Sep 26, 2023 City Council on 2023-09-26 2:00 PM (Special Called Meeting)

Good afternoon and welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council. It is 2.03 p.m. on Tuesday, September 26th, and we do have a quorum call a meeting to order. Councilman Watts is on his way. He's running a little behind. So that takes us to our first thing about consent agenda items, questions, comments. I'm assuming we have no public comment. Right. Questions, comments on consent agenda? Seeing none. Mayor Patel? I'd like to pull item B for individual consideration. Is that B, as in boy? Yes. Let me just double, yeah, 23069. Okay. And then I'm going to ask, Ms. City Manager, I did reach out to the, my contact there at Odd Fellows. This is related to AK, and said something about a contract requiring disclosure of financial information to receive the, so can someone get me a copy of, so I'll pull AK just so I can vote on it later, and we can add this. Yeah. I'll ask if we can get the, Cassie or Frank, if you can get the form that we have on fill out for the monies. Yeah. I just want to take a look at that and see if I can put their mind at ease, or at least better understand what the disclosures are we're requiring, so, okay. Anything else? Seeing none, that takes us to our first work session item, which is item 3A ID 23425, Receive Report, Hold Discussion, Give Staff Direction Regarding Audit Project 033, Pedestrian and Cyclist Safety. Hello, Mayor and Council, Madison Rorschach, Genton City Auditor, be your host for most of today's work session. Also I'm here to present our findings from the audit of the city's pedestrian and cyclist safety related activities. So to begin, this audit generally evaluated the effectiveness of non-motorized facility planning, design, maintenance, and management activities regarding pedestrian and cyclist safety. Based on industry research, providing well-connected and complete non-motorized networks is fundamental to improving pedestrian and cyclist safety. Based on responses received from a public survey, the top four issues regarding pedestrian and cyclist safety under the city's control are a lack of sidewalks and bike lanes, sidewalk connectivity, and traffic lights and crossings. These issues are generally due to historic approaches to transportation and mobility planning that were focused on moving motorized vehicles and minimizing costs. To address this, the city has recently shifted to a complete streets and context-sensitive approach to mobility. This audit has been conducted early on in this shift with the intention of creating accountability methods for this new strategic approach, increasing public awareness of current efforts and providing research on industry practices to city management. Specifically the audit evaluated pedestrian and cyclist facility planning and design guidance, maintenance of existing pedestrian and cyclist facilities, enforcement of pedestrian and cyclist safety related regulations, and public education efforts. So I'll begin by discussing pedestrian and cyclist facility planning activities. In 2022, the city adopted a new mobility plan that generally identifies the location and type of roadway, bicycle, and pedestrian facilities that are needed to meet long-term growth patterns in Denton. In addition, the city has adopted an Americans with Disabilities Act transition plan and is in the process of developing a Vision Zero plan, which both focus on specific ways to increase pedestrian and cyclist safety. That being said, specific and measurable goals have not yet been established to track progress towards implementing these plans. Establishing these measures will help ensure that the city's efforts to implement this guidance are clear and progress can be easily reported, enhancing transparency and assurance. Since beginning to shift to a complete streets approach, non-motorized facility connectivity efforts have been focused on adding or upgrading pedestrian and cyclist facilities as part of existing bond projects due to limited resources. This approach added almost five miles of sidewalk to the city's network during 2021 and 2022, and there are plans to construct an additional nine miles of sidewalk over the next two or three years. And that being said, vacancies and dedicated transportation planning staff, including the bicycle, pedestrian, and ADA coordinator position, have hindered the proactive identification of new non-motorized facility projects, as well as a lack of up-to-date geographic information system data. Further, the city has dedicated about $2 million each year for expanding the sidewalk network. This funding has generally been used to supplement bond projects, as this is generally not enough money to fund a standalone non-motorized connectivity project, mostly due to right-of-way acquisition costs. In addition, about $3.3 million in grant funds have been received for transportation-related projects over the next five years. On the other hand, there's currently no dedicated funding to expand the bike lane network. While this approach increases construction efficiency, it may result in other prioritization factors being overlooked. In particular, the city has not developed a process for routinely identifying and prioritizing cyclist network improvements. On the other hand, a pedestrian potential index score has been created and is used to prioritize gaps in the sidewalk network. This index includes criteria for locations of interest, the facility's condition, and historic safety issues. However, it does not include criteria for prioritizing traditionally underserved populations such as people with low income, people of color, older adults, and persons with disabilities. Based on research conducted by the Federal Highway Administration, these populations have a greater need for safe pedestrian-cyclist facilities, but often face additional challenges to walking or biking. For this reason, we're recommending that the pedestrian potential index and other pedestrian-cyclist facility improvement criteria be evaluated to consider traditionally underserved populations as part of the project identification and planning processes. Based on their management response, Engineering, Capital Projects, and Development Services plan to develop specific mobility goals, as well as evaluate non-motorized facility planning processes and prioritization criteria, as well as impact fee funding opportunities. Next, as of 2022, the city's development code required all new developments to provide pedestrian and bicycle facilities for the Transportation Design Criteria Manual and the Mobility Plan. In addition, the city's Transportation Criteria Manual was updated in 2021 to reflect the city's shift to a complete streets transportation planning approach. Based on a review of the city's standard construction details, a 10-foot-wide multi-use path is required for collector and arterial streets, and a 5-foot sidewalk is required for residential and rural streets on at least one side. In addition, the city's transportation facility standard, WITS, generally align with industry guidance as shown in the table on the slide. It was noted that the 2023 standard details do not have clear guidance for on-street cyclist facilities, though multi-use paths are intended to serve both pedestrians and cyclists. Further, the city's relatively new transportation planning division is responsible for reviewing all external development plans and internal capital project plans to ensure that they meet this transportation facility construction criteria. Based on a review of about 30 development plans, all appeared to have proper review and approval documentation for transportation facilities. In addition, the city has developed an internal process to ensure that the transportation planning division is aware of all upcoming capital projects so they can be appropriately reviewed for transportation planning criteria. Due to the nature of transportation facilities, the city is just beginning to design new capital projects under these relatively new standards. Based on management responses, engineering reviews and updates standard details annually and will continue to consider safety and context-sensitive design in the future. In general, the city's public works operations division manages maintenance and repair activities for sidewalks, bike lanes, and traffic signals and crossings per federal and state requirements. However, written procedures to guide staff when completing these activities have not been developed for sidewalks and bike lanes. In addition, actual sidewalk and bike lane maintenance activities generally only occur at the same time as roadway maintenance to increase operational efficiency and align with the city's complete streets approach. While this appears to be appropriate for bike lanes, creating a preventative maintenance program for sidewalks could help the city proactively address safety and accessibility issues. Still, this type of program should generally be driven by a facility condition monitoring program, which would not only require additional staff and funding, but is also currently hindered since sidewalk assets are not separately mapped in the city's work order system. Based on their management response, Public Works will develop needed SOPs and evaluate a preventative sidewalk maintenance options and is working with tech services to map the sidewalks in the city's work order system. Further, the Public Works division has developed a preventative maintenance program for traffic signals and crossings that aligns with federal guidance. The division has created maintenance checklists and forms to help guide staff when completing and documenting these activities, and is currently in the process of digitizing this guidance to reduce the need for paper documentation and further improve operational efficiency. Based on on-site observations of 13 intersections with 48 associated crosswalks in June of 2023, we found that this maintenance program generally ensures that crosswalk indicators activate as needed and are visible to pedestrians and cyclists. That being said, we found that some of the crosswalks did not have adequate clearance time based on the division's stated practice of allowing a crossing speed of 3.5 feet per second, though it should be noted that two of these