assessment and I um I understand not wholly but understand the value in different trees and and we have developers come to us every day that say the exact same thing I want to build and there's this one tree I'd love to keep it but it's in this particular area and I cannot work around it and so I think that's that's consistent with what we hear every day but really it's just I've seen the drawings seen the the progression and upgrade in our park system and I appreciate that and I want to reward that and so I'm hopeful and hopeful we can move forward I really do think it'll be a great catalyst for the businesses there and also serve as a purpose to draw those um kids at nctc or professors into downtown to then bring them into shopping it's kind of a a entry point to to so I think there's it's not so much it's it's great for the people that are there and utilizing the park now but it also can be a catalyst to bring new people into downtown which is which is very important as well to support those businesses and serve as a draw into downtown versus on the edge of town and they're going to leave so that's my thought is is option two okay that's member armature um and I uh support uh number one um you know with the condition that um the uh adjacent you know businesses and the apartment building be construct consulted as I know you've been doing already about you know the design of that uh retaining wall um I love the the master naturalist idea how you incorporated that into the plan I mean that would definitely be something that could that could happen um with the uh park and in its current state um and uh and I also agree um with uh councilperson Briggs 's uh statement about the kid friendliness that was something you know as you may recall that I had um had had brought up at at at the meeting when uh she she wasn't there that was one of my my first thoughts what are the kids gonna do and I think of how my uh my children and and other children when there's something going on in that area they congregate you know they don't care if the grass is is dead um uh or dying uh and I haven't heard anybody kind of concerned about that it's a little nice oasis of green and um so I'm I'm I'm really fine with it as is um you know you could I mean there are two ways of going about what I'm saying one is saying option number one uh and then the other is saying option number three and take out everything except the you know keep the bike racks and but that's kind of taking away so much that to me the more uh uh uh useful um option for me to give and the more honest one would be to say option one and add a bike rack add some bike racks maybe picnic table other things that can be the kind of things you don't have to have you know council meetings to talk about doing any other comments question yes mayor putty well I think I'm I'm kind of on that same page as councilmember armator that option one is probably what I'm looking for looking at three but you know option one is is more in line with it uh for me if we're looking at drainage and we're going to we're looking at the option two has 146 thousand dollars worth of concrete work that means we're actually going to decrease the drainage availability in that that area not increase it um you know you'll will drain it off property but we're not helping our overall drainage issue um so you know I would like for it to remain a little more natural more maybe just some tables out there for people to sit maybe those granite the granite stones that you had in the other when the the uh but that big mass of concrete to me is an issue anybody else I've just got a couple comments um well it just goes to show that you know things can change things are fluid and so I I certainly um appreciate all the hard work that y'all put into this so far with all the different concepts the staff member who drew up those those concepts um I think for me as I've thought more about this and I've and I've gone and looked at that site first help me understand the water issue so it's just four foot drop from is it east to west or north south uh it goes from west to east and south to north okay and that's the natural flow is that we haven't done anything to change that is that correct that's correct all right so when you're talking about adjacent properties and things such as that correct me if I'm wrong if you know the answer Mr. City Attorney but uh you know one of the things is you you just can't you can't put more water on somebody's property if if uh by changing the natural flow of the water so if we put in a retaining wall to help with the drainage it's not because we have a duty to do it it's not because we're legally obligated to do it we're just saying we want to we want to do it for you know the good faith of the people around um when I look the side of this is how many square feet six thousand it's 600 by uh 60 by 100 yeah so I'm probably more inclined at this stage I'm not saying that I would change my mind somewhere else but at this stage what would the improvements look because if we did the improvements to option one the retaining wall and put in some you know some natural turf maybe upgraded the desk the tables a little bit the trash can there um if we did that that doesn't we weren't we aren't precluded from if somewhere down the line if the council made a different decision with different different makeup or those kind of things that you're not really having to undo a lot that you already did is that is that is that a fair I mean we might have to undo some maybe in the retaining wall yeah maybe some I mean the retaining wall we could we could is that the retaining wall now that's there it's bags of sacrete oh hey you know that's quite quite innovative that's quite innovative yeah that was our that was a temporary measure uh with the intention that we were going to move forward with something eventually uh that staff did back in the spring and this is the bear patch that you're talking about yeah this corner and and of course is this currently irrigated or no yes it is because I know say Bermuda will not grow in that kind of shade but other types of grasses will grow in that shade um so it's a hard decision for me I mean I think if I had a choice between one or three I mean I think three is better than two and for me just because it's a little less concrete it's a little less um but I just like the idea of having a park that has a nice retaining wall has green grass whatever needs to grow there has some neat little tables and uh you know has a place where people can just go and relax I mean uh I drove by McKinney Park the other day when I was leaving a property of mine and I looked and I was on the east side of McKinney Park of the water of the big tower and I drove by and that's all it is it's just green space and big trees and you turn the corner and on the west side you have your basketball court and you have some playground equipment and things such as that so I mean for a downtown um area that has been sort of neglected for a while it's hard for me to step up and spend 300 or 400,000 right off the top especially because you said the funds are coming from the park funds that has to be spent within a half mile or a mile yes of whatever's being developed well you know what the development was where the money came from is you have to go at either half mile for 915 or one mile for 916 okay so you have to kind of evaluate each development where that money came from sure to figure out where the money's going so that half mile or mile the mile for sure would encompass either Quaker Town or Fred Moore Fred Moore too far it's there's some availability yes for both Quaker Town and for Moore so and I option number one for me for now and I feel I don't know if bad's the right word but I know we've given direction on moving in a in a very different direction in the past and I like to for me to maintain with men myself some sort of consistency but having talked to some of the people that I've talked to about this project there's been that kind of inclination to hey you know what do we why don't we see what it would look like I mean sacri I never saw that before that's I'm gonna have to remember that and you know you can upgrade the picnic the picnic bench but so I would probably say option one if that's not really it I'd probably move more towards option three with maybe some modifications 65 gallon trees are big trees but my experience has been when I plant really big trees they don't grow yeah a little two or three inch tree will overcome them in two or three years I mean they just and they die faster and it's so yeah anyway those are my thoughts uh yes council member D uff yeah I go with option one okay council member Briggs did you have your hand up yes well you know I was for option three because I feel like there's you know some good things there but this if you built the retaining wall and then filled it in so it would be level and then maybe planted some more trees I'm looking right there and I'm thinking a hammock would be great between those two trees right there for somebody just to chill and relax and you know and then have some more tables and college kids would like to hang out in a hammock I'm sure I feel like you know there's opportunities down the road but if we could you know just start basic and see where we can go in the future because I do think there's some opportunities that can be there that we're just not thinking about right now and if we overbuild it it's such a small area and then I look at the design and I think about what that would be like in that area and it just feels real crowded so this this tree here is one of the trees that's right on the property line where the retaining wall would go there's another one back here in this corner could it not just go where the like because I know out here our retaining walls kind of go in and around and when we have sidewalks built we kind of you know make it we design around it we we could we could move to the right but we're going to be digging a few feet down so we may get into the root system so it may it may damage that tree you may not see it in the first year six months yeah so it could be something that happens afterwards um okay so that's one of the plus and minuses okay councilmember death hey I gotta tell you hammock idea I'm sorry I don't think the city needs the liability that's my only problem that's my big problem with that no you bring your own hammock okay um so I can't I'm trying to figure out the direction here I think man pro tem you were option one councilmember arm ature okay councilmember briggs okay so one for now councilmember duff one you were I think two councilmember husband yeah yeah yeah and councilmember melzer I was one before I even showed the options but there were some good ideas a lot of good ideas were picked up along the way and carving out a bit for the master gardeners I think is a cool idea yeah okay all right okay thank you is that helpful yep all right thank you very much oh did you have something else councilmember briggs before we close out this agenda item well yeah I just I feel like part of the direction of the well from the citizens was to have more shade and option one doesn't say to plant any more trees and I feel like if we're going to have shade and have it in urban oasis then trees would need to be planted and so that was my hesitation would just go in with number one because you're just basically saying retaining wall and as is so just kind of it would be my my hope that we could plant more trees even though we do choose option ones great okay councilmember okay you go ahead yeah I you know you made one comment about putting in the larger trees and you know and I I kind of have some experience with that you know where I live and you know that putting a very large tree sometimes it takes them five or six years to recover right and I think some getting somebody to look at that putting in smaller trees and then getting letting them grow will get you a bigger tree center and my only thought about the tree planting I mean we can we can have some shade structures out there other than than trees per se the only thing is if you want to do something in the future and you plant trees now without some kind of strategic plan with what's going to come about in the future you may wind up taking them out back out again and then we're going to have this whole conversation about so I trust that you'll you'll figure something out in that regard and um we can we can look at maybe putting these two trees in here because there's there's really nothing up there in the front okay um as a way to try to balance that okay that's good all right any other questions or comments you have direction yes sir okay all right let's take about a 10 minute break then we'll go on to it all right welcome back to this meeting of the Dent City Council on Tuesday August excuse me August October the 9th 2018 it is 256 moving on to agenda item d hold a discussion to review council actions and concerns related to the September 25th 2018 approval of an sup ordinance for multifamily use located at south at south of loop 288 on the east side uh and related to the council's discussion that's October 1 st 2018 special called meeting in connection with said agenda including a discussion on forming a set of council best practices to deal with this type of situation in the future I think council member Melcer you had to ask for this agenda item so certainly want to give the floor to you I I very much appreciate the constructed suggest constructed suggestion on the city manager's part to you know make this about finding best practices you know going forward uh I can think of a little else that I would rather do I could I could I could think I don't really uh I wasn't sure I was going to say anything about this today and it really gives me no pleasure to rake through this but especially since the vote has already occurred we have many more important things to do and I think we're really necessarily helping dentonites you know uh but I do think to a certain extent uh we gotta get it out there learn from it uh and move on um plus you know things were said uh about me in my absence and I didn't have an opportunity to respond and you know it's it's more than a week later it feels weird to have to go through it um but I you know I feel like I would be doing myself a disservice not to give you an understanding of you know where my head was at because we need to be able to to trust in each other um uh so first of all I want everyone I want everyone to understand I like the mayor I respect the mayor uh I uh so help me I will keep reaching out to the mayor to work on good policies for denton so you know it's okay to have dust-ups um so you're going to get you know my version of events and you know that's uncomfortable and some things in life are uncomfortable um so I feel the mayor told you a story from his perspective but from my perspective he left off the beginning and the end of the story so to start at the beginning the mayor alluded to a conversation he and I had after that vote you may remember he read you an email where I say to him nothing has changed since our earlier conversation now I wasn't here so you know when he said that's not germane he could go past it right uh without being challenged but I I want to tell you what that conversation was about and you decide if it's germane uh I don't think it's anything nefarious but I think it helps give you context we voted on Tuesday mayor asked me the next morning it was Wednesday morning to have a talk with him we met at 4 p.m. in his office here in city hall we talked for about an hour in which he made an effort to persuade me to move to reconsider you know that I was going to look bad for me if I didn't that he teaches people how to negotiate and I should move to reconsider and use my uniquely powerful leverage in the situation to ask for conditions you know so strong that it might you know move the applicant to say no and he sent me the applicant's MOU uh which hadn't been part of the posting to persuade me of the merits of reconsidering so you know that was the beginning so you know for me that sets the context of you know the mayor's got a very strong point of view on that uh that ordinance and I I don't think you would disagree about that conversation that well do you want me to respond while you're talking you want me to respond to me and I'll let you I'll let you wait till the end okay all right all right so and I can support of contemporaneous texts and email uh so I found that very instructive uh gave me something to think about I actually did say to the paper you know I'm considering reconsidering but I concluded that I really only needed to know you know I didn't really I was not motivated to go for additional conditions I only needed to know that what we already passed would stand up and that was my uh the question that I resolved so now let's go to the end in fact I had a conversation late Thursday afternoon that was the next day with the city attorney that put my mind at ease about the ordinance we passed and I opted not to reconsider right but remember you know that wasn't what the mayor had urged me to do now you've already heard and I've said openly that after the applicant saw the drc article Thursday morning in which I said I was considering reconsidering the applicant contacted me and was very eager as you might imagine to demonstrate that they were going to be held to what they had said here and what we voted on and I think that's to their credit incidentally and they offered to show me their proposed dha agreement to comply with the ordinance and other supporting documents and they wanted me to see all this in time to review it before the friday morning deadline which would be the deadline for any member uh who's in the majority to post a motion to reconsider but as you've heard and read and as I've said openly I advised them to send whatever they wanted us to have that was related to the ordinance to the city attorney precisely because it shouldn't be about just me and that's exactly what they did now the mayor makes the suggestion that you know I find uh defamatory I'm you know I'm sure he's sincere but to me I find defamatory that there was some individual quid pro quo to exact terms that we hadn't agreed to here and I ask did you ever hear what those terms were that I supposedly exacted from the applicant does anyone recall I suggest you can't because there weren't any the applicant was trying to show that they were going to implement exactly what you told what they told you they would in session and that we voted on in regular order now the mayor didn't