did meet the minimum crossing speed guidance of 4 feet per second. All crosswalks with this issue have since been updated by division staff per the Federal Highway Administration's requirements, and the maintenance checklist has been updated to require staff to document the intersection width, helping to ensure that the needed timing is being verified. Further, according to industry guidance, leading pedestrian interval timings should be used at certain locations to further improve pedestrian cyclist safety by improving visibility. The city has implemented leading pedestrian interval timings at five intersections based on resident concerns. Documenting clear criteria for the use of this practice will assist with ensuring application is consistent and implemented prior to a concern being reported in the future. Based on management's response, needed SOPs and criteria will be developed. Community behavior is also a critical element to pedestrian cyclist safety. Based on responses received from a June 2023 public survey, aggressive motorists and bike lane obstacles were identified as two of the biggest pedestrian cyclist safety issues. The city has passed ordinances to prohibit sidewalk obstructions and requires drivers to pass vulnerable road users by at least three feet. However, there are currently no regulations that prohibit parking in bike lanes. In addition, only about 36% of survey respondents indicated that they had seen public outreach from the city regarding pedestrian and cyclist safety, and there was general support for additional education. However, the city has not established any goals regarding this education. Further, the city has established a generally adequate process to route resident concerns to the correct department. Based on a review, we found that pedestrian cyclist-related code enforcement cases are adequately documented and generally resolved in about 13 days. And similarly, 22 police-related cases resulted in a citation being issued, and all but one of the 55 cases reviewed had a documented response. Based on management's response, development services will review best practices to address bike lane obstruction issues and pedestrian and cyclist safety public education goals will be developed. In summary, we issued a total of 18 recommendations, 12 of which the department concurred and six they partially concurred. Based on their management responses, we believe the identified risks will be appropriately addressed and will conduct a follow-up review in the next 18 to 36 months. Sorry. That's it for this one. Okay. Got it. Questions for staff? Councilmember McGee and Councilmember Holland. Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of questions for you if you don't mind. Earlier in the presentation, I want to slide you the crosswalk clearance timings. I'm sure the answer is yes, but what are the current timings now? You said they need to be longer. Yeah, they were corrected once we sent the results to staff. Okay. Is that just a very quick correction? Yes. They can do it on site. Okay. With the clearance timings, and I'm sure the answer is yes to this, that takes into account other forms of transportation that are just walking, like folks who are in wheelchairs and elderly folks. The recommended timings are for the state regulation, basically. Oh, okay. Yeah. I assume that they took that into account. Okay. One of the recommendations, I see it right there, recommendation number 12, a sidewalk maintenance program. Say more about that. Why only partial concurrence there? I can't speak to why they partially concurred, but. Good afternoon. Ethan Cox, Director of Streets. The reason for the partial concurrence is we currently do preventative or restorative maintenance on sidewalks today. The proactive nature of that, so basically there's two approaches that we take. One is staff identifies an issue with a sidewalk or a crosswalk in the field. We'll go ahead and issue the repair then. When we do that, we'll also look at the entirety of that segment when we perform those repairs. In addition, we also, as Madison mentioned earlier in the report, if we're doing roadway repairs, we also look at sidewalk, curb, gutter, ramps, try to integrate all that. So the partial concurrences, we still have what we would consider a preventative maintenance plan. I think where the audit really dives into is above and beyond those two avenues in which we're repairing sidewalks right now. Staff is happy to put together a package that proposes additional maintenance and repair. Just wasn't considered in this year's budget, something certainly we can put forward in a future budget. Okay. All right. Yep. Thank you, Mayor. Councilman Harlow. Thank you. I'm wondering if the term motorized and could be plugged into there to accommodate e-bikes, electric assist bicycles. That's a new thing, and I see a lot of those around. They certainly are motorized. Yes. I think we didn't necessarily consider those explicitly. And honestly, I'm not sure if they can be on sidewalks or if they're in bike lanes. So I would defer to the transportation engineer on how to incorporate that into the future. I get that. There are lots of places, and there's lots of other motorized vehicles that are using sidewalks, bike lanes, and places that pedestrians would otherwise go. I'd sure like you to look into that. I think that needs to be included. Just to add that terminology, scooters. Okay. Any other questions? Councilmember Meltzer. What do you know about bikes, Joe? Anyway, looking at number 17, evaluating additional ways to discourage bike lane parking, you noted in your summary that it's not illegal. And I see the action is to look at best practice review. Have you looked at that to any degree to see, like, in general, do other cities allow people to park in bike lanes? There are some cities that have passed ordinances that make it illegal. I think we were not sure if that would still be allowed going forward based on some legislature that passed at the state level recently. So that's why we worded the recommendation this way. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, globally, maybe not, but I understand the words you're saying. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Councilmember Burt. I'm paged on slide two, connectivity issues, opinions. That's when I'm recognizing that the district one, it appears that it has the most opportunity to have lack of sidewalks and lack of bike lanes. And since it's closer into where downtown is located, I'm wondering if this notation specifically find those areas closer to downtown or was it more just a long scope of where neighborhoods are? There's not that many neighborhoods in district one, so I was just wondering about the scope of recognizing that there's a lack of sidewalks and lack of bike lanes in district one. We use district because that was the most readily available way to divide the city into pieces to look at data and public survey responses. I think as part of our recommendations and discussion with management, they want to look at breaking it down into smaller pieces to try to prioritize improvements further based on where those are. I can understand what you're saying, but I could also appreciate the fact that the city has done a lot of street work over in some areas, and particularly the southern part of downtown area over in the southeast neighborhood. I've seen them all over, over in a college view off of McKinney Street. They've been working over there in some kind of capacity. So I was just kind of wondering, that sounds reasonable to kind of break it down. So when you have a question, are you working in downtown area first, or are you working through the neighborhoods next in how we're all going to prioritize the whole thing? And hopefully we can say that we would take care of the district area that has the highest lack of, you know? Right. I think part of it is taking into consideration all of the prioritization criteria. So they do account for locations of interest, so like downtown is a location of interest. Right. There's a huge one. Right. And other safety issues that have occurred historically, but we wanted to include looking at places where people might need access to those facilities more based on research data that the Federal Highway Administration had looked at. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Mayor Proctor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I know we have about 200K in general funds dedicated to bike lanes, but why the particular recommendation for dedicated funds for bike lanes? That funding is generally used for maintenance of bike lanes and restriping efforts. So the idea was have funds dedicated to increasing the bike lane network, not just to maintaining the existing network. So is the recommendation to engineering to have separate maintenance, or just all one bike fund with additional dedicated funds? I think the recommendation was to have a process for ensuring that bike lanes are considered when streets are being reconstructed. So not necessarily about funding, exactly. Okay. No, I think I understand that. And then the other question is, you noted a number of timing things, and I asked this in the question to staff, but in general, do we have a process for, and this may be an engineering question rather than not a question, do we have a process for when engineers decide that they need to go outside the TMUTCD, blah, blah, blah, blah, that is a tongue twister every time I say it, TMUTCD, I can't even say it now, TMUTCD, I'll just say MUTCD because the federal one is almost the same, guidance and follow our own local, what's our process for deviating, and actually before Brett answers, how, you just based your timings off of known standards for the audit? The requirements in the MUTCD. Okay. All right. So what's our standards for when we decide to leave the MUTCD behind? Yeah, Brett Bourgeois, Deputy City Engineer. So the TMUTCD gives guidance in terms of sidewalk timing or signal timing, the general guidance is about 3.5 feet per second to cross intersection is how long the timing assumes, and then you can change it to 4 feet per second based on certain factors, but it also gives you provisions to go a slower movement rate down to like 3 feet per second. If you're seeing wheelchairs, people with