say that on monday and I suggest to you that that was you know that a good reason not to bring that up uh would be that because suggesting there was some secret deal to go beyond the ordinance we passed presented an opportunity an opportunity an opportunity to try to get uh you know a reason for reconsideration another bite at the apple uh and you know with such a suggestion he could get around the fact that I had already decided not to reconsider by asking for council rules to be suspended so someone even on the losing side of the vote could ask for reconsideration of an item we had already duly passed you know you all saw that posting now after I heard about this strange set of postings I asked the city manager to remind the mayor that I was going to be away on the day of the joint disd board luncheon and that perhaps he'd want to do this in regular session when I returned but you know apparently it was conducive to tell a story without me present to bring up these inconvenient facts that he had been actively lobbying for reconsideration and that there were never any terms outside what we voted on these inconvenient facts now you know it didn't work I mean you all were here for the vote and you know that's all done but let's address the middle of the story did anyone actually look at the emails that the mayor read aloud here kind of a brisk clip as if they demonstrated something what they actually show was that the mayor seemed to be trying to exclude the rent grid condition from the ordinance after the vote maybe he didn't remember it the way you know I remembered it but you have the emails and you can see for yourself so you know whether you're for or against that condition that would certainly be troubling it's definitely not our process to leave out parts that you know we don't like after the ordinance has passed unfortunately the transcript of our session made it very clear what was agreed to and voted on so it went to the ordinance you know as it should have for the mayor to sign now you know when he had these concerns we don't see him pick up the phone or have another conversation with me about his concerns on thursday afternoon we see a posting the next morning that friday morning seeking direction regarding the mayor's unwillingness to execute an ordinance adopted by council he says anyone should realize he wasn't actually unwilling to execute our ordinance despite you know the posting saying exactly that based on observing all his years on council but in fact he has never issued such a posting before in his entire tenure as mayor which leads me to ask why the mayor is so uniquely motivated on this one item i can't say i have the answer i but i i don't feel like on that issue we've been seeing the generally supremely fair-minded balanced mayor watts we've come to expect uh so i've been torn about this but i feel like people you know elected me to be brave and say what needs to be said and mayor this is what people say about you behind your back so i think we might as well talk about it openly and let you knock it down uh you know at the risk of offending him i'd like to know whether the mayor does business in tax subsidized housing and derives income from rental units that would direct the compete with the affordable units in this project we've seen no disclosures about this and i think there should at least be that and we should talk about it i know the mayor has backed other housing projects but we don't see this kind of drama at all usually but we don't see it on commercial or industrial tax abatements only tax exempt residential and this was a case where it wasn't even up to city council to give or deny the tax exemption so you know it's not good if we have the appearance of an undisclosed competitive conflict of interest in my opinion it's like if you own a coffee shop and you have to rule on whether starbucks should open up across the street you may not be a partner in that starbucks but you sure have a conflict to at least disclose so you know i would suggest that as a practice to disclose at least you know the appearance right uh as far as other best practices that we might adopt going forward uh uh let me ask for a show of hands and and be honest how many of us met with the developer other than in session i'm not the only one oh you mean you did you talk about you just met with the developer prior to the vote prior to the first vote yeah of course of course of course many of us did okay and many did so i i think it's worth discussing whether going forward none of us not the mayor not me nor any of us should take private informational meetings or phone calls with developers who have projects before us i don't see that any good comes of it so i'd say let's one have at least self-disclosure to remove the appearance of competitive conflicts of interest so and two let's do all our business here that's what i propose i'm happy to hear what others have to say uh you know it pains me to even have this conversation so i'm happy to listen and well i'm going to respond i'm going to respond of course because i think that you have misrepresented the facts councilmember melzer so let's go to the conversation when you said that i said the conversation wasn't germane in the monday meeting what i said was because you weren't here to be able to respond to my report of that conversation i was not going to talk about it so i'm glad that you're here so we can talk about it so you said we want to start with the beginning finish with the end i'm going to tell the whole story because you left out some very convenient facts first of all after the vote i walked up to you after the vote you were still sitting in that chair and i said i'm not sure you got your percentages in that the applicant had agreed to put in the ordinance and you looked at me like you had just seen a ghost and i thought okay so i decided to call you up and say hey let's talk wednesday morning or wednesday afternoon to characterize my conversation with you as lobbying you to motion to reconsider is really unfortunate because i told you in that conversation i really didn't care what you did i was there because you were concerned as we started talking that your amendment did not get into the ordinance as you intended it to so i had it didn't matter to me and after that conversation you and i it was a pleasant conversation it was a good conversation it was talking about and you shared when you talk about not meeting with developers you shared that from the time of the vote that was tied to the time of the second vote when you were here that you talked with the developer and that you mentioned some of the terms that he had what i thought had freely proffered which was the additional 10 percent for affordability but that you reported that was your suggestion so there's no way i could care less whether you made a motion to reconsider and you do have to reach for those facts of disclosure or competition or those kind of things when you don't have anything else to rest on so here's the story i didn't get a chance to tell the story in its in its entirety from my perspective so what happened wednesday we had our conversation and i warned you i said i want to caution you about meeting with the developers after this vote and trying to figure out get the intention of the developers if they understood what your amendment was my meeting with you wasn't trying to lobby you to reconsider it was trying to say look if you didn't think you got what you wanted then you need to do what you need to do to get that clarity that is reflected in my first email to you i said that's what i said was there's a process to get clarity we go on then i read in the paper the quotes that i read about the jury still out i've never heard on a council vote that a jury is still out and still trying to get an agreement between the integrated and the housing authority through his amendment if i'm not satisfied shortly that our city attorney assures us we have an enforceable agreement i may well consider so this is this is my story this isn't about a quid pro quo it's not anything about you personally it's not anything but when i read something like that so here are the things that you asked for from that reporting from those quotes that were not in the ordinance you asked for a draft set of documents between integrated housing authority melzer agrees that effort between integrated housing authority through his amendment is still out we're trying to find a mechanism for its enforceability the agreement the the amendment so you are asking for some language that had this amendment which i think you're referring to as the grid in it the ordinance in no way asked that developer for draft language of an agreement the ordinance did not ask for that there was a request that whatever that is that was requested as far as an agreement be sent to the city attorney the ordinance that was passed by this council four to three did not contain any request to send documents to the city attorney the ordinance by its implication of a motion to reconsider asked that those documents be sent by a certain time deadline because a motion to reconsider has a time deadline and finally there was a question about the city attorney reviewing for enforceability of some agreement some grid from documents that the city attorney is going to send none that ordinance that was passed included none of those requests and so when i read that there's a council member who was the swing vote that seems to not think that enough has been done or we we've gotten everything we need and that ask is connected with a motion to reconsider i get concerned i filed you off i i fired you off an email in private i didn't do it in public i said hey here's what i'm thinking now please help me understand if i 'm not correct i'm confused we all read the emails so your response to me was the applicant did reach out to me today i asked that anything he'd like to present go from attorney to attorney not me i will consult with the city attorney not the applicant on whether the form the agreement takes is in fact enforce able in any if in any meaningful way if it is i have no need to reconsider to me there's the ask i'm not saying you did it intentionally and i'm it saddens me and disappoints me that you're you're taking this in a way that i'm trying to make this about you and i'm saying this is about a process and the integrity of the process so come thursday i hadn't heard anything from you i hadn't heard anything from anybody else see you had talked with the city attorney to negotiate some of the language in the ordinance that you felt was more appropriate the city attorney placed that in the ordinance he called me and said hey are you okay with that i said absolutely i'll sign it then on thursday city attorney tried to call me on friday uh he tells me that he got a frantic call from the developer asking about a deadline well that lets me know that the developer believes that he 's got to get something in by deadline for some reason so when i hear that and i hear that the documents actually came in whether or not you decide that you use those as a factor for your reconsideration is immaterial because for me what is the thing that concerned me was this potential ask of things that in my opinion that i just listed out and i really ask if somebody has a disagreement that the ordinance did ask for those things i want to hear it that there was an ask and that somehow it was coupled with some language about a motion to reconsider that's very dangerous that's a huge imbalance of power it doesn't matter whether the applicant understood or whether the applicant was trying to express some intention that could have been done with a phone call none of this had to be done in public you just quote in the paper hey this is what i was thinking are y'all gonna do that sure okay but when you couple that request with a motion to reconsider i get concerned and i'm talking this is a very narrow scope for me if we want to talk about practices about meeting with people beforehand raf i don't care that's fine this is very narrow scope for me this is a fourth revote and that a council member on the prevailing side doesn't matter who it was a council member on the prev ailing side they're the only ones that can call for a motion to reconsider all of a sudden sends what i perceive to be some kind of message because the applicant called you the next day why in the world did the applicant call you because he needed some understanding and some clarification there's no other reason why he would have called you when he sees the gentleman who was the swing vote in the paper talk about a motion to reconsider if he didn't get some if something didn't show up let's just say if something didn't show up i got a problem with that and you can you can try to characterize it and deflect it on my disclosures i filed every disclosure necessary people don't know my business they don't know how many affordable housing units i lease to and if people want to say those things i really don't care because i know the truth and i also know the truth in this situation and i'll tell you the email that you sent the statement you sent to the paper it was almost comical so i would just simply say in the future to this whole camp who on this council you asked for a show of hands who on this council thinks it's appropriate in a four three tie for a sitting council member as a prevailing part of those four those four people to send a message to an applicant be it whatever median through paper through an email that says hey i may need something to get some clarity or i may have to reconsider if it's not enforceable and i want to address the enforceability issue you and your email to me even said i stood down on enforceability measures so you were trying even in the meeting you said i'm going to add this amendment with no penalty so i'm going to go to my question are we saying today that this council is okay is okay and we're not going to have a debate on this i mean this is going to be it because you had a chance to speak and i've had a chance to speak and i've said everything factual that i said last time except my commentary now i'm not going to accuse you of anything nefarious or intentional and if you want to take it to that place that's fair enough i've been doing this for 10 years i've never ever seen anything like this and i've never seen the kind of visceral hateful emails that have come to me based upon this in my 10 years on council based on no information based on no fact i asked you in that meeting have you seen the memorandum of understanding and you said no so i just sent it to you and you said thank you so if you want to try to spin it like i'm lobbying that's disingenuous you and i know the truth about that and we're putting it out all here so when i look at this imbalance of power that's my concern so i go back to my question i will raise my hand first i don't think prevailing council members in a four three vote should be contacting the recipient of that vote asking for additional things that were not in the ordinance and coupling it with a motion to reconsider i don't think that's appropriate i'm not saying that's what you did i'm saying that's not neither do i and it's not what i did it's disingenuous if you frame it that way sir yes well that's that's fine council member melser all i know is i see in this in this article and in your email i see that i will look at this form and if i have no need to make a motion or i have no need to reconsider the motion so that's where we're leaving it you know i mean you i'm going to let you have the last word i'm going to let you have the last word because i've said everything i need to say and and if you've got some facts that you want to add to that instead of opinion boy i'm more than willing to listen to them but if you're going to start going down the road of what people say about me and in in in private of how they think that i'm doing something nefar ious i've simply stuck to the facts that were presented and if you can do that more willing to let you talk if you 're not then i'm not you uh claim to stick to the facts and i know you're very passionate about this as you've demonstrated and i agree with you if someone had done what you said i i raised my hand right with you okay right because what it says what you said actually and what you quoted me as saying is i will consult with the attorney what i said i did is i consulted with the attorney i did not reach out to the applicant the applicant reached out to me i said don't send things to me send them to the attorney so so those are the facts i'm sorry council member melser those are the facts that's the problem that's the ask it doesn't matter if you talk to the city attorney it doesn't matter whether you the ask was there the applicant's calling what's surprising to me you're a smart guy you're not getting what i'm saying you think that i'm trying to say that you did something ne farious or that you did something i'm just simply saying there was an ask coupled with a communication of a potential motion to reconsider i don't care if the documents went to you or to the city attorney i don't care if you considered those documents and to me it was the ask that's the problem that's the problem and i don't there wasn't an ask okay all right that's fair enough no we're if if if it's about his and my conversation we're going to move on to best practices but if it's if you have something else besides this we're good so go ahead yes council member armature i think this counts as best practices um i was just going to say so that was awkward i think for you know uh well i can't speak for anybody else but myself but i think in the future um i think such such discussions uh and i'm not talking about councilmember melter's decision to to um to respond i i completely under i completely understand that um and i said i wanted him to have an opportunity to respond to that meeting on monday several several several times um but just to say kind of going forward that uh i i would like to not see anything like this happen again where we have a um a discussion about a or an agenda posting about a motion to sorry an agenda posting about a refusal to reconsider and then we find out that it 's not really uh to reconsider and we're told that there we were supposed to give direction on it and it turns out we're not supposed to so i feel like i mean this is a good reminder of why we you know we have um our our boring old rules and our rober ts rules and and things like that so uh we don't end up making up the rules as we go along and and and go off track um and so i understand and i'm not fault faulting you uh councilmember melzer it's um i mean you gotta respond um what rule are you saying was broken councilmembrometer oh well just i i maybe i shouldn't say rules but the procedure you know i mean it's it's unusual what procedure you saying was was was uh i just not followed or that was broken well to me it was new to the idea of having a work session item about a um the mayor's refusal to sign an ordinance uh where we're supposed to give direction on that to me that was unusual uh and so i i came and prepared for that and then to find out that um uh that my expectation that what we were gonna get you know it was what was on um on the agenda posting was uh out of out of line um and anyway i i just feel that had had that meeting not been had at all uh that would have been better um and if these things been worked out privately and and if and then i'll add no no i'm sorry i'm just gonna finish my statement just to say that i think that when people have because i've hearing accusations back and forth that's very awkward and this is not a venue for that um so you know we have an ethics ordinance it hasn't been really tested yet we have that venue for that and that has its own set of rules and if people want to file ethics complaints then they can but uh it it makes me really nervous you know we've got under robert's rules we're supposed to call out point of order when people are questioning people's motives and i think this is a good example um of why why we're not supposed to be doing that you know starting with that for the what ended up being the the content of that first meeting so that's all thank you sure council member breaks best practices yes i think for me what i i think meeting with a developer ahead of a vote to get clarity or information to see um before the original vote like an item comes up to have certain questions answered um it is fine i mean i i've done that and i choose to do certain people and certain people i don't um but after a vote has been taken if there was a tie vote or reconsider vote i think going forward that um all the information should have been asked in the previous meeting and shouldn't be individualized by a phone call or a meeting especially if that person is you know the one to reconsider or the one who is the the swing vote um just from my personal experience the only reconsider vote that i asked for um was for the car wash and in no meeting or whatsoever after i did that did i call the developer and say you know if you could lower your tower or if you could you know raise your wall or if you could do that then i won't reconsider and i don't i don't think that i should be at liberty to do that i just don't think that's right um and so i want to go on record saying that from my perspective um that to me is an abuse of of power to kind of use that as a negotiation negotiation to get someone to do something i'm not i don't know what went on here i'm just from me from my perspective um that was a decision and choice that i made not to do um and i would like for other council members to to to follow the same the same suit in those situations okay that's member duff yeah i you know in general i will i will have a meeting with with developers and my main goal there is to listen to what they're telling me and i may ask a few questions uh and you know and i've had them call me you know before a vote but i don't make any commitments or anything else i just listen to what they have to say and that's it and i don't think i don't think there's anything wrong with that this is before an original vote this is before the original vote are you talking about i've had some i've had some call me on after votes okay but still you know uh i take the call and i listen to them but i don 't you know at that point i'm not asking any questions i'm just listening what they have to say i'm not going to i'm not going to ask any questions at that point mayor protin i agree with that and normally when i do meet with whether it's a developer or a concerned citizen homeowner nearby which i've done on several items as well i always start out the conversation with i'm one of seven that changes when it's a four three vote you are the one and that's why that's that under best practices should not be done in my opinion comes from a husband any comments no no i'm always right so i and i do it live and in person so i i'm i'm good thank you all right council member i mean sit mr manager did you have any comments i think you i think your suggestion was also the best practices aspect so i wanted to hear if you had any comments or direction or observations i've got a lot um i've seen this play out many times before and you know i i think it's important for the council now i mean i think my definition of best practice is to have some kind of a log or staffer with any of you when you meet with the developer what you saw in this last instance i mean this happens every time when somebody is afraid they might lose a project or whatever and they need to turn that one vote they will do anything they will say anything and they're scared they've got millions of dollars in this case riding on it and it is so easy for any one of you to get caught up in something you know in this particular case i i i see the good in in all of you i have to i work with all of you i know you're i know you're all good people but it is so easy for a word to get bent an intention to get misplaced and in my broader concern and why i like the the idea of documenting interactions is it immediately changes the conversation with the developer there's a note that's made i've had when i was in arizona we actually kept logs of those meetings and they were attached to council reports and we had a very active pack there though that was funding council races and that sort of thing and we did it for full transparency and you know there's lots of ways you can deal with this but i just want to kind of put out here for the council to chew on this you've all to a person been on me for two years about our development processes about getting people through those processes about getting rid of the bureaucracy the crazy rules the conflicting rules the contradictory practices and we're we've been moving heaven and earth to try to make that happen it's been a huge issue and as you all know this is not healthy for the development community and the public to see you tri pped up like this it doesn't inspire confidence that people can bring projects in and get them through the process quickly without pause it makes it look overly political and i can fix the administrative side you have to help me by straight jacketing the politics because once people know what the rules are from both administrative side and how we're going to behave as a council i can send a very firm commitment to the development community but this does not help having articles written about these types of scenarios for our reputation for those of you who want to see development a developer can't come in and know where the rules are won't know there's there's not and i think we've got an opportunity here to really learn and set a new tone moving forward about how we're going to behave what the rules are going to be and i'm already working on that from a staff perspective i'm really proud of where we're at and we've got a ways to go but i just want all of you to sort of think about it all works it's a big equilibrium right and the more the more press that's put on this the worse we look and that is nobody's goal on this council so i would urge you you know to adopt moving forward some kind of a practice to have either a staffer with you that can document a conversation or to at least let us know if you've met with someone and we can put it out there because i firmly believe that any asks of these development of the development community all seven of you need to know what's going on you owe that to each other if we can invoke some civility and transparency and more importantly so you know some consistent guidance to developers this is going to happen again and again so call it best practices but this is something i've encountered in literally every city i've been in and i think there's only the only way you deal with it is through reporting but that's that's kind of my comments on it and i'm happy to answer anything i'll withhold my other editorialism yes council member armater um i just want to say i support that idea uh of uh reporting um having some um method in place most most importantly uh for the public is that is good for the public um but of course it's also good for us and it's also good better for the for the development uh community and yeah i i don't like reading about this kind of thing in the paper which is how i read about a lot of a lot of these things um rather i should say i don't like finding out about this for the first time in in the paper um when we're having uh uh these you know public meetings so i think um moving forward that's a great way to turn you know an unpleasant awkward experience like this into a learning opportunity and uh so i i hope we can really move move forward and and uh and do something about that so the there's a proposal out on the table of somehow finding a reporting mechanism for meetings with between council members and people who have business before the council whatever that be applicants whoever um i don't know if we're going to hammer that out right here so uh if the direction of the council is to have the city manager maybe come up with some some options a menu of options that this council could decide on uh or not on how we want to move forward with that with that particular area of best practices is that we okay with that council member husbeth um yes but i think um my only hang up is that i don't think it gets fixed but i i've touched on this every time we have this conversation there's no way around it that i see and i understand the process needs to be there but every recall vote is a private reflection there's no transparency in it at all can't be because we're gone and it's an individual member's right to do so and so absent a fix for that it that's the key because everyone's made their point you know where everyone stands you know where everyone sits in the beginning you're one of seven afterwards you know exactly where everyone is you know exactly where everyone's pain points you go back in private and either private reflection reflection with someone else whatever it is that's a decision made outside of this audience that has no checks and balances for it and until you fix that what you do at the beginning of the process is move you you're at a greater advantage to vote yes for everything and then you can bring back everything you know it just it's unbelievable that that's okay and i don't know the fix for it because i understand that it needs to exist but we can't be naive to think that the pre-meeting issue is the issue the problem is everyone's declared a position and now i'm going to use that to my advantage and there's no fix for it that i can see i've been racking my brain and so i'm absolutely all in for i think the city manager's experience will be fantastic it'll help us be better about it but until there's some fix for that private do-over i just i don't know if i think we're spending our wealth and i i've watched this council a long time and we've had three two three and and this short stint i mean it is it is absolutely gaining momentum the wrong way and i don't know how to fix it but it's it's problematic councilman melser i i think there's a lot of truth in what council member hudspeth has said and i think that there might be a way to do it with rules that you know require for reconsideration that's you don't want to not have it because things can go wrong you know where it's needed and i agree with you that i you kind of imagine it'd be less frequent but there would have to be based on either something in the session that was you know the kind of uh that everybody saw that went wrong you know procedural error or something or wrong ruling on a parliamentary thing or something like that uh you know or a material development that is uh you know that is shared with everyone but it's you know can't just be because i want to and because i'm in the majority so i i think you know i take your point yes mayor protin well i i think as far as meeting with developers that's an easy fix our calendars get turned over to someone in the staff we just sent an email saying hey put this on my calendar on this date it's the phone conversations that are going to be the difficult thing to try and monitor and keep control of because i i don't know who all had a phone call from the developer the morning after the the tie vote but you know i know they called me i listened to what they had to say and said and you heard what i had to say last night and that's those are my concerns you know if you can iron those out then we'll we can look at it different but that's that's the tough one is how do you handle the phone calls i think a couple things i i think the just just a quick note that you know where we can inform all of you what's going on i mean it's basic respect for all of you i think i think what really upsets council members and i guess it should is when you feel like different people are getting played differently and you don't know what the rules are and i think on the flip side what council member hudspeth is saying i guess i'd like to amplify a little bit more not that he ever needs amplifying but um you know the the motion for reconsideration i i get that there's times where something might have been misunderstood we've also um you know i i get that there's those times but i would just urge the council you know what we need what we need from the council is the ability to rely upon your input because when we're sitting in meetings giving development community some direction we study all of you we know what your ticks are i i know i know exactly you know what what you're going to say pretty much before you say it and and there's a lot of direction there and the development community needs to be able to rely on us and that that continuity the consistency of your behavior the consistency of your direction is important because if if the development community particularly if you 're if we're we're looking at you know all of us want to see you know better paying jobs all of us want to see more diverse you know tax base here if they can't rely on you you know being done when a vote's taken that there is nothing i can fix from a process perspective it's going to overcome that and there are always going to be exceptions to to something like that and i get it and you know i kind of i look at the the car wash thing a little differently it's 20 years old memories have faded i i you know and you haven't had to deal with stuff like that but it's really important that we be able to communicate with some consistency and be able to sort of predict that hey you know if you follow the rules if you um you know you're going to have to overcome these things this is generally what we think you're going to hear and then they can hear your your viewpoints together but they need to the development community needs to be able to rely on the fact that once a vote's taken unless there's something really wrong then they can move on because they all talk to each other they all share experiences you know and and you know that that is just it's just a very small world and and it's just as it is with the staff perspective if they're having terrible relationships or interactions with staff they all know it they all hear about it so it's just really important that and i and i i totally agree with council member ryan as well you're never going to fix all the phone calls but there's got to be a level of civility and trust amongst all of you that if we put a process in place we're all going to agree that we're going to honor it and you at the end of the day we're all self-policing me as well as all of you yes council member breaks well i agree and i would also like to challenge staff and the legal department as well to make sure that council is completely prepared we have everything we need we have all options on the table what our legal options are at the moment what we can do and what we can't do so that that opportunity doesn't pass us by and i would agree with you that we can you know eliminate a lot of what has happened if those things are in place and i will share with you the city attorney and i have frequent conversations about past agreements where mistakes have been made kind of we're constantly whether it's purchasing or zoning issues or advice constantly trying to iron out those that background and and and teach staff from that as well so it's an ongoing thing but i think things are getting better so so then the direction is to bring back sort of a series of menu options for either reporting mechanism or some hard fast rules about if there's a motion to read it after a vote that there's very little if any contact with the recipient of that or if there is there should be some reporting mechanism that goes out to the entire council just whatever you think is you've seen in your experience the mere the mere fact that a petitioner knows that that reporting mechanism is going on to all seven of you will stop it right so it just will stop it just like passing an ethics ordinance had that impact as well okay anything else on this agenda item any other best practices that you can think of no we'll bring you back some ideas and uh and get your input on it in the next meeting or two all right great any other questions comments fantastic all right we will now that concludes our work session agenda items and it is we will now convene the closed session oh council member well i just had a request for the closed sessions um the honorable judge is here and he's the last one and i wondered if we can move that closed session item up just because he's here so he doesn't have to okay sure let me so you're saying okay he's b wait d that's it it's out of order yeah oh okay yeah i'm like so i looked down and saw that it was so he's b so you want to you want to move him to the front okay well well if he was c i definitely would have um but i don't know how long that was i mean just in honor of his time i don't know can we can we put push him how long is yours going to take george okay let's just let's keep the agenda as it is okay yes yes just for clarification i know that council member melzer asked for closed session related to the filling of the municipal judge position yes are you going to require the judge to be there as well or possibly so that we can move that item as well to the front [Music] welcome everybody to this meeting of the dent city council on Tuesday October the 9th 2018 we do have a quorum if you would stand for our first agenda item which is pledge of allegiance to the u.s and texas flag [Music] okay we've got some proclamations the first one is peter bill pride in class day whoever's here for that come on down give y'all a chance to introduce yourselves and then someone tell us about the peter bill class and pride day i'm pat sherman with dat q and we're co-sponsoring at the peter bill pride in class parade hi my name is jan lane galeis i'm with peter bill orders company gary henderson ceo united way of denton county so what is uh peter bill pride in class day what are we celebrating here so peter bill pride in class day is a day that we've we've pulled together in concert with united way of denton county and that q our co- sponsor what we're doing is we're having our which is now our third annual pride in class parade the intent of the parade is really to bring recognition and awareness to united way of denton county we're peter bill is a strong partner with united way of denton county and every year in concert with our we're trying to do this every year now in concert with our open house our employee open house we bring in like 50 55 custom trucks and this is our opportunity to bring them around the the square in an effort to bring awareness and raise some funds for united way of denton county it's a wonderful event if you haven't seen it it's amazing what they can do with the trucks and i before i read the proclamation i just really want to thank the three organizations that are represented up here i want to thank dat q for just your commitment for many many years to this community and your continued commitment so thank you so much and for peter bill how much can we say about what your company brings to our town both in its opportunities for employment and also for your just philanthropy as a corporation and then of course the united way for bringing all this together to really help those in the agencies in denton county that really help those who who are less fortunate some of us are and to help people get back to a sustainable place of life so this is a great group up here so i just want to thank you guys for being here and just your involvement uh this is a proclamation by the mayor of the city of dent on whereas peter built motors company and its employees have donated over 6.1 million dollars over the last 16 years i'm going to read that first sentence one more time because that's quite remarkable whereas peter built motors company and its employees have donated over 6.1 million dollars over the last 16 years to improve and restore lives of people in denton county through their annual united way of denton county workplace campaign and whereas peter built motors company employees regularly excuse me whereas peter built motors company employees regularly volunteer their time and talent to serve local non-profit organizations as board members and dedicated volunteers and whereas peter built motors company employees host the annual pride in class peter built show truck parade around the denton square to raise awareness and donations for united way of denton county and its partners whereas 50 peter built show truck operators will donate their time on october the 12th to support peter built motor companies philanthropic efforts and whereas peter built motors company provides an exemplary example of corporate social responsibility and commitment to giving back to our community now therefore i chris watts mayor of the city of denton tex as do hereby and proclaim october the 12th 2018 as peter built pride in class day here in denton and urge all citizens to join united way of denton county in recognizing peter built motors company and its employees for their continued commitment to our community so thank you so much thank all of you and seriously if you haven't seen it come out because it is quite a sight to see friday night at the square thank you so much thank you you bet thank you first christian church of denton's 150th anniversary morning good afternoon good evening i don't even know what time is introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about why we're here i'm joanne boyd i'm the coordinator of this event um the church has been in this community for 150 years since 1868 and uh we thought it was cause for celebration absolutely thank you this is a proclamation by the mayor of the city of denton whereas first christian church of denton has been an integral part of denton since 1868 just 11 years after the city was established in 1857 and whereas first christian church of denton endured endured several moves within the city during the church's early years including meeting in the courthouse and serving as headquarters for the red cross during world war one i didn't know that and whereas the church looked to the future in 1956 first trick first christian church of denton purchased land on fulton street as its final location even to this day and whereas in 1959 a new church was built designed by distinguished texas architect o'neill ford and in 1997 the church received a plaque from the texas historical commission honoring its history and years of service in denton and whereas through the years as new additions were made to the facility to accommodate a growing congregation congregation the church expanded its ministry to the community and today supports 10 or more wellness recovery and support groups as well as the salvation army interfaith ministries denton community food bank and others now therefore i chris watts mayor of the city of denton texas do hereby recognize october the 21st 2018 as first christian church of denton's 150th anniversary and join and encourage denton residents and join with its members both past and present in celebrating its 150th anniversary honoring the past and inspiring the future so thank you so much for that is there an event or a day or yes yes please i would be glad to invite you uh that's a sunday so we have worship service at 10 50 and then in the afternoon at two o'clock we're going to have another service with music and um a few of the pastors of the past will be there but it will be a relaxed time so you're all invited we'd love to have you where the church with the weird roof if you don't know on f ulton street thank you let's give a big round of applause thank you so much thank you public power week y'all come on down we're going to give you a chance to introduce yourselves that's wonderful i guess nothing on tv tonight okay we're going to start the mic around and just sort of tell us who you are and what you do i'm brandon farmer and i run a service truck for dme i'm randy key and i run a service truck for d me also sean richards uh overhead maintenance crew rowdy patterson lion superintendent cliff not crew for me joseph candelario journeyman lineman brian borg plant operator at denton energy center kevin griffin operation supervisor denton energy center jason brown plant manager denton energy center john goal control room operator at denton energy center tom garcia mechanic denton energy center bren heath executive manager for energy delivery smith day manager regulatory and risk elizabeth ruiz key accounts customer programs administrator blake thomas plant operator denton energy center steve borel i'm a operator at the denton energy center arthur pondo instrument and controls technician denton energy center neat fox plant mechanic denton energy center and george morrill general manager of denton municipal electric and mayor on behalf of these employees and our more than 200 employees here in denton i want to thank the council and you for recognizing us in public power week just a little bit of trivia the electric electric business in denton started in 1892 when robert story built an electric plant there on the southwest corner of bell and hickory and we bought it the city decided to buy it in 1905 and back in those days they rang a bell as it got dark and said hey the power plant's going to be on we only ran just for a few hours each night and so we've come a long way and we're proud to be part of 2000 public power utilities and in fact we have a large number of folks that couldn't be here today because they're catching up on their sleep because they're heading to florida tomorrow for hurricane michael restoration work so thank you again no thank you all because i know the most recent story that i i really appreciated the work that you all do is i guess it was four or five six months ago maybe in the spring storm came through and laid down some lines on bonnie bray street there by the university of north texas practice field and so when i drove by everybody was just arriving when i ran a couple errands for a couple hours came back new polls were up i mean it was just phenomenal the the work that that you all did so thank you so much for your service to our community and you are the people behind the scenes that help us enjoy the quality of life we have with electricity so thank you so much it's with honor that i present this proclamation whereas we the citizens of the city of denton texas place high value on local control over community services and they have chosen to operate a community-owned not-for-profit electric utility as customers and owners of our electric utility have a direct say in utility operations and policies whereas dent municipal electric provides our homes businesses farms and social service and local government agencies with reliable efficient and cost effective electricity employing sound business practices designed to ensure the best possible service at not-for- profit rates and whereas dent municipal electric is a valuable community asset that contributes to the well-being of local citizens through energy efficiency customer service environmental protection economic development and safety and awareness and whereas dent municipal electric is a dependable and trustworthy institution whose local operations provide many consumer protections and continue to make our community a better place to live and work and contributes to protecting the global environment and whereas the city of dent municipal electric will continue to bring excuse me will continue to work to bring low cost safe reliable electricity to community homes and businesses just as it has since 1905 the year when the utility was created to serve all the citizens of the city of dentin now therefore i chris watz mayor of the city of dentin texas do hereby declare and proclaim the week of october the 7th 2018 through october the 13th 2018 as public power week and recognize dent municipal electric for its contributions to the community and to educating customer owners policymakers and employees of the benefits of public power so thank you all so much for serving our community okay i do have a trivia question okay you said the first power plant was at the corner of southwest corner of bell and hickory what is there now fire fire station 7-eleven no because we did convert it yes yeah so i just wanted to make sure so thank you all so much for what you do yep all right thank you thank you you bet okay our next agenda item will be a presentation from members of the public agenda item a is review of procedures for addressing the city council and the rules of procedure the city council has adopted rules of procedure including a code of conduct that applies to citizens as well as council members these rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decorum here is a brief review of the rules that apply to citizen reports citizens will have four minutes to give a scheduled citizen report and four minutes to give an open mic report there will be an electronic bell when time has expired if the remarks are not concluded by that time the citizen will be asked to stop speaking if the citizen does not cease and a second request is made the mayor will request to have the citizen removed from the council chamber citizens are asked not to approach the dais if a citizen has papers or other materials to hand out to the council please let the city secretary know in advance for scheduled citizen reports the council may initiate discussion or questions following each citizen report for non-scheduled open mic citizen reports the council may listen to citizens speak however because no notice of the subject of the open mic report has been provided to the public in advance the texas open meetings act limits any deliberation or decision by the council to a proposal to place the item on a future agenda a statement of factual policy or a recitation of existing policy citizens are asked to direct all remarks and questions to the council as a whole and not to any individual member please refrain from making abusive personal impertinent profane or slanderous remarks anyone who violates this council rule of procedure may be immediately removed from the council chamber thank you in advance copies of the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary okay our first speaker speaker is pat smith regarding new market tax credits tax credits good evening council my name is pat smith i live at 1417 cambridge lane i want to talk to you about an opportunity that our city has that we have only recently begun to take advantage of the idea of new market tax credits was first developed in the clinton administration was approved in the bush administration has been in existence for 18 years this is a map that you may have never seen before it is a map of denton with three shades of color the yellow areas are areas that are eligible for funding for new market tax credits which i'll explain in a minute the areas in red are considered highly qualified areas for these same types of tax credits you'll notice all of downtown as well as southeast end and southwest end are eligible for this type of funding we are only one of two areas in all of denton county that can use this kind of funding that comes through the irs as essentially a forgivable loan the new market tax credit program essentially offers businesses the opportunity to earn a 39 tax credit by investing in low-income communities these this investment is in the form of a forgivable loan the interest is prepaid at closing and then at the end of seven years the principle is forgiven the funding can range from 17 to 20 percent of a total project's value that includes the land design construction furniture and equipment and it allows also other sorts of funding to be used to help bring dollars forward through bridge funding or me zzanine funding there's a variety of different projects that be can be accomplished with new markets from hospitals to grocery stores to food banks industrial manufacturing community centers retail and municipal buildings serve denton is in the process of closing on the first new market tax credit deal in denton county it's a 9.6 million dollar deal that will bring 1.8 million dollars of outside funding into denton that's not money that we've had to go raise it's money that's being invested in denton and will be forgiven so let me give you an example of how this could impact the our community if you were to take the villa soccer complex and the numbers the breakout of the numbers is notional but the total dollar amount is pretty accurate 6.9 million dollar project between acquisition development costs construction and equipment here that's a total amount using bond funding 5.5 million dollars would be required instead of the whole 6.9 and you could bring in 1.4 million dollars of outside funding which then completes the project that funding that you see there is net of the transaction costs which are usually in the neighborhood of 800 to 800 to 900 thousand dollars so what that means is 1.4 million dollars can go towards other needs like streets that you all could use instead of having to use bond money you could use outside investment to accomplish that work so what i'm asking for your consideration is that we be able to have a more in-depth explanation on the new market tax credit program and that city city staff would have an opportunity to look at some projects for fitness identify potential stakeholders and then if you all deem appropriate consider hiring a consultant that specializes in these top projects to do a feasibility study i'll tell you i'm talking to other business owners in dent on that are doing projects like the fine arts theater a lot of new market tax credit projects are done for those kinds of projects where we stack historic tax credits on top of the new market tax credits and are able to use that create those creative funding mechanisms to reduce the amount of capital that projects have to raise all right any questions for speaker council member briggs where did you first learn about the tax credits i first learned about when i was in the air force and i worked on some fairly large real estate development projects and then as we were starting to look at a new location for serve denton we revisited that and we chose our locations very specifically to take advantage of this program and so governments nonprofits developers all can apply there's not any yep okay thank you yep council member arthur so first of all thank you for calling my attention to this issue which this opportunity that i didn't know about um and uh so i'm gonna ask you a question you might not know the answer to but that's fine it sounds like you've done a lot of research though can can it be used for uh for housing it can in certain circumstances um not for uh certain affordable housing programs through hud but there's other affordable housing programs that can be used new markets can be used and for example phase five and six of our property will tool includes some housing we've already talked to our investor which is us bank and they're interested in using new markets along with other affordable housing tax credits to do that housing project excellent excellent can i ask a follow-up sure follow-up question uh are you aware is is there any uh protocol for the extent to which members of the community get to be involved in that pro that you know that that project or is that up to the municipality or or uh totally up to the um whatever whoever the private or public entity is that's is doing this tech credit it's really up to that entity that's putting the project together to figure out who will play a role for served and we brought in all of our non-profit partners to play a role and they contributed funding as part of that and so it's really the key is to build a team build a team early it takes a while to do this it takes some uh homework up front uh but the benefit is is one you get free dollars that's