disabilities, elderly people across those intersections on a regular basis, it doesn't define what regular basis is, it's based on observations and off engineering judgment, which is part of our licenses to go through that and to make a recommendation for what you're seeing in the behavior of that area. And one more follow-up if you don't mind, Mr. Mayer. Do we have sufficient data tracking at these crosswalks where we feel like we have that kind of information to where we can make that kind of decision, or right now we tend to keep it at the 3.5 default? We keep it at the 3.5 default unless we have reason to go lower than that. Actually, one of the recommendations from the audit was to develop volume tracking of pedestrians to better track that data to make better recommendations for those intersections. Okay. All right. I appreciate that. Thank you. That's all, Mr. Mayer. Thank you. Any other questions? See? Oh, Councilman Maltzer. Yeah. I forgot this on the first round. So exactly on this slide with the timing issues, is it that there was a standard that for -- to accommodate, you know, to accommodate crossing that was in place, and that in those cases it drifted out of spec, or is it that there was never a standard? So there's the requirement, or there's the guidance in the MUTCD, which is what, when we discussed it with traffic, they pointed to. But they didn't have an internal written standard. They were just -- they said, "We used this guidance," basically. And they -- according to what they told us, they go on site, and they measure every time that they go out and do preventative maintenance, which they do -- they're supposed to do every intersection every year. And when we did a random sampling, we found that it didn't seem like that had been conducted for some of the intersections. Okay. And if they use the standard that they say they use, and it were -- and it is -- and it were done, and it is done every year, would that meet the objective, or is there a different standard that should be applied, and is that a recommendation, that standard that you're advocating should be applied, and does the city concur in that recommendation? We believe that the standard that they told us was their practice is appropriate because it aligns with MUTCD guidance, and they updated their maintenance checklist form, and we believe that that update will correct the issue in the future. Okay. So we didn't issue a recommendation specific to that. But the gap that you encountered, you believe, is a result of not thoroughly implementing that annual check? Yes. All right. Thanks for clearing that up. Okay. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you. That takes item B, which is ID 23595, receive report, hold discussion, and give staff direction regarding audit project 007, accounts payable. All right. I'm here to present our findings from the second follow-up of the accounts payable audit. As a reminder, follow-up reports are intended to provide information on what changes have been made in response to an issued audit. This review was based on the recommendations and management responses originally compiled in the accounts payable audit issued in October of 2019 and initially followed up on in March of 2021. In general, this review found that improvements had been made to the documentation and approval processes for about $723 million in vendor payments. Specifically, additional written guidance has been created, system security controls have been improved, and automated payment processing procedures have been established. To begin, the original audit found that there were opportunities in the accounts payable process for vendors to be paid twice for the same work. Specifically, we found that there was no consistent way to classify unnumbered invoices, and there was no way to compare payment requests received by AP with those paid by PCard, making it difficult to verify if a payment hadn't already been made. Since the original audit, the city has contracted with its PCard monitoring vendor to perform a comparison of all PCard purchases with issued payments in the preceding week, with all issued payments including that from the preceding every week, sorry, based on this comparison, a report of potential issues is provided to accounts payable staff who determine if the high-risk payments were actually duplicates or not. In addition, the division recently implemented written guidance on how to number any vouchers or invoices without their own unique invoice number, facilitating consistency. These two additions should help to reduce the risk that duplicate payments go undetected in the future. Moving on to purchase receipts, most of the city's purchases are made using a purchase order. This method of procurement is generally considered to be the least risky as it requires a three-way match. Specifically, a three-way match requires that the quantity and price of what is ordered on the PO match the quantities actually received and the price charged on the invoice. This system is illustrated on the table in the slide. The original audit found that many purchase orders for goods did not include quantity or prices, but instead listed a lump sum for the ordered items. Furthermore, there was no additional documentation of the goods received, such as a packing slip, which increased the risk that the city had paid for more items than it had actually gotten. Since the original audit, the city has adopted a new cash disbursements policy, which provides clear guidance to employees on what documentation is needed to adequately receive on an order. In addition, more purchase orders for goods appeared to be to list out quantity and price instead of using a lump sum method. Next, the original audit also identified some issues with the city's check requisition and dispersal practices. In particular, employees could previously request a payment under $5,000 be made without any documented approval using a check requisition form. Moreover, vendors were able to physically pick up checks from the city directly. In combination, these issues could have allowed an employee to create a fake vendor, request a payment for that vendor without approval, and collect the payment with little scrutiny. The original audit also found that about 70 percent of all payments are printed checks, which have higher associated costs and risks than electronic payments. Finance now requires check requisitions under $5,000 to be approved by the employee supervisor. The new city's cash disbursement policy does still allow employees to collect and deliver checks to vendors, but vendors are no longer able to physically collect checks. Instead, about 99 percent of checks are mailed out. Still, checks make up relatively the same percentage of payments since the original audit. Increasing the number of electronic payments should help reduce costs related to check printing and mailing, and help address risks associated with physical check pickups. According to staff, they are planning to work with vendors who encourage electronic payments once the new vendor management system has been implemented, and the advice remittance process for electronic payments has been automated. Similarly, the original audit found that city employees were able to make purchases of office supplies using the Staples Advantage system. However, there was no approval process for these purchases. In addition, accounts payable had to manually process invoices from Staples whose billing practices were causing inefficiencies. Since then, the city has used the Staples Advantage system to set up approval workflows for all Staples purchases. This system identifies users as either associates who make orders or supervisors who approve orders. All of the city's 98 associate users had approvals set up, and all 75 supervisor accounts were blocked from making purchases. In addition, based on a review of all 173 users, only two appeared to no longer be active employees, both of which were supervisor accounts. Further procurement has worked with Staples so that the city is billed each time an order is completed instead of each time a package is delivered. This has reduced the number of invoices that the city received from Staples by about 98%, helping to increase accounts payable's efficiency. Finally, I should mention that the city adopted a new cash disbursement policy in January 2021 that provides clear guidance on the roles and responsibility of those involved in the vendor payment process. We also found that previously noted accounts payable and procurement employee financial system access issues had been resolved. In summary, we found that 12 of the 13 recommendations issued as part of the original accounts payable audit had been implemented, and the remaining recommendation regarding encouraging electronic payments was in progress. Based on this review, staff recommends closing the audit project and considering it formally complete with a 92% implementation rate, as progress on electronic payment adoption can be reviewed as part of the upcoming vendor management audit. So, questions on this follow-up review? Questions for staff? Seeing none, okay, takes us to, do you need? I guess if somebody doesn't agree with our recommendation, that would be good to know to close it at 92% implemented, but I don't necessarily need direction. That's right. So, and that was my assumption, so yeah, if you disagree with staff's recommendation, you would need to say something, yes. Seeing none, okay, thank you. Takes us to item C, ID 23925, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding audit project 014, facilities maintenance, second follow-up review. Alright, this follow-up review was based on the recommendations and management responses originally compiled in the facilities maintenance audit issued in June of 2020. The original audit evaluated the city's facility maintenance processes, including maintenance program structure, resource utilization, and work order management, as well as facility access security controls. The follow-up review found improvements to safeguards over tool assets and P-card documentation. In addition, the department is currently in the process of implementing two new software systems to improve controls over facility access and work order monitoring. To begin, the facilities management department stores several specialized tools in its warehouse that are used to maintain and repair the city's buildings. The original audit found that there was no inventory record of these tools, leaving them vulnerable to theft or misuse, as there was no way to verify that all the department's tools, particularly the vulnerable tools, were not missing. Since the audit, the department had inventoried all of its tools and created a record of all specialized tools that cost more than $150. This record includes the make and model of each item as well as the value for the 21 tools. During an on-site visit in August of 2023, all inventory tools were observed by internal audit. In addition, the city has hired a quality assurance and control coordinator who is responsible for conducting monthly inventories of the division's tool assets. These quality control activities are then documented in an activity log to allow for easy verification that they are being performed appropriately. In addition, the division has created a process for technicians to request specialized tool purchases and disposals. This process has a semi-automated workflow that documents supervisor approval in a log, which can then be used to support changes in the tool inventory list. Next, the original audit found that documentation of facility access change requests was not well maintained and was not always approved per city policy. Since the original audit, facilities hired a consultant to assess the city's facility security access software. This consultant concluded that the software system was unable to support the city's current and future operational needs and recommended a new software be selected. Facilities is currently in the process of transferring all facilities to this new security access system. As part of this process, a standard operating procedure detailing how to add new users to the system has been created. In addition, processes to add and remove users from the system have been established based on information received from human resources, semi-automated workflow process. In addition, facilities has created a form in which employees can request specific security access changes, which document supervisor review and approval. According to staff, the new quality control and assurance coordinator will be responsible for periodically reviewing that all requested access changes have been completed, however, these activities have not yet begun. Based on a comparison of facility access to the city's active employee list, about 7% of all users had a potential access issue. These were reported to facilities during the audit and are being addressed currently. In addition, facilities has begun discussions with the compliance division to complete a review of access appropriateness at least annually. Last, the original audit found that the department's work order system seemed generally adequate, but that some additional reporting capabilities regarding work order timeliness and equipment with repeat repair issues could be further investigated to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Based on their management response, the department believed that the work order system they had at the time of the original audit had these capabilities. Since the audit, the department has met with the original work order system vendor and determined that it did not have these reporting capabilities despite what was advertised. For this reason, the department is currently transitioning to using a different asset management system that was already in use by another city department. In addition, the city is currently undergoing an asset management system consolidation project, which the division is a part of. A permanent asset management and work order system for facilities use is planned to be identified as part of this project, however, that is likely to take several years. Until the temporary asset management system is fully implemented, facilities is relying on manual processes to ensure work orders are completed in a timely manner and to identify equipment with repeat repair issues. As part of the next follow-up review, we plan to assess if the temporary asset management system is able to mitigate some of the risks identified in the original audit. Finally, the original audit found some issues with how PCAR transaction documentation was uploaded into the city's PCARD monitoring software, but these appear to have been resolved through training. In summary, we found that four of the recommendations issued as part of the original facilities maintenance audit were implemented and the remaining three were in progress. These remaining recommendations should be fully implemented with the implementation of the temporary work order system. Based on this information, we plan to perform an informal follow-up review during the next fiscal year to verify implementation. So questions on this follow-up review? Thank you very much. Questions for staff? Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Madison, I assume, whether we're talking about the old or the temporary asset management system, that both of them had some sort of asset tags or engraving or something that were used to track items over $150? So yes, they were used to track facility assets like HVAC equipment and things like that. Does that make sense? We tag our tools with a tag or engrave them in some way with an asset number, the same as you would a monitor or a computer or any other asset that you tag. Do we do that across the board in the city, tag our assets? Yes, but our tools are not considered part of that asset. They're not? Yes. Is it the intent that we will be doing some things just because we can manually keep track of equipment in a database as we check it in and out and things, but it's hard to go back and audit if you don't have the asset tags and things like that. For the tools, there's 21 of them. They're now on a list so that we can go and check them. For building assets, those have tags and things like that, if that makes sense. Yes, buildings don't tend to run away though. Not the building itself, but some of the equipment within the building that Facilities maintains. Go ahead. Good afternoon, Tom Graham from Director of Facilities. So to answer your question, sir, when it comes to tools that potentially have the ability to walk away, those are identified by the serial number of every make and model that we have. So if we have a DeWalt drill that's specialized, that serial number is what we use as the asset tag to identify it when it comes to the buildings. Same concept, HVAC units have a serial number attached to it and an asset tag also for easy identification. So for a lot of those items, essentially we're using your serial numbers as their asset tags. Okay, that makes sense. I appreciate the clarification. Thank you. Absolutely. That's all, Mr. Mayor. Any other staff? Seeing none. Thank you. Takes us to item D, ID 23593, Receive Report, Hold Discussion, Give Staff Direction Regarding Audit Project 034, Fire Prevention. All right, I'm here to present our findings from our audit of the city's fire prevention program. So this audit generally evaluated the city's control over its fire prevention program to ensure it is effective, efficient, and compliant with applicable regulations. Fire prevention is a proactive method of reducing fire emergencies and the damage caused by them. Over the last two years, it's estimated that Denton has lost about $11.5 million due to fires. Specifically, this audit evaluated fire prevention program activities, including routine fire and life safety inspections and systems testing, fire prevention public education, and fire investigations. Plan review and associated international fire code inspections were not included in the scope of this audit as this process was generally evaluated as part of the audit of building permits. However, it should be noted that fire prevention division staff spend significant time performing these reviews. So I'll begin by discussing fire and life safety routine inspections and systems testing. The city's fire prevention division is responsible for performing routine fire and life safety inspections as well as ensuring that fire protection systems throughout the city are functioning appropriately. Historically, routine fire and life safety inspections were scheduled based on inspector's judgment. However, best practices suggest that buildings be inspected based on their fire history and the potential loss of life and money. Recently, this fire department was accredited by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International. As part of this process, the fire department completed a building hazard risk assessment, which ranks each building in the city on these two criteria based on available property data. According to fire prevention management, inspectors were instructed to begin using this list to prioritize routine inspections in March of 2023. Based on our review, not all high-risk buildings had received an annual inspection. However, it has not yet been a year since the fire inspectors were given this goal. Further, we found that routine fire inspections were not documented consistently. Specifically, there are no written procedures or guidelines that define what each inspection type and results mean and when they should be used. In addition, based on an analysis of inspection types as well as targeted review, we found that it was not clear if every failed inspection was followed up on appropriately to ensure correction. According to staff, follow-up inspections are scheduled as they become needed. However, there is no process to monitor results to ensure all inspection deficiencies are corrected. Similarly, the fire department implemented a compliance reporting system in the last few years that allows businesses with fire protection systems such as sprinklers and fire alarms to have their system tested and to upload a report without a city inspector coming on site. The system has increased the division's efficiency as far less staff time is needed to verify that these systems are operating appropriately. Based on a review of a sample of reports, the review process appears to be effective. However, documenting the review procedures would further ensure that they are conducted consistently in the