what we're talking here and really the opportunity to bring in outside investment that we normally wouldn't get any other way just for welcome council member hudspeth thank you pat could you uh once again thank you for the presentation uh could you touch on a couple of things one the consultant fee and then two the timing of it because living in in um southeast it and myself there there's a the winds of change have blown uh and reached uh us and and it's you you see a transition so i i'd love to get your thoughts on the timing of it and why and then also touch on the consulting fees and then i guess the the end of that is uh mr city manager i don't know what that process is to evaluate um this option as far as our list of work sessions but i'd like to trigger whatever that is that gets it considered so the first question consultant fee is 25 000 upfront uh they make the most of their fee at closing so they're incentivized to close uh that fee is a couple hundred thousand dollars but i will show you they've earned it by the time we get to closing so it's a minimal cost up front in terms of timing that's a great question uh these allocations come out about once a year the bill or the program is reauthorized every five years the next allocation is expected to be released in december of this year uh and with a target closing by next june we're that's probably too soon for us as a community the next allocation after that will be december 2019 that'll be the last round of allocation in the current authorization so then we'll have to go back to congress for congress to reauthorize it for another five years in 2020 that's a key date because all this is tied to census tracts we can expect that map to change significantly because of the growth that we've seen over the last 10 years will it shrink it most likely will shrink some there'll still be some areas will downtown be in that area no no one can really tell you at this point but the point i'm trying to make there is it would be really behoove our us as a community to try and get a project in for the december 2019 allocation and that's enough time to put together the team to do the due diligence and to have something that's ready to go that would be advantageous for the community council member melzer uh mr city attorney please let me know if i if this is out of order at this time but i'd like to suggest that we start with an informal staff report on new market tax credits and specifically well how they work but also what city projects might be eligible whether it's city hall west or vela or whatever you're okay council member i'm sorry the the caption under b includes a provision that allows the council to request more information or provide a future of work session for council if it chooses to do so i if i could interrupt that's all right with the protocol wise here's a suggested list of projects i thought you might want to consider try to be a good attorney and expect the question before the you guys ask it so here's a whole list of projects all of which would be very competitive for new market tax credits and you know i'm not saying we do all of them served up we'll do ours but i would say take one or two of those and pursue those diligently and and see what comes back so quick question is there um so you say there's alloc ations so there's a limit as to is there a community limit so it's just whatever applications get accepted it doesn't there's not a cap on correct how much a community gets out correct let me give you a real quick example of that if i can sure of course so the city of san antonio was wanting to come have a new children's advocacy center for that community and the children's app they went to the children's advocacy center and they put together a project it was about a 28 million dollar project that included buying land in south san antonio along i-10 and houston street if you're along familiar with that right along solado creek they went in bought the land they raised the money for the building and the new market tax credits and the tune of about five million dollars were invested and turned all that property that was bought 12 acres two of it went to the building 10 was used to create a park that was dated back to the city so the city got a brand new park in a low-income neighborhood at no cost right great great mayor potem you have the last word thank you mayor uh being on served in board i greatly appreciate you bringing this forward i know we've learned a lot about this on on the board uh can you explain the minimum and how that works on a project yeah the minimum is a minute really about five million dollars and that's probably cutting a little too close you want something in the six to seven million dollar range to justify the amount of fixed costs that go into fees for attorneys accountants and consultants but after that you know projects as i mentioned the 20 to 30 million dollar range are not uh any way off the table but at least five million dollars fantastic thank you so much for bringing this to our attention your work uh was served in and what y 'all been able to accomplish out there thank you so much and look forward to the information as it gets compiled our next speaker is dorothy kuhn regarding smart city denton for all dentonites state your name and address and your time will begin hello my name is dorothy kuhn i live at 521 roberts street uh smart city denton you all have these remarks but i'll read them in the record i come before you with a long history of being in the nexus of transforming fortune 500 to fortune 50 companies to better their future and help them better serve their customers the city of denton is not only smart it's known for its energy technology and its innovative recycling and green power partnerships in a time when this very week the world's leading climate scientists warned that there are only 12 years left to avoid catastrophic environmental breakdown combating global warming while improving the lives of dent onite sounds like a pretty good deal it's useful it's a noble goal and one we owe to our children but how do we know we're on track to get there and how do we know that we get there this was the problem i and my team solved again and again in some of the nation's largest companies from texas instruments to bank of america and more companies that took the time up front to learn the problems that their people faced regularly these organizations bested the competition at the lowest cost um sorry i don't have my glasses i gotta look at this at the lowest cost and got the best results uh and by contrast competitors who looked at technologies and gave into sales pitches without having a vision and a strategy spent the most and got poor results or worse they they got those poor results because they weren't on point they didn't know what the point was for them so as a smart city and on the path to a smarter one then specifically what would denton's goal be uh similar to companies the most successful smart cities around the globe choose their north star so to speak what's by what solves the citizens problems from the bottom up without this solutions are disconnected from citizens needs and prey to large it and hardware providers who very naturally aspire to make sales that's just normal and uh sometimes they can become the only winners when we 're not strategic about what we want so as leaders you can take a guess at what people want is kind of a gamble uh and how do we how do how do you as an accountable city council and the stewards of our public monies how do you come to know what's the most likely way for denny to be proud of our city going forward and into the future want to live here as as we grow and able to make a good living here and even better stay in denton uh so smart cities do use data and technology to create efficiencies improve sustainability create economic development and enhance quality of life factors for people living in and working in the city this also means that the city has a smarter energy infrastructure so the way to go about this is is to ask our citizens and those who work here to ask them what would enhance their quality of life factors ask them what are those big factors that get in their way and sometimes even stop them ask them what would a solution look like that could work for them and ask them what would what would that allow them to do that's important in their lives and for their futures we learn from their responses and from these learnings craft a second round of questions to gain further clarity on our north star the point of our smart transformation on such a foundation a useful strategy can then be crafted that serves denny's and those working in the city that serves our collective futures for the good of us all to this end my request for the council members is a work session or an informal staff report thank you any questions council member briggs so i'm so by smart city because it's kind of intertwined here with technology and also the environment so when you say commission here the request because i can say as the chair of the environmental committee we are thinking about establishing an environmental committee or commission that would advise council just as the animal shelter board does and so i kind of see some of the environmental questions and sustainability questions in that type of commission that we're still exploring so i just was kind of wondering if you could that seems like that seems like good alignment there and and the the practical piece out of out of this suggestion uh is is you know so so often as leaders in the city i used to be on planning and zoning and in frisco years ago uh you know we think that we know enough to to make decisions but uh being able to ask the citizens what they need really does uh give us a much better bead on what those what those needs really are we had an example of that uh just in the summer when it was so hot we wanted to have water stations for homeless people and so we we did water stations but the homeless people didn't go to those water stations and those water stations weren't where the homeless people hung out things like that so you want to be able to you know match the need okay thank you council member melzer uh maybe i should know the answer to this my question is for the city manager we have a a pretty broad citizen questionnaire out now or is you know when does that do back and when would results be available i think our speaker would probably find that a good you know first round to look at for which to formulate you know second round questions could be i need to get back uh on the date probably tomorrow i think uh why sarah and jessica tomorrow give us information and i believe that survey is already is it completed now it is completed so we're happy to try to integrate this into some online surveys that we're doing that sort of thing i've also asked uh melissa craft she's going to be attending a smart city conference out in tampa here in a couple weeks as well just to try to learn a little bit more it's a it's fairly amorphous subject that we're trying our hands around so we can explain it to the to the council a little bit easier and also try to get that public input that we've been looking for thank you all right thank you appreciate it thank you this brings us to our open mic section we've got two cards just as a reminder this section uh is council is not allowed to ask questions uh but these uh speakers will be just presenting us with information so the first one is craig clifton if you'll come down state your name and address your time will begin hi my name is craig clifton uh 407 normal street apartment one i'm here to talk about the proposed sro that's going to be built on normal street in scripture this giant human warehouse is tripling the population and it's going to bring in 500 people with their cars and visitors the problem here is the current visitor parking law which only allows for 10 percent of that to be for visitors you let me believe that 450 people are going to be alone that night every night there's no parking on these little bitty residential streets there's no parking at all on brian now you've got to understand they're being allowed to tear up the street health risks there and build this for years and to put in all these people that no other apartments during this century have had to tear up the street or build to destroy that neighborhood well there's a reason they're wanting to destroy that neighborhood because they're planning on putting sros all through there and destroying all the surrounding reasonable priced apartments houses neighborhoods in the area then they'll just be sros how do i know this because a year ago they tried to buy our property in the middle of the street not at the end where they could have put parking while they 're battling for all this parking area so why did the planning not alert you earlier and say hey this is bad for the neighborhood you know tripling the population overnight would probably be bad and then at that time the current visitor parking law could have been changed before any of this came well you've got to go in there and change the visitor parking law that now only adds for 10 percent and this is how you can stop them from do that you got to understand it's going to be all sros because nobody's going to live there anymore there's going to be no reasonable housing and people in these oldest residential and business areas in Denton are just going to be obliterated you can stop this also the way this was pushed through before you all got even if we hadn't seen them taking core samples nobody would have known about this at all and they were very started building well that's because park seven says there's not going to be parking issues because college students don't drive cars well maybe in new york city they don't but here everybody drives a car and that people are just going to walk to this there's not going to be parking problems all their friends and the people they date aren't going to live on the street they're at normal but the problem here is is that i've recently learned that the same justifications and illogical explanations for this why there's not going to be a parking problem where you used verbatim by the denton planning department that's why you didn't hear about it that's what they're saying oh yeah against all reason we'll just regurgitate whatever park seven's been telling you to push this through see what's going on here this is worth billions of dollars to big money people they're going to destroy this entire town and people here in town that own properties rental properties don't want to build sros on their properties if nobody's going to stop them from destroying these neighborhoods you got to put a break on it word on the street is park seven can't believe that this hadn't been stopped yet put a break on it and then change the current visitor parking law and then we won't have this problem they'll just have to build two stories like everyone else and just make a tidy profit and not destroy ditten as we know it thank you thank you next speaker is mr willy hutzpah mayor and council members my name is willy us but i live at 623 newton first off i'm glad that uh the late council person came in because i felt like i didn't have support i have the three musketeers which i'm not allowed to to single them out so i want but one of them that's not in the musketeer rank is uh one that i'm related to and and uh he's not a very nice person he has two very beautiful grandchildren who doesn't look anything like him thank god and uh he didn't bring them around enough so he's not one of the three musketeers i don't ever get the love on my little sweeties much that's a personal problem now um let me talk to you about a couple of things i didn't know about this uh council member whom i can't mention but how about a tax credit for a new fire training center it wasn't on that list we got in this situation because the rules were changed the situation no african-american fire men we got in this situation back in 1990 when the city paid for the training for emts and for firemen and they learned while they were being while they were here and in on the force and then they stopped it once i started complaining about there are no african-americans there or they both coincided i don't know if that one calls the other but i'm telling you i i just let me define for you white privilege in a nutshell on an even playing ground a plane if your skin is a certain color and your hair is a certain texture you don't have to fight as hard for jobs as the others other races that's white privilege let me ask you a question these are things that i sit in my seat out there and i wonder about i've been talking about dme dme for a long time they don't have any african-americans working there in leadership positions i.e. look at the example of who they put it brought up here today not one and i'm so tired of this i 'm tired of this one not one african-american not one and i watch it all the time because guess what look what color i am and the school district is about to get what i think is the only thing to do is a federal lawsuit filed against what's happening now let me just give them some credit or credit to do the fire chief that's there now bless his heart he really sincerely trying to fix what some have done in the past but i keep wondering to myself it was done i'm tired of just saying okay it was done bad people shouldn't have done that and let's move on i can't move on well i can't move on i won't move on so i'm just saying the tax credit might be a way for us to have a win-win and i would suggest we do that i uh my wife asked me why do you keep talking about this stuff i don't know why i keep talking about it i guess it's just i just think i want us all to be equal not in communication and okey-doke as i call it you just talk like we're equal i want you to treat me as an equal in employment and when you deal with me and my people in situations i have to take my hat off to to switch where i'm going because i just thought of compliment the city manager and whoever had the wisdom to hire the police chief and whoever had the hired to hire the fire chief you did a good job i think they're going to be a very good asset to this city and probably helped me quite a bit as well thank you our next item on the agenda is the consent agenda council chair would entertain discussion or motion council member mayor protem i move approval of the consent agenda except for items f and i okay council member briggs i'll second all right we have a motion for approval of the consent agenda except for agenda items for f and 4i which we will consider as motions for individual consideration uh let's vote on the board please okay motion carries seven zero all right we'll take up our agenda item four f uh i believe we've got a couple of recusals here yes council member armatran council member melzer i will call the item consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas the texas home room municipal corporation authorizing the city manager to execute an interlocal cooperative purchasing agreement with the university of north texas we do have a card wishing to speak mr willy husbeth would you like to speak on this matter okay mr husbeth's declined mayor protem with approval of item 4f is there a council member riggs i second we have a motion and second for agenda item 4f let's vote on the board please oh there we go motion carries five zero we will now take up agenda item 4i which is consider approval if somebody could ask the council members to come back on in thank you we'll now call agenda item 4i consider approval of a resolution concerning the transportation of spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste through the city of denton and declaring an effective date and we do have a card wishing to speak on that as well good evening mayor members of council mr heilman is informing me i have no more than five minutes to give this presentation so i'll try to make it brief the item that's before you this evening it regards transportation of high level nuclear waste through the city of denton uh the background on this is related to an item that is currently before the united states nuclear regulatory commission and they are reviewing two applications for what are referred to as consolidated interim storage facilities these facilities are intended to take in the waste from predominantly nuclear power generation facilities that are currently storing that waste on site and consolidated into one area presumably for eventual movement into a permanent storage facility so one of these facilities is in andrews county which is in the county seat of that county is the town of andrews in west texas and then the other one is in leah county new mexico near las cruces and the comment period on these two particular items ends on october the 19th so why don't we bring up the idea of consolidated interim storage facilities in transportation it's related to the fact that we have approximately 90 of these facilities storing material on site east of texas and because of both of these facilities being located generally in the in the panhandle area of tex as and in new mexico it's likely that the transportation routes of at least a pretty good number of these facilities are going to be routed through this area possibly even through the city of dentin these materials are predominantly moved by rail and they are predominantly comprised of uranium and pluton ium from basically what are referred to as independent spent fuel storage installations around the country so because these facilities are a lot of them are on the east coast and there's a good likelihood they'll move through this area the routes have not been established that's not a component of the granting of the of the permits for the consolidated interim storage facilities that will come a little bit later the majority of this transport is expected to be by rail they're in very large specially designed cask that that cannot be moved very easily by any other means there is some possibility of smaller quantities being moved by truck this could because of the amount of storage of that is out there right now involve thousands of these casts over decades and the material will be stored in the consolidated facility until a permanent storage facility is available so those that are in support of this would will make statements to the effect of the transportation is safe the united states nuclear regulatory commission has done a number of assessments on these casts they are heavily involved in the design of them their modeling estimates less than one in a billion chance of a release due to an accident and the argument is that a single consolidated storage facility is safer than many individual city storage facilities around the country those are that are opposed will will state transportation multiple times can increase the risk so you're going to have to move it from the individual storage facility to the consolidated and then presumably from the consolidated elsewhere there the the people that are opposed would generally say it's safer to leave it in place until we truly do have a permanent solution available they acknowledge that release during transportation is very unlikely but the impacts of release if it did occur are obviously concerning and one of the bigger concerns is that a permanent storage facility may not be available at all currently the united states does not have an active permanent facility there's also been mention of possible terrorist attacks during transport so yucca mountain right now is the most likely permanent location it's had many problems it was designated in 1987 approved for funding in congress in 2002 there's significant opposition to this facility at local regional and state levels federal funding did end in 2011 it's currently unfunded and essentially non-operational and there is no other permanent storage facility currently in existence in the united states in the u.s we do not reprocess our spent nuclear generation material and so permanent storage at this point is really our only option so there have been several resolutions that have been put out mainly when these applications were first sent into the nuclear regulatory commission roughly around the first part of 2017 so bear county and oasis dallas county midland county in the city of san antonio all produced resolutions there is a resolution before you this evening for denton i think there 's a couple of key points i want to to bring to your attention the resolution recognizes the city does not have authority to regulate spent nuclear fuel or the transportation of that fuel but acknowledges that the citizens are concerned regarding the transportation of that waste through the city and asks the federal government to enter into a constructive dialogue with the city to consider options clarify any misinformation improve safety surrounding the transportation of that waste and to that effect the resolution urges the federal government to take the following actions holding hearings along any designated routes once they're established fully funding equipping and training first responders to cover potential nuclear waste accidents for the duration of the transportation program providing continual inspection by appropriate authorities for rail and federal and state highway transportation routes and then providing an explanation why this material cannot remain at its existing facility or cannot be moved to a permanent facility and providing a complete explanation of why the spent nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste must be moved multiple times that's pretty much my presentation i'd be glad to answer any questions anyone might have before we go into the questions there's a public card wishing to speak council member hudson quit cursing me with that well the resolution is what i was going to suggest we need we need that at least something we say something in city of denton that this is what we would require and it was pretty accurate let me just state though as a citizen and someone who was in vietnam with that agent orange mess that they put out there to kill the vegetation and they didn't tell us it would kill us as as well sent us out there walking in those jungles now let me tell you who did that this so-called federal government deciding what was good and bad and they didn't tell us now we're yours we're going to now depend on the same federal government now not everybody in the federal government is just somebody i don't know who they are i don't know who in the world sent me over there i didn't want to go but they said you go there go to jail so i had to go anyway you know the thing that just troubles me if the thing if there's an accident my grandkids are gone yours are gone it's just going to be devastating and i just think just for the record i want to say aloud what my fears are scares the heck out of me this again the same government said i was safe to walk through those jungles and now i have diabetes because of it and joint problems wasn't safe and it's the same government that says transporting that stuff through dentin is safe if you have a terrorist let me define terrorism i think allah or whoever is going to be pleased with me giving up my life for this cause so i'm willing to do it i don't know how you fight that so it scares me that you're transporting that stuff through here and then someone designate blows themselves up and and then and then we're all suffering for it you don't have all answers to that i don't either i'm just scared to death of that happening coming through here they made the same proposal to the county when i was up there they don't have any answers now one thing i think is good if they just let us know where the route is going and let us talk about it like they said you we've requested that might be something but uh it's just i'm very concerned i know you are too so i've stated what i need to say name and address you forgot to give us your name and address at the beginning i know you're in braille yeah i know what you said council man that's what you just messed me out yes oh well i didn't even know that look at that man that's yeah willy hutsmith six-story green newton uh the grandparent of two wonderful beautiful children yeah i'm really in that's it's bad yeah i don't even know what i'm saying when i'm saying it um okay i had a couple we have a couple questions councilmemor ometer so first of all so i'm really pleased that there's a resolution on the agenda and that it got in place so quickly so thank you to um uh todd heilman and and ken banks for uh your work in doing that i imagine legal was probably involved somehow so thank you all um i i really like all of the um items here requesting a public hearing uh public hearings plural um i would like to uh there to be a sentence or two added uh to the preamble at the beginning and i want to just read it quickly so that because i imagine that probably most of the public hasn't actually read the ordinance um the resolution sorry um but it says uh where and whereas the the city of denton texas recognizes it does not have any binding authority regarding spent nuclear fuel etc etc whereas the city acknowledges concerns expressed by its citizens regarding the transportation of spent nuclear fuel and high level nuclear waste through our city and whereas the city asked the federal government to enter into constructive dialogue with the city to consider options clarify misinformation and improve safety consider surrounding the transportation of spent nuclear fuel and high level nuclear waste through our city and and and uh whereas it's the desire of denton to communicate these concerns requests to the federal government and then after that you know follows a list of concerns what i feel is is missing from there um is a sentence saying that we don't want this that that we think the license should be denied um we would request that the license should that uh gets denied um there's legitimate cause for that as as you mentioned you know on a slide up here recently that we don't we're not even talking about an operational and funded facility um so uh i think it uh i think we'd be doing the best job of as as public servants of you know protecting the public by putting that sentence in there and i don't see any risk whatsoever in putting that in there is it's a this is after all our opinion has been solicited um so it's not like we're you know challenging anyone in court or anything like that um but to me i feel like if we start off just saying um we'd like to start a dialogue it sounds like and i know it wasn't intended this way it sounds like we're taking it for granted that this is going to happen whereas this is the process by which we are actually invited to express um uh whether or not we we want this for dent and i can't imagine anyone would choose to have you know if it were up to us if it were up to you to have a nuclear cargo um going through your backyard or and i should say or anyone's backyard i i would also prefer for it to say in there um we don't we don't think it should it should go anywhere i certainly don't want it to be in someone else's town either okay all right uh so that's we'll talk about that we got a couple more questions that have signed up councilmember riggs well i think actually you answered my question just in speaking because my question was about um recycled waste and i think you kind of just brushed over it that we don't do that here and because i was wondering if it had already been recycled or if it was waiting to to get recycled because i that's like the future of right currently that's not done in the united states there is no pre-processing it is done in other countries and there's a fairly high recovery rate for the spent material to new material um roughly 90 to 95 percent but we currently do not do that here in the u.s thank you councilmember husspeth the real councilmember h usspeth thank you mr mayor um thanks dr banks uh sure question in there i read about the training aspect or ask or potential avenue there that piqued my interest because so first first question can you compare i think one's low one 's high but can you give me a practical look at uh u.s radio pharmaceuticals right is that the name of so they're gonna they hopefully that process will start next year or so so that training aspect is is appealing to me because we have to manage that process uh or oversee or whatever i roll in and so that education component can then overlay onto this but so my question is your thoughts on the the management of those two the differences in the two materials and and if we could leverage uh this conversation if we get there obviously in a perfect world we don't but no matter what we 're going to have to deal with it there uh in in our town so we might as well try to gain whatever training we can from it and then if you can tell me the difference in the two right um what you're going to see at uh at um u.s radio pharmaceutical is a very low level radioactive ways mainly those are medical isotopes that they're creating they're generally short-lived they're very targeted for specific medical applications and it's going to be a low level of radioactive um uh exposure to those materials they're literally designed for people to get treatments from them so you can imagine that the that it's very targeted and the levels are very low uh the the perhaps a greater challenge of that facility is just going to be the decommissioning because some of the materials in it are going to have higher levels of radioactive um emissions but when you can you compare that to a spent uranium or plutonium uh content from a nuclear reactor that's that's the demarc ation between what would be considered to be low level radioactivity and high level radioactivity the stuff coming out of a nuclear reactor is still quite radioactive so um uh and with regards to uh uh uh our uh first responders emergency personnel here um i don't want to speak for um uh chief hedges but uh they there is training that they already have with regards to dealing with radioactive waste it's just a um you're dealing with it at a different level when you're looking at at these large containers of material and relatively high uh radioactive waste now these these containers i think it's important to point out are designed to be almost indestructible and that's why you see that less than a one one in one billion model chance of a release but uh that doesn't mean it's impossible it just means it's highly unlikely yes uh and i guess thank you very much sure and then mr city manager that to me leads to another question just to make sure it make sure it stays top of mind i think when we're talking about future city hall discussions that sort of thing uh the prospect of our police department if you time it right being shut off from the rest of the city uh is is problematic and so i think that's when we're having those conversations and we're we're vetting reasons to readjust things to me that is uh be you know that that's significant i mean depending on the length of the train and you know what happens where they're they're cut off and that's that's a problem so i know you know that and just to uh repeat that and and ask that that continue to be top of mind as we move forward with future plans for for city buildings that sort of thing council member melzer uh yes dr ranks uh so so it sounds like we're talking about a low probability of a very bad thing happening uh i expect you to know the answer to all questions can you tell us what what would the impact of the low probability very bad thing be what would what would occur that's going to be highly dependent on the on the type of release that happens that's that's what that that's the demarcation between a an accident with essentially no impact and an accident that has some type of impact is the breaching of the of the container um i've gone well beyond my five minutes but i'll go ahead and uh yeah i uh jennifer could you could you put the screen back up you can oh yeah yes so so this is what the containers look like and you can see there's multiple layers that are in there that um that have are designed to contain the material and contain the emissions from the material so if this were breached the material is a solid and the likelihood of it distributing over a wide area is very very small uh the uh it would you can see that it would take a catastrophic accident to actually breach this container and they're they're tested in a wide variety of ways they're burned for days at very high temperature they're submerged for long periods of time uh they have to survive a fall impact that i believe is at 30 or 40 feet straight drop so uh they are designed to be able to withstand almost anything so uh getting back to your original question if a breach occurred and if the material was exposed the amount of impact would be completely related to how much of that material actually escaped that cylinder if it's a small amount that's right there localized the impact is you know the cleanup is going to be certainly something that's going to be comprehensive the impact on the environment and on people is going to be dependent on where it happens who's around how quickly it's uh it is uh uh contained so it's it's very difficult to