future. Still, we found that there was no process in place to verify that contractors submitting testing reports were licensed as required by the state. In addition, it's not always clear if deficiencies noted in these reports were appropriately followed up on as follow-up results were not always documented. Based on their management response, the division plans to develop written procedures and guidance for conducting and documenting fire and life safety inspections and reviewing and documenting fire protection system testing reports. Next, we found that the fire department's current public education offerings are generally based on national fire trends and apart from the annual Clowns on Fire program, are only provided when requested. Industry best practices recommend that fire departments utilize location-specific fire data to identify trends and develop proactive education programs to address these trends. We found that the fire department has a dense specific fire data available as summarized in the chart. However, this data is not currently being used to develop fire education programs. Based on their management responses, fire plans to develop a process for using this data to create community education programs in the future. Next, we found that while some fire investigation policies and procedures have been adopted, additional guidance would help improve documentation consistency. Specifically, fire has adopted a fire investigations policy and uses a standard origin and cause report template. That being said, it is not always clear if all needed case documentation is retained. For example, there was not always body camera footage or pictures of the scene. In addition, fire stated that they follow the police department's body worn camera policy. However, footage reviews are conducted at supervisor's discretion instead of quarterly as required for police officers. Further, we found that most completed investigation reports were maintained in an editable format, increasing the risk of accidental change, loss, or tampering. In addition, due to the potential criminal nature of some fire investigations, these activities must comply with the criminal justice information systems law enforcement data security standards. Based on our review, fire investigation case documentation is not currently retained for these standards, specifically, while access to this documentation is regularly reviewed, there is no way for the system to log user activities as required by the standards. Based on their management response, fire plans to work with technology services to evaluate potential record management systems to identify one that allows for CGS compliance and will create written procedures to cover all aspects of fire investigations. Lastly, the current storage location for physical fire investigation evidence is inadequate. Specifically, the current location has multiple unsecured access points, limited surveillance, and has experienced multiple contamination events, including flooding and pest infections. Additionally, fire-specific evidence management procedures have not been created. This has resulted in one staff member being the only person with access to a list of all stored evidence, greatly increasing the risk that something could be taken without notice. While most evidence collected by fire investigations is not high risk, meaning guns, drugs, or ammunition, some items found in the storage location were. Based on their management response, fire plans to work with the police department to see if their evidence can be stored in the police department's property and evidence room in the future. In summary, or sorry, finally, we found that fire prevention related fees are not currently based on actual costs and recovery goals as suggested by best practice. In addition, the contract for the testing compliance system does not include a price calculation or payment calculation information and received reimbursement amounts is not reconciled, hindering verification of the city's obligation to pay. Based on their management response, fire plans to work with finance and procurement to resolve these issues. So, in summary, we issued a total of 12 recommendations, 11 of which the department concurred and one they partially concurred. So, based on this response, we believe the identified risks will be appropriately addressed and we'll conduct a follow-up review in the next 18 to 36 months. Okay, thank you. Questions for staff? Councilman Holland? Thank you. $11.5 million in losses in two years. That seems astounding to me. Can you give me just the hits of some of those items, Chief? You can do that. We don't have that list in front of us right now. We will actually follow up with that. So, really, take one commercial business and just calculate that and then the numbers, residential loss as well. So, we were just discussing, I don't have, or I can just tell you right now, certain percentage of residential, certain percentage of commercial, that also calculates auto loss as well. Auto loss for the city is everything that possibly burns. I beg your pardon. I misunderstood. I thought this was city assets, city owned assets. I beg your pardon. City-wide loss. I beg your pardon. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Mayor Proctor? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I had a similar question about the $11.5 and just because it puts it into context about what a major impact it has on the city, do we have ... There will be certain losses where there's just an accident and our practices were not contributory. All we're doing is saving property and lives. Let's say that's ... I'm going to make up a number and I'm going to ask you to correct me. Let's say that $9 million in non-preventable or addressable dollars worth of accidents and does that imply that they're ... I'm asking, can we put a ratio on the kinds of things that we can prevent versus our just more acts of God kind of thing? That's interesting. Actually, through accreditation, we learned so you do track losses, but also we're starting to track and we're not 12 months into it yet, actually, property saved. We'll have those two different numbers and let us get through the first 12 months of data and we can come back with the ISR to the council and show you where we're actually impacting what part of the incident, when we get involved, that we actually can serve versus continue to lose. No, that sounds great. I appreciate that. Thank you. Okay. Any other ... Councilman Burke? I had a question in regards to the storage of your evidence and it was noted that you could possibly use a police department's evidence room. Is it, there's just such a lack of small amount that's given or is this anything that you would request to have your own area built or is it just not that much? Multiple improvement responses. Good question. Over the past couple of years, we have actually been going through and actually removing some evidence. The investigators go before the judge, ask if they can remove that from the evidence storage and that's disposed of properly, so really try to shrink that total evidence package as well. The second thing is yes, we thought about different ways to store it internally and I think the best thing is just to jointly go with the police department. They do this every day. They have the civilian staff to maintain it, to check it in, check it out. We really think that's a good collaboration with the new PD headquarters, new evidence storage. I think that's just an ideal fit. Comparatively, it's a much smaller amount. Yeah. Got it. Any other questions for staff? Seeing none. Thank you. Thank you. I know it. Takes it to item EID 23683, receive report, hold discussion and give staff direction on City of Denton Aquatics Master Plan. [inaudible] [00:10:30] Good afternoon, Mayor of City Council, Monica Martin, program area manager for the Aquatics Division, Parks and Recreation. Twelve months ago, we went into contracted services with Kimley Horn and Councilman Hunsaker Group to develop the plans that are going to drive the Aquatic Division forward for the next 12 to 15 years. Please welcome Austin Powers, who's going to be giving our presentation of the development of the Aquatic Master Plan and afterwards, staff and consultants are going to be available to answer any questions that you have. Thank you. Thank you all. I've already heard the laughs going on, particularly right here with my name, but it's good to be here today. Quick process overview of ... Monica mentioned we started this process end of last year, trying to collect as much data as possible on demographics, current aquatic offerings, trying to identify some of those deficiencies, collect all that information into an organized manner, and then put it into a plan for the future development of your aquatic facility. We're here today to summarize those findings. We started out with some community engagement, stakeholder meetings where we talked to TWU, UNT, Denton ISD, city staff. We had community input meetings and online surveys just to gather as much data as possible on how people use these facilities within the system. We did a demographic research looking at population densities and drive times to your current aquatic facilities, and then wanted to look at aquatic benchmarking to see where Denton fell and their aquatic offerings compared to neighboring communities, national planning standards, and aquatic facility metrics. George, do you want to talk a little bit about the benchmarking? Sure. I'm George Dynas with Councilman Hunsaker, actually born and raised here in Denton. Your mom taught me how to sew a pair of shorts and cook peanut butter cookies at Strickland Junior High. Yes, sir. Mr. Holland, you were Kiwanis buddies and Mean Green buddies with my dad, so good to see you. And we bought all of our bikes from you. That's right. One of the things that we looked at was area school districts, area parks and recreation departments, and area cities and how they offer aquatics. We looked at things like the number of indoor and outdoor available lap lanes, recreational space. We also looked at student population versus city population, publicly accessible versus just school district accessible lanes. And so that's what this chart details. And I think one of the key findings was we found that