predict severity um uh but those are some of the factors that would uh that would that would be considered when you're looking at what the overall impact would be ask another sure uh again i expect you to know the answers to all questions or uh do you happen to know are there are there routes that don't go through possible routes that wouldn't go through areas as populated as the city of denton it's a possibility that this map shows you generally where the material is located and where it would have to go to and so you can see that there's a couple of different routes that it that it can go but generally speaking uh with with our area being kind of centrally located for these these predominantly east coast into the central portion of the u.s. you can see up at the upper portion of texas there's probably a pretty decent amount of of the facilities that would go through the panhandling down but i would say that the vast majority of those that are in kind of this very general area here have a a high likelihood of going through right here so again the routes are not established at this point and that will be looked at if the permits are actually granted but at the at the end of the day just looking at the way these are arranged and the likely transportation by rail i'd say a fairly significant amount of those have got a good chance of coming through denton thank you uh council member armatray you're west requesting to speak but also you're identified as a mover okay yeah so i i would like you to speak a little bit to the question of of moving it that is the question of having the transport to begin with and and i'll kind of pre face that by saying that it's my understanding from you know as soon as i heard about this i went and did a lot of reading and talking to people and it's it's my understanding that it does not have to be moved that there's no imperative to move it and that in fact there's an argument and i'm not asking you to i understand you're trying to show you know hear the pros and hear the cons so i'm not asking you to weigh in but uh although if you want to feel free but uh it's you know my uh my understanding anyway is that it there's a really convincing argument i'm convinced that it is safer to keep it wherever it is rather than putting compiling it all together uh and transporting it so in other words it's it's not a matter of well this has to be transported somewhere right so how are we going to do it so anyway so i was wondering if you could just speak to that a little i i think short term you're correct i think long term when you're dealing with a half life of this waste it will eventually have to be the ultimate goal would to be getting it moved to a place that will be able to accommodate it for the entire time that it's going to be dangerous and i think that um you know if you just want my opinion for what it's worth uh it will eventually have to be moved over the out of those facilities because we're talking at a extremely long period of time and it doesn't uh it doesn't make sense to keep something that has a potential half life of at least many thousands of years plus distributed all around at these kind of temporary storage facilities so short term you know until we get a permanent uh facility to dispose of it i think it could stay at these at these interim facilities especially if they're hardened for longer term uh storage um the argument is it could be argued either way does it make sense to move it to a consolidated area that's kind of hardened now a more um comprehensive way of storing it and move it here now and then move it to the permanent one later or leave it where it's at and it can be argued either way but i think that everyone that deals with this issue realizes that at some point a permanent solution is going to have to be created and then at that point that material is going to have to be moved and thank you and i 'll just i'll follow up by saying that that totally uh corroborates what my understanding as well that i'm talking about in the short term but yes you're right in the in the long term and um but and as you understand it is it so it's true that this is not um that there is no permanent uh storage facility right now it is that that uh statement is correct and that it is unfunded and that that's correct i mean at this point yucca mountain is probably the most likely facility but at this point it is not funded and is for all intents and purposes not capable of serving as that permanent location thank you thank you very much cast member armater yes so i would like to move um to uh make a friendly amendment to add well you're the movement so you can have it as a condition on your motion yeah condition okay yeah have it okay condition condition on the motion then um to uh add uh to have the the resolution as it is with a sentence or two making clear that uh we um don't think this is necessary right now and i mean there are a number of different ways to word it um i'm open to uh whatever wording just gets the point across you know we don't want this is not necessary now i think would like to see the license denied whatever i don't want to do the words miffing here necessarily but just something that's that's clear to show not only the people team we're communicating but uh but also the public that you know hey we've we've got your back we're we're being really clear about this okay uh mr city attorney i just want to make sure that that language that you're requesting as part of your motion do you want that in section one of the resolution that list okay yeah and thank you for mentioning yeah i think and to me it seems like that would be the place to put it at the at the somewhere in in that uh preamble whereas uh section with all the whereas is in the preamble okay i prefer the clarification we can put that in the preamble but i think that you want that as the official statement of the city which would be more appropriate after the council of the city of denton hereby resolves and we have section one where actually holding these are the the official positions of the city and listed in a through e under section one it would do you think that it would be more appropriate in that section and then in the whereas is well let's see so well so you're a lawyer so you know you know that it would you know where it would be more appropriate um i would request that um uh that there be something in that preamble too to that effect um so if you could put it in in both places okay um because uh again just as far as um make you know making it clear to whoever's reading it not only the people doing where petitioning but the public but thanks okay council member briggs so i will i will second the um the resolution as is with the amended sentence which states we are opposed to the um temporary storage until more permanent facility can be um i guess located is that what you're saying is that what you were saying i mean there are so many different ways okay yeah well i'm just trying to right okay yeah let's yeah yeah we so let me ask a couple questions so what you're wanting is some kind of statement that this city council is wanting a denial of is it a license that somebody is seeking is that correct dr banks that that's correct and and one thing along those lines just so that you're aware there are two applications right now that are being considered um there could be application let's say those are denied for sake of argument uh nothing is going to preclude anyone from coming back in and filing another application at some point in the future so i just want to be no no we understand clear on that yeah okay right so you're wanting something that shows this council's assent or approval to asking or stating that i resolve our resolution we resolve that the applications be denied yeah yeah we'd like to see the applications tonight yeah is that what your understanding is council member briggs right i am because of what we said it doesn't really need to be moved now and it would just be a temporary location and have to be moved to another location and so as long as there's not a final location um destined then i am okay with opposing this and making it stay at its location currently is that what you're is that what 's your understanding of what your uh the concept or the thought that you're trying to get into the motion is how she repeated it yeah yeah i think that's simpler yeah i mean the simpler the better the simpler and clearer the better um to just make it clear we are you know we we think yeah okay our opposition to this yeah mr city attorney do you feel that you have sufficient guidance to draft a section that reflects that yes okay great council member hudspeth yeah i have no idea what we're voting on i understand the general topic but you know i mean it's it's it's a suggestion and i get it i just would like to see it or have it memorialized so that i know what you know so maybe we can come back to it and someone can write it down and show it to me but i just don't want to vote on something that is not that's crafted at the dais without any real specific language that you know what you 're voting on yeah yeah i just i mean i understand the concept i'm fine with the concept but i just can't and good conscience vote on it when it's a generality mr city attorney i've we can uh if if the council is leaning in that direction we can pass a motion to table this item and take it up until such time as a uh a revised resolution is brought before you i do have i know dr banks and i have an attorney on standby to draft the language to prepare that for you so if you wish to go in that direction that's what i would recommend point of order that you mean postpone right not table within this session well you're standing on my um my understanding is that you're wanting to pick this up back up again during the meeting so that would be a motion to table if that's what you all are wanting to do otherwise we can postpone into the next meeting and have that before you it's it's your option council member ryan thank you mayor yeah one of my concerns is that this resolution and i'm all for both parts of of what's been discussed but this resolution is about transportation of the nuclear waste through town and so this would this would be be in effect even if yucca mountain became a viable alternative that we are opposed to and we're requesting these items if transportation happens through our town i would like to see two separate which would mean that we would need to table it until the next time that we could have one that we're against a separate resolution of opposing the licensing of those facilities okay well what we have right now is a motion and a second on the floor council member hudspeth briefly and aron if we could add specificity to that because i think it lends weight so whatever we know about the application i'm assuming there's some kind of unique identification be it a request number something like that so i i don't think i don't like just the general language of hey we don't want application you know i'd rather it be succinct and act like we you know it's like say hey this application 138 and 139 whatever's pending you know be denied or something that's my personal preference once we'll see what the attorney says just wanted to get that out there so right now we have a motion and a second on the floor and we will have to consider that motion on an up or down vote unless we have a motion to table or postpone which is a superior motion is that correct mr city attorney that is correct all right did i hear something from okay council member armater okay so sorry so procedural question um so uh if if um if you uh you city attorney and dr banks were able to kind of craft that a sentence over the course of this meeting for us to table it um this would require for me to withdraw my motion and me or somebody else to make a new motion to uh to to to table that no if we table it if a superior motion the motion to table is actually passed and it passes this would be temporarily suspended to some portion later in the meeting which would be picked up and we'd be back in front in front of your motion and the second would be on the table at that point okay got it okay so i don't have to withdraw my no okay so i want to make sure because what i'm hearing is people are wanting what i've heard is a couple council members say they want to be able to see and have a couple of new ordin ances and so i'm i'm not going to be in support of tabling it for this meeting and then bringing it back up and trying to fix it during this meeting i'm not going to be i'm not going to be supportive of that because there's too much confusion as it is talking about the motions and the language and everything else so i think if it's when is this application due when are the comments do the comments are due october the 19th which is uh you you've got one council member you got one council meeting in between that is that correct that's correct on the 16th okay council member husbeth yeah i'm going to make a motion to table understanding i i would i would ask the table at this this meeting and see what staff can do if there's an attorney on standby maybe they can do that and if not i respect your and i think i fall there as well i want to see what we're going to have and so that's my motion to table this for this meeting yes until it can be taken back up aaron talks to outside council etc okay we have a we have a motion i can't really tell who's going to council member riggs you're still a seconder are you i'm going to recognize council member ryan because i don't i don't council member ryan mayor pro tem for for clarity sake if if everyone is in favor of two separate if that makes sense to separate those we could pass this as is and then next we bring back a separate resolution that that is in opposition to the licenses okay all right okay well but okay so currently and i appreciate that input currently we have a motion by council member husbeth to table to some other time within this meeting i have not seen a second for that so i'm going to go through the list here council member briggs i'm not seconding that okay it won't let me there we go okay uh council member melter i thought i saw your request to speak yeah it was there and i enjoyed but um thank you i'm generally supportive of the idea of when a motion to postpone supersede the motion to take i don't know the answer to that question yeah yeah it's called a rusa procedure mike's been off so i asked him whether a motion to postpone would supersede a motion to table and uh the reason i'm asking that is because i feel like uh we're getting sort of way be beyond our expertise you know into like the global issue of handling of this material which i think requires you know the kind of discussion we might have with the preparation you know and and it sounds like there's nothing preventing us from doing that at the next at the next council meeting uh whereas you know we probably have enough information to say we don 't you know we don't want it going through our town but i don't know that you know we're sort of nuclear material experts enough to opine on the global issue without certainly more preparation actually actually uh our council rules of procedure talk actually specify the order of preference for all your motions a lay on the table is higher preference than a postpone to a date certain so okay i don't know we can see how that goes all right so we have a motion to table within this meeting to craft something that can be represented uh to this council during this meeting is that my understanding of your motion council member husband yes sir okay do we do we have a second for that motion the motion is to table it at some point we're going to take a break and if the city attorney and whoever has knowledge or expertise can craft certain language that can be brought back to this council to this evening in order to have a vote on this on the particular resolution is that is that my understanding of what you'd like to see happen is it your motion yes sir okay sorry to ask you i just want to make sure i'm not i'm not missing anything yes sir no i'm with you and i think we're okay council member doff you're you're a seconder so i wanted to recognize him go ahead i second okay so we have a motion and a second uh council member melzer any comments you show a request to speak or is that just left over okay all right council member arm ature okay thanks so just to respond to what what you said too um so uh respectfully yes none of us are experts in nuclear waste but um i don't think you have to be to say we don't want this coming coming through our town or anywhere right and and that's what we're talking about adding to this um resolution that already has kind of all the detail with the that has come from expertise um behind it and uh you know not not just from i assume you know not just from um dr banks but also looking using other what other cities have done as a template so i'm fine i mean of course i'm always open to learning more um but i don't i i support so even though i was initially okay with the idea of of um tabling and um doing the word smithing uh during the the meeting i'm still not so much opposed not opposed to it but i i like this the idea that um council member ryan had mentioned about the two separate ordinances um it hadn't quite sorry resolutions hadn't quite occurred to me the first time he mentioned it that we could handle it in this way so that seems appropriate of course we have to deal with this motion first yeah that's that's oh no no i i understand yeah that 's what we're going to do because i'm not this is a motion to table uh there's of course there's a whole lot of discussion so council member brig's do you have any you just yeah i was just seeking to clarify what we were voting on and it's a it's the motion to table so that we can vote on this tonight with the amend with the added um language that was spoken of earlier okay all right okay okay council member duffey you had a request to speak do you request to speak yes let me ask you a question if we decide we don't want that coming through denton is the federal government going to not bring it through we we do not have the authority to regulate it ourselves so the the fact of the matter is the federal government will decide how it goes okay thank you okay we have a motion in a second to table until language could be crafted and brought back to this council this evening pursuant to the original motion and then a vote taken at that time that is this that is the motion as i understand it is there a different understanding of the motion on the floor all right let's vote on the board please okay the motion fails four to three so we're sort of back to square one council member mayor pro tem thank you mayor i move approval as presented of this item and i will clarify later to have something brought back in including items okay all right council member riggs i'll second that all right we have a motion in a second for approval as presented by staff with no amendments to the ordinance is that correct mayor pro tem that is correct all right is that your understanding council member briggs okay is that an affirmative i just want to get it yes affirmative yes okay i just just wanted to hear it okay so let's vote on the board please motion carries six to one well we're we've concluded that agenda item so we're going to take about a 10 minute break and come back with our items for individual consideration welcome back everyone to this meeting of the denton city council on october the ninth 2018 it is 8 10 we are now moving through our items for individual consideration portion of our agenda item agenda 5a is considered nomination slash appointments to the city boards and commissions yes mayor and council thank you we still have a number of a few open spots for boards and commission nominations um and in your backup you had a listing of those i have one to add to it council member excuse me mayor pro tem ryan has uh nominated eric horton to the zoning board of adjustment and council member melzer has nominated tim stuff full good luck say that again stoltz fuss oh stoltz and just to clarify i had originally nominated mr stoltz was as an alternate on that same committee but in fact i had an opportunity to nominate for a regular member and so i moved him to that slot thank you for that pronunciation so uh we only have those two uh nominations there's two left on the library board and then of course the health and building standards commission still has a couple alternates too if anyone has any nominations for me gladly accepted any other nominations at this time for any of the open slots and we do have nominations that are being presented for approval tonight those two yes yes all right tim and eric eric horton so chair would entertain action uh mayor pro tem i move approval council member melzer second we have a motion and a second for agenda item 5a let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero agenda item 5b consider amending a resolution that authorized the creation of the old gateway steering committee by reducing the number of appointed steering committee members and establishing standing appointed representatives and providing an effective day thank you mayor members council member staff uh today um we are requesting your help to help us get our oak gateway area plan completed uh by reducing the number of steering committee members so that we can meet quorum you have a copy of the attendance chart in your backup and as you can see uh attendance hasn't been what we expected but we hope that by reducing the number we can get quorum and we can get stuff decided and move forward forwarded to the pnz and city council so that is the request staff again i would like for the committee to be reduced down to of 17 members as well as establishing unt representatives the slide in front of you is the 17 members that are actively and regularly attending the meetings and have um renewed focus since october sorry august to get the o gayway area plan completed that concludes my presentation um um able to answer any questions that you have we do have a card wishing to speak let's go ahead and take public comment first sure and just quickly oh yes kim mcgibbon vice chair is here as well as venessa ream uh member of the committee is also here right and i believe we have a blue card from venessa reams if she would like to speak come down and state your name and address and your time will begin hello venessa reams 401 normal street uh i'm actually neighbors of mr clifton that spoke in the open mic portion which perhaps i should have also spoke then but i'm just honored to be able to speak with you um i am a member of this committee and i also was i attended all of the town hall meetings for the original sr sro complex idea at scripture and normal um i'm on this committee to try and make a difference for that type of thing although it's feeling very limited um we're making a lot of goals but it's not addressing any sort of attempt to stop that sro complex which i understand is under the current zoning and everything but if there's some creativity with the parking allowances or the city has told me no at the permit office a lot of times and it i hope there's a way that denton can have some kind of control over that complex because it's going to literally block out the sun from my home that happens to be built in 1912 by the first dean of unt and about to have its historical landmark plaque in the front yard and my niece and nephew just learned to ride their bikes in the street and we're about to have 600 more people um hopefully this committee can make a difference but i just hope it's a little more reasonable what's coming into the town thank you for listening can i ask her question is is it germane to the topic to ask questions about to what extent this sro came before the committee is that off posting yeah i think that's i think that's off posting yeah i'll let the city attorney weigh in on that but yeah that's gonna go off posting i know that she went off posting as well but your council shouldn't also go off postings okay thanks mayor pro tem question for the question for the speaker no this is for staff okay thank you thank you ronan i noticed on the attendance chart that jim klein dcta yes president at the time was on there has anyone approached the new president or i've reached out i haven't got any contacts um called me back um i'm trying to think of her name christina bivard um is one that i can think of but i haven't received any uh follow-up from dcta okay thank you okay any other and and i got a question for staff this isn't extending the time no sir just reducing it down so you can get a quorum so you can complete the business yes sir okay council member hudspeth okay you show us yeah i was like yeah i didn't i ain't got too fast but move approval okay council member griggs i'll second we have a motion and a second let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero moving on to agenda item c consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton authorizing the city manager is designee to execute a contract of sale by in between donald v redecky redecky and candace r harris and the city oh yes and we have a recuse of council member uh husbeth let the record reflect yep go ahead mayor council members paul williamson real estate manager uh there's actually two items on your agenda tonight they 're they're really they're not intertwined contractually but they're almost identical in scope um and i would if allowed i'd like to make the presentation on really both of them concurrently call the other one then uh agenda item 5d so this will be a consolidated presentation compress the time a little bit all right consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton authorizing the city manager is or his designee to execute a contract for sale by in between donald v redecky and candace so it's the same owner okay all right yeah we'll vote separately but it'll be a a joint presentation so before you deny these two ordinances uh two tracks out on bonnie bray um they're affected by the bonnie bray phase four widening project uh the rat radke and his wife miss harris came to the city a couple months ago and asked uh if the city would consider buying these tracks and and whole tracks and uh and that's what's before you tonight the city had appraisals performed and uh we are in uh perspective contract where we the sellers prospective sellers have signed two contracts and and uh the purchase price for the tract at 40 400 north bonnie bray is uh proposed at 160 000 and the tract at 404 north bonnie bray is proposed at 150 000 dollars and i would take any questions you may have any questions for staff seeing none we're going to vote on agenda item five five c first oh we got a we got a public comment glad i thought about that thank you uh miss kim and kevin if you'd have thought i was going to go on just sort of throw something at me yeah sometimes i tend to leave these things out if you'll come down state your name and address and if you want to because we called these together you can make your your comments on 5 c and d if you like that's very appropriate because the comment is the same about both my name is kim mckibbin 1306 west hickory street here in denton um i've been watching the bonnie bray expansion thing unfold and understand that i do not have a complete understanding of all the financial things that go into this and all the considerations my comment that i wanted to get on record record was that i as a citizen of denton and involved in that area in particular i would really really like to think that each individual tract each individual landowner is treated appropriately and the same as others the first section that i was aware of being sold sold for a whole lot more than than what i would expect it to the city paid a great deal for that for that house and that piece of property i would like to think that this couple selling these other two tracks of land were giving the same consideration for what was paid for their property and that the other people that will be coming along will also be given the same consideration i know the first piece of property was paid for almost three times its tax value these pieces of property together just without the houses or anything on them is probably worth it you know exactly what you've got up there what you're paying for it so once again please as you go through this process go through it transparently i think that the people of denton are watching you and we want to know that if you 're going to take people's properties to expand the road that they are fairly compensated for them and that's it thank you and that's a comment for both c and d absolutely or any other section that you happen to come across down through there thank you very much i appreciate that any questions council member armeter you are requesting to speak is it for the speaker you just have a separate question okay all right council member armeter thank you yeah so i just i wanted to say um so this is a uh kind of a difficult um uh decision for me to make um you know on the one hand uh i'm uh i i opposed this particular solution to the traffic problem on bonnie bray um and would have preferred uh the solution that involved um uh displacing the fewest uh on number of homes uh so and and i'm still sticking by that um you know that said this is a situation where um the owners of the property want to sell it uh for this price um and if if they didn't um i would i would stick by them you know i i don't uh so i'm going to be voting yes for this uh because it's a consensual sale and i recognize i think the the speaker who spoke um but uh it's with a heavy heart did i vote yes um but i understand that i can't tell people what to do with their with their property that that is not the job of government um that is i can't tell them don't sell your house but it makes it does make me sad um that we're losing the residential character of this uh part of the neighborhood thank you council member thank you council member riggs did we use the same appra iser for um these properties as we did the first one yes gage and associates was the same there but didn't local okay local appraiser thank you council member melzer yeah just uh you know i wanted to point out for the uh for the benefit of um miss mckibbin and anybody else i don't think there's a case where anybody's house is being you know taken like condemned uh i think so far it's uh as far as i know it's all willing sellers is that correct these are voluntary sales yes sir okay uh mayor pro tem thank you mayor just about ready hit the request to speak so i'm gonna ask my question before i make the motion uh most of these properties are when they're doing the appraisal they're based on the value of the land itself am i correct in that well this particular these particular tracks are there were residential appraisals you know there were two appraisals one for each tract okay and so this is uh you got one at point two seven six one at the point three and that one that we recently did was a point eight one yeah it was a little about eight tenths of an acre so it's really the size of the lot had a lot to do with with the yes that that particular lot was was quite a bit larger okay uh and with that i will move approval of item five c all right we have a motion do we have a second council member briggs i'll second let's vote on the board please motion carries six zero with that was for agenda item five c we'll go on to agenda item five d may i put him move approval agenda item five d we have a second council member breaks i'll second all right we have a motion and a second let's vote on the board please motion carries six zero uh thank you if somebody could ask council member husbeth to return to the council chambers and then we'll move on to our next agenda item yeah okay all right welcome back we're moving on to concluding items council member armater so um uh i want to i would like to request um some sort of uh either a public hearing or just a meeting um that's not a council meeting but one sponsored by the city where people in the normal scripture oak street neighborhood who have concerns about the sro in its current form can come and just express them um i understand you know that that it's zoned for it uh but uh i i i don't see the harm in us hearing people's concerns and uh letting them know that we do care and maybe some people have some ideas that um you know if we can i i wouldn't be opposed to inviting the developer there and uh maybe he would want to um uh you know cater to some of these um recommendations that members of the public might have and maybe the city could help to negotiate um that you know i don't know what sort of you know uh precedent there is for anything like that um i'm guessing probably that that might not be appropriate for a public hearing but for some some sort of meeting uh where council could show that we care and we're not you know we're not just ignoring these concerns because people in the neighborhood really are are concerned so that suggestion and then and i just wanted to add just um kind of just an observation a real positive note um you know there has been you know today at the meeting today you know there there was a lot of tension um but i also saw you know some just really great um uh consensus on just some real basic issues like we all agree that parks should have grass and and uh and trees and don't have to be too fancy um we all agree that you know none of us wants a nuclear waste uh route going through going through our town um and so you know i just wanted to mention that that um i like uh i i like seeing those those things and i think the public does too it's a good reminder it's part of all our differences um that we that we come together on some basic but still really important things that i think we should take for granted council member breaks so i would like to request in our friday report just a little blurb on the update and status of the tree and landscape code i know that it went to p and z and i think it's going to come back through the committee on the environment just um update the full council on um on what that process is and the public as well because i know that there's a a lot of people that want to see that um finally come to fruition and and updated and it just kind of feels slow still um and last i just want to mention and i'm sure it's been out there but everybody knows that our new um police chief swearing in is thursday um the 11th at three and uh it's just a reminder that the public is invited and um i just hope everybody can make it out thank you council member hudspeth i had the that same note so thank you but i think it was moved to five o'clock five o'clock was it didn 't i see that the time changed i don't believe so i believe it's still a three but i will double check that and okay clear that up tomorrow yeah because i thought i saw email that it was it was moved but okay maybe i'm wrong and then um i want to thank staff and and behind the scenes in front of scenes everyone that made national night out great that was uh really fun um and then also just uh let the agenda committee know that i will not be in town on the sixth i i did book travel arrangements and i'll leave before that meeting on the sixth just to uh give everyone a heads up in advance thanks mayor potem thank you mayor uh i too want to thank staff for their assistance on national night out my district had seven locations and there's no way one person can make it to all seven i think i managed to make it to three of them i would like to request uh based on our talk on the uh the uh nuclear transport a resolution brought next week uh regarding our uh disapproval or uh not wanting the cisfs uh that are currently being asked for licenses and also on a follow-up of that i would like to see the committee on the environment have some information brought to them in the future on recycling of nuclear waste and how how that might cause a future resolution that we may put forward at some later date council member duff yeah i think uh correct me if i'm wrong sros if they're being built or being built under multifamily and i i would like to see a uh a work session i think we need to come up with a definition of an sro is totally being different than multifamily because it's not okay i want to thank again all those that attended the dedication of the new fire station that we are in partnership with with the argile emergency services district or the emergency services district out there and everybody that put hard work into that i think is a great example of what can happen when communities work together to solve a common problem and it's a win-win literally a win-win for everybody so again a thanks to everybody who who helped in that council member bricks i also wanted to say thank you to staff for coming out on national night out it was really great lancine and in cleo we had several police departments and the fire department station four came and they allowed the kids to try on their uniforms myself included and it was really and it was really fun and i appreciate them all coming out and attending and speaking with the residents it was great yep great all right saying no more requests to speak we will stand adjourned