Denton was shorter on indoor space than they are on outdoor space, which was one of the main things that we found through the look at the different cities that you all compare yourselves to. So in short, really, it's a shortage of water surface area, and depending on which entity is using the water and how that water is programmed is really where you're short. For instance, city of Denton, you know, the natatorium is shared with Denton ISD. And so as the city has grown and the ISD has grown, a lot of the pressure has been put on the natatorium to share those lap lanes that are indoors. And so, you know, as that natatorium was designed, really was one or two high schools, and now you guys know where you're at today. And so that was number one thing that stood out on the square footage of water. Waterworks Park was actually very popular, very highly supported. We found that it's the only facility that actually operates in a positive from operations. So it does generate enough revenue to cover its operations expenses, which is important moving forward. You want to continue to invest in that facility. UNT, they were actually short on some swim and dive, or actually the diving team did not have practice facilities. They're actually currently going down to SMU to use their facilities to practice, which is going to create a challenge moving forward, because they've moved into the same conference. And so we don't know how long that's going to last for them. And then TWU uses their facilities for artistic swimming, which is a different depth of water and type of water use there. Civic Center Park is actually still used, a very old facility, as you guys know. You know, it's probably getting closer to the end of its physical state, but it's being used today for day camps and things like that. So it's still being used, just almost aging out of use. We did notice a deficit in the south side access to aquatics. Everything is from downtown north. Access from the south side is deficient. And so moving forward, that's something to consider as well. And so as we took a look at everything that was going on in the system, really kind of broke down into a handful of items that we could prioritize as we move forward. Again, reinvesting in Waterworks Park and an auditorium would enhance the offerings there and continue to make that a successful aquatic facility. There is a need for additional indoor lap lanes, like we mentioned, to support not only the ISDs if there's a partnership there moving forward, but also the citizens with indoor programming, you know, learn to swim, other types of programming elements. And then we need a plan to address the Civic Center pool, which we'll come back to in a minute. And then providing that access to South Denton is very important. And really what we wanted to look at, as far as the Civic Center pool goes, if there's an addition to the south side on aquatics, we want to see how that impacts Civic Center. So there may not be a direct, you know, this is what you should do with Civic Center now, but there does need to be a threshold of investment based on what happens with that once the remainder of that system comes online. So we started looking at how we could break this down. First phase of Waterworks Park can take care of a couple of those items. This is actually what is being proposed in the 2023 bond program. It would include a multifunctional body of water that can be used for lesson programming, lap lanes, and recreational use whenever the body of water is not being programmed. And that's important because that's something that Waterworks Park does not have currently. And it could take some of the pressure off the auditorium, at least temporarily, while the other parts are getting filled in, but having an open body of water out there that can be multipurpose and multifunctional is really important. We'd recommend adding a large children's play structure where that multifunctional body of water is shown, is actually shown to be removing the children's pool there. So adding another larger children's play unit would actually bring in families from a little bit further out, provide something to keep them around a little bit longer, which would help generate revenue with concessions and things like that. As well, along with that is three party rooms that could also be rented out for revenue generating purposes and the addition to the tickets or redevelopment of the tickets and admin building while you're doing that just to make sure that everything is, all the mechanical equipment is housed in one area. We would project that cost today at about $15 million, and again, the revenues are projected to outpace the operations expenses for that addition. So again, would not change from what's currently being done out there. As you move through the years, six to 10 years out, we would recommend replacing the slide tower with a multi-slide tower, including some artificial surf simulators, whether that's what they call a flow rider or different manufacturers or a surf pool, also restroom and concession area, additional shade, and maintenance area and filtration rooms. We project that cost to be about $16.7 million, and that would provide an increased attendance, provide additional opportunities for rentals, concessions, to continue developing revenue. Again, that's a six to 10 year process. And then finally, 12 to 15 years out would be about the time you'd want to refurbish the existing lazy river, the wave pool, and then add a large family raft ride, which is a different experience than your other slides, as it would be a multi-rider addition. So continue to bring other people in and provide opportunities for them to stay longer. That would be about $11.6 million, and that's really in today's dollars in 12 to 15 years. We don't really know what that's going to be, but so that's how we address that. And George will talk a little bit about the natatorium. Yeah. So one of the key things, as Austin mentioned from our findings, was that there is a deficiency on indoor laplane space within the city. We could really see having the Denton natatorium on the north side and then having a similar facility in South Denton. But because of the joint use agreement with DISD, the existing indoor lap pool is offline from the community for several hours a day, both in the mornings and in the evening times, plus with the addition of water polo as a UIL sport, doubling the high school since the natatorium was built. That is a heavily used lap pool for a size of city like Denton. And so one of the things that we really looked at was, well, could we create some efficiencies by adding on to the existing natatorium, creating some additional lap lane space that would actually help free up some of the existing space for the community. And then if there were, you know, partnerships with, continued partnership with the school district, possibly with the University of North Texas, then, you know, you could create even more efficiencies, you know, bundling all of these amenities into one facility. And so here's a layout of what that could look like there, just to the north side of the natatorium, essentially create a brand new 50-meter indoor Olympic-sized pool. And what this would do would really allow for the additional, you know, tripling the number of lap lanes at the facility, going from 10 to close to 30. It would allow the school district to have a designated space, would allow all of their events to be held in there currently when they have a swim meet or a water polo match. Again, the pool is taken offline from the community. And so what this would allow would be to have all of that space there on the north side. Plus, it would allow for some enhanced programs for the city to offer. You know, you could develop your own USA Swimming Club, something that Denton has needed for a long time, especially with a city this size. And so we really see this in that three- to six-year timeframe. And the estimated project cost was about 31 to $32 million to add that capacity to the existing natatorium. Austin mentioned several things about the Civic Center Pool. Again, born and raised here, it's a pool that I went to back in the early '80s. And so it has been a well-utilized facility. It's really a centerpiece here and the center of town. And what we really see there is that it has undergone several renovations. It was a sad day as a child when the high dive, the original high dive was taken out and you've undergone a renovation since that time as well. And so, you know, just being able to continually monitor its use, its physical condition, and really just developing that threshold of how much money the city wants to invest within that pool before, you know, that cost outweighs, you know, replacing it with a different type of aquatic amenity or replacing the pool, you know, with some more modern amenities, which this last renovation actually addressed really well. And then the final piece was looking again at that South Denton access to aquatics and developing something that could be actually similar to the Natatorium and Water Works Park just on the south side of the city. And so this could also be dependent upon partnerships with the school district, with the University of North Texas for their swim and dive program, you know, with Texas Women's University for their artistic swimming program, but would have both indoor aquatics as well as outdoor aquatics, there's also the possibility, you know, to look at some enclosure of some of those outdoor recreational amenities as well. But we put this at the 6 to 12 year time frame and this would be within that Southwest Park location to just help provide closer access for that area of the city. And then lastly, the city has already, you know, developed a plan in place for spray grounds, splash pads throughout the city. And so our recommendation was just to keep moving forward with that and the time frame varies just as different parks are developed or come online to incorporate some wet deck aquatic amenities, you know, that are free to the public and do not require staffing. And so again, just some of our key findings was primarily the lapping capacity here within the city. We found that, you know, trying to work together, you know, with the entire Denton community would be very beneficial for the city in terms of creating efficiencies and operations as well as capital cost, bringing online something in that South Denton area. So you know, it would minimize their drive time to the existing aquatic offerings is something that would prove very beneficial to the city. And so it really came down to two different aspects. Reinvest in what you have with the Natatorium, Waterworks Park, monitor the Civic Center, and then also, you know, look at that new development, whether that is the Natatorium expansion as well as the South Denton Aquatics Center. And so to break down the priority, you know, the reinvestment in the Waterworks Park and the Natatorium was priority one. Priority two, again, was trying to get some community aquatic access and recreation as well as address the laplane deficiency here within the city. And then long-term, you know, again, monitor the Civic Center pool as well as continue the process of developing those spray grounds throughout the city. And so with that, that's a brief overview of our last, you know, 9 to 12 months worth of work. And Austin and I, as well as Gary, Monica, and Nikki would welcome any questions that you may have. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Love your water bottle, by the way. It's fantastic. Great minds think alike. Generally designed. But anyway, you touched on it a little bit, but I would like in future discussions to kind of get a better feel for the revenue generation component. And what I'll point out is, well-received and I hope we do work with the colleges and obviously SMU just left. So yeah, we get one year with them and then they're on to the next. But what I'll say around that is it's addressing a need on the lanes. But the need, I think, that's paramount that we're not addressing are that I didn't hear enough of. And that's indoor play space. And I'll point you to Grand Prairie. We don't need anything that big. They have 100,000 more people than we do, although their council meetings are shorter. But then also, the cove in Little Elm, they're looking at doing an expansion. It's been so successful. And coming off a summer that we just had, I just really would have loved to, or maybe when you come back, I want to hear what we can do around that space indoors that is kind of a Waterworks-esque. So some years back, obviously, the cove's been there for a bit, but they got into that for 21 million, but it also goes back to my first point about revenue generation, talking about revenue generation year-round, one, and then employees being able to be employed year-round versus the seasonal issue we face. And so I think it checks a lot of boxes. And as we're addressing needs as far as lap lanes, et cetera, I believe paramount, you know, 1A, 1B is that indoor play space that parties revenue generation and year-round employment. So I just -- I agree with everything you've laid out. I just want to hear more about what we're going to do around that space to be -- because we're perfectly placed, right? If you don't want to drive all the way to Grand Prairie, you're in Lewisville. You want to come to Denton. If you're north of Denton, you want to come to Denton, just kind of in the middle of those. So it's a -- and I think maybe whatever the funding, I think we set up well to be able to pay for that. So -- >> Sure. >> Thank you very much. Questions? Councilman Harlan. >> Thank you. If the pool at the civics at Quakertown Park, if it were not there, would you build it there? >> So that question came up at the beginning of the study. And I don't think that we would today. I think for the time that it was built in Denton, that it was the perfect placement. But, you know, essentially when I grew up, Quakertown Park, Civic Center Pool, that was central Denton. And now I feel that it's north Denton, right? And so I think that it would probably -- we would shift or we would do a complementary facility. You know, we feel that there would probably need to be, if we were coming in and Denton had no aquatics, that we'd look at two primary aquatic facilities to serve the city, you know, essentially a north side and a south side or an east side and a west side. But I don't think that we would look at that specific location as the primary space for a pool today. >> That pool's got to be 60 years old. Is that right? How long does it -- what's the lifespan of a pool? >> Lifespan for an outdoor pool is usually in the 35 to 45-year range, and that includes having some type of substantial renovation, like this one had just a few years ago. And so that, you know, that gives it an extra 10 to 15 years of life. So that, you know, 2016, 2017 renovation, you know, will get you to, you know, 20 -- close to 2030, you know, barring some, you know, critical failure that might occur. >> And that brings me to another question that I've written down here, or what I'm going to call Olympic-sized pools, are those always indoors? Can that be an outdoor facility? >> It can be an outdoor facility. The majority of the ones in this area are indoors. Once you get south to the Austin or Houston area, you might see more outdoor 50-meter Olympic-sized pools, but in this area, generally speaking, most of them are indoor facilities. >> Is the TW indoor and TW outdoor pool -- do they still exist? >> The TW outdoor pool does not exist anymore, but it was a 50 -- I think it was a 50-yard pool. The indoor pool does exist. It was built in 1997, 1998, and it's a stretch 25, so it has a bulkhead, but it's not an Olympic-sized pool. >> Okay. When did the outdoor pool go away? >> I think it was within -- maybe within three to five years ago, I believe. >> Okay. >> After 2007. >> Okay. >> They went to live with the pedestrian bridge. What else? Mayor Pro Tem. >> Thank you. I alluded to this in my questions to staff, and y'all sort of briefly touched on the players, the school district, the city, the two campuses, with all their intermingled needs for -- or aquatics programming, but what I didn't get a sense of is the relative ratios of city demand versus student demand from the three educational groups, and can somebody discuss those sorts of ratios -- because I know it's come up before. What's our programming for -- and I'm an ex-swimmer, ex-swim coach, so I love swimming programs. They're part of the community, but I also need to have a feel for what's the relative ratios of student use, whether adult students or child students, versus general citizen use, so as we go forward. Can someone address that kind of concept? Do we have usage levels? >> Do you want to address that? I'll take it. >> Yeah. Thank you. That's a great question. We've gone through a couple of different years of change. As the ISD has changed coming out of COVID, their usage of the building has changed, the growth of additional programs. So from year to year, it does vary a little bit, but we'll go ahead and get some current numbers and provide that to you in the future for feedback. >> That'd be fine. >> As far as what we did for this past fiscal year. Sorry. >> No, that'd be great. I appreciate it. >> Sure. >> If you could -- if they have the numbers available, if you could include UNT and TWU's numbers of their usage, if they'll give them to you -- because I guess the plan is to have a regional approach to all aquatics is what I'm taking from the presentation, because we did talk about SMU diving and everything else. So I mean, I think that's great. I think all the stakeholders should interoperate, but then we'll need to know sort of our use of their facilities, their use of our facilities, et cetera, et cetera. >> Sure. And right now, UNT's swimming program operates out of the Pole Recreation Center. So they do not currently use the natatorium or anything with the city on a consistent basis. Their diving team is out of their PE building, and they're using that building as well as going down to the SMU campus. So between those swimming and diving facilities, they are looking for, you know, additional options in the future, which is why there's options on the table for a facility that could incorporate something for everybody. And UNT, TWU would like to come in with their artistic swimming program and see what might be available for their future as well if something were to be partnered for construction. >> No, I think that's great. I think the synergies make a lot of sense to combine. I more was interested in sort of what are the relative ratios. I mean, if it ends up that the citizen use is 70%, then that gives us a feel for what our starting number should be in terms of how much we should fund kind of thing. That's all I'm going at. >> Yeah. I appreciate the feedback on it. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Anyone else? Councilman McGee and then Councilman Byrd and Meltzer. >> Thank you, Mayor. So this question is just for staff. What's coming in the future? Do we, as Mayor Pro Tem alluded to, are we going to have some type of regional approach? Have we discussed that yet? >> No, not a regional approach. I think right now Gary and his staff are talking to UNT. TWU, I've had conversations with Dr. Faiton. >> I'll accept that. I don't know, by the way. I'm just curious. >> Yeah. I think it's more of, one is making sure that we're taking care of our citizens, the community users. And two, then it would possibly be working with DISD and UNT to see what they would, if they're willing to come to the table with some funding, to expand the size of what we would need. It would not just be us building it and saying, here, you can use it, because that's the problem we are in right now. That is, growing to, having two high schools, now we have more high schools, they've added water polo. All of those things take up more time and less open swim for our adult, well, and other users. So it really is, needs to be a relationship where we talk about what's needed and then how do we together fund it. >> All right, thank you, Mayor. >> Okay. >> Council Member Byrd. >> I'm going to go ahead and just give my direction for the option C, so we can, I think we're going to be giving direction today. And, you know, I was sitting here thinking about all of these new neighborhoods that are coming in and the likelihood that they have the HOA. And usually those HOAs provide, you know, that swimming pool amenity. And all of these large apartment complexes that are coming through, you know, just for relaxation type, you know, swimming. I appreciate the Mayor's idea on us looking forward to some type of water, water park, where it's more for entertainment and money generating water park type place. I don't know, I'm thinking about, you know, great wood lodge type situation. I know that's very large, but I know there might be some way that we can kind of fit it in what we're projecting for our needs. But you know, just the thought of it is just backing on Dr. Bick's discussion in regards to the city using it, I mean, neighbors are using it, or, you know, the other groups are using it most often. But in the idea of the HOAs coming in and these large complexes coming in, having their own water amenity, so that could be something to be thought about too. Yes, thank you. On page 65 of the Aquatic Master Plan, if you guys would like to look into it, there is an option it's written in, it's called an open air system. It is listed for an approximate today's dollar amount of $15 million, and that's how much it would cost in order to take that Southwest Park outdoor aquatic area, that recreational area, and enclose it similar to what they have at the Cove in Little Elm. So that option is written into the Master Plan. It is an option for additional funding if you would like to go in that direction in the future, but it's at least put in there so that we know that we have the concept in mind if we want to extend the recreational swimming component with, you know, the small children and the things that they can do and have a year-round access and have that something that would be indoor with a retractable roof. Mayor. Okay. This is a presentation about a Master Plan for our aquatics. It is not about you deciding today about funding or additional funding or building. So it gives you some food for thought, it gives you an opportunity to think about what do you want the Parks and Recreation Department Aquatics Unit to really look like for the future of the city, knowing that it's growing exponentially, and you already heard from our consultants that we have nothing really in South Denton now. So I think they've been able to give you a good view of what it could look like and may need to look like in the future, knowing how fast we're growing. Okay. Thank you. Is there no real direction, just kind of feedback based on what we're seeing? Am I tracking right? Yes. Great. Okay. Councilman Meltzer. Yeah, and on that score, I just -- I so appreciate the specificity of the visioning looking, you know, really far out, and I'm generally supportive of the sort of maximum thing you can envision because, you know, the city is growing very rapidly and it's going to -- you know, the demand is going to be there. A question I have about our internal data, does our internal data help you see who geographically goes to Civic Center, who geographically goes to Waterworks Park? Do they overlap? Are they completely different groups of people? Where do they come from? Does it give you any insights into, you know, what the needs might be? That's a great question. The only overlap that we can track internally is going to be through an all access pass, which gives season pass holders that have access to that one permissions to go to both the water park, natatorium, as well as to the Civic Center pool. Those are the only internal tracking that we have for overlap between all three facilities. But what about the geographic origins of, let's say, everybody else? Like, do you -- you know, does our data show us who's there and where they came from? Not at the moment. The data we're capable of pulling is going to be a resident versus nonresident with our daily admissions and with our past sales. Well, I don't know how much of a sort of assessment development kind of life this project has or if you're already done with that part of it, but, you know, that might even be interesting surveyable data on a short time frame. Just, you know, if they're all coming from one part of town, let's say southeast, and nothing else is really convenient, then, okay, maybe Civic Center isn't the -- or whatever -- you know, Quaker Town Park isn't the optimal place, maybe someone else -- somewhere else is, but who are you serving? What's convenient for that population? That's my question. I'm just leaving you with the question. You don't need to give me the answer. Thank you. Council Member Watts and Council Member Holland. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Very thorough, comprehensive. I'm going to be maybe the outlier. We've tried the regional approach, and so, Mr. City Attorney, if I'm stepping over comments regarding certain programs that are out for election, just let me know. The Natatorium and Water Park has basically run out of space. Not necessarily because -- I mean, our citizens are growing and they want to use it. There's more demand for it, but also because of the school district. No fault of the school district. I just think when we start thinking about this, we need to -- me personally, I would go at it with, we're going to build it. You want to use it. We're going to find a contract price, and we'll find a way to do it, because what happens is the citizens are getting squeezed out. That's why on the bond program, there's $15 million for -- and part of that is what they call flat water, which is what you're describing up here, the lanes, the things such as that, if I understand correctly. And that's in response to there's so much demand now from the school district. So I would proceed very cautiously on how many partners you pull into a project and look at it more from a revenue stream of, okay, if you want to use it, just like we do with our training facility out at the fire station, out at the police station, because right now, the natatorium and water park, we're subsidizing quite a bit. Don't expect it to make money, per se, the natatorium. The water park does. And I'm with the mayor. I mean, you know, sometimes we don't think big enough. I mean, I think we also need to look at what if we were to solicit someone, a private industry, for a profit, hey, is there any space in Denton where you could come and build a water park that would attract people in the area, because the whole region is growing. So I'm just -- I'm really skeptical on bringing in so many partners unless it is so well defined who gets to use what, when, where, the percentages, because, unfortunately, that's what's happening. And it's to be expected. The school district's got how many students? 31,000? How many 33? About 31,000. Yeah. And the population of Denton's 140, 150, so you got a lot of people using that very one facility that was contracted for 20 years ago and has a 50-year life on the contract, which please, whatever we do, let's don't ever do that again, because that's way too long, because 50 years, a lot changes. So I think there's some good ideas here. I think for me, I would also make sure that if we want to do it, how can we do it if we're moving with ourselves but also having the ability to rent out space and those kinds of things to these other institutions that need it so we don't run into the situation that we're in right now. Okay. Thank you. Okay, I do want to ask, if you could pull up and just, can someone help if you don't know? Just go to the internet. I don't want to go to Google Maps and look at this area, if that's okay. Just yeah, to the netatorium on Google Maps, you know, please and thank you. Awesome, awesome. So and just because we've had this conversation lately and this feeds a lot of that time, so right now we have one in and one out. That's Long Road, is that right, at the north side there, right? And so where this goes with this plan is we need better access as we're growing it, right? More use, more phases, more people, yes? Correct. Great. And I also want to state for the record that road about in the middle of the water park to the right, no, no, to the east side there, what road is that? I know the answer. Yeah, Hartlefield Road. There we go. Okay. So I've heard no complaints about expansion, no discussion about traffic, and so I'm just making a statement here that that road is in the middle of all this expansion, in the middle of all this growth, just putting the timestamp there. So then further my direction, I do take a priority on the south side of town because we don't have that, you know, we don't have facilities there to serve those citizens, so maybe it's a catalyst for our 300-acre park where we, you know, maybe we talk around that, but and I take thank you for pointing out the page 65. I'll take a look at that, but just kind of on first glance, really it's about the that and then maybe rooms for party rooms, concession stands, that sort of thing, kind of an enhanced version of that, but thank you for pointing it out. Thank you all for thinking about that. So great, great starting point. So I'll continue to think through that and provide feedback. Anyone else? Councilmember McGee. Mayor, in your first round of comments, you made a statement about Grand Prairie, given what they have. You said we don't need something that large. It seems to be that what they've done is kind of ingenious and trapping several different things all under one roof. Why did you make, what were you thinking when you made those comments? Because I mean, they've got plenty of meeting space, they've got senior rec center all in there, so why make that comment? I believe Epic Waters, it fits them well, but we are, we're going from a city that used to, that is used to neighborhood water parks, neighborhood amenities to expanding that saying, hey, not every neighborhood is going to have one. And I think to go to expand that beyond that, so we're going to have one in the entire city. I just think it's too big of a jump, too fast. I think that is where we're going. It's a great idea as far as fiscally, you know, because you have Epic Waters, you have the hotel, you have the water features there, I think it sets up well if we had that kind of infrastructure in place and kind of landscape to kind of build it from scratch. But because we're so established, I just worry about doing something that big. Now, would it get used? Certainly. I mean, I think if we, no matter how big we build it, between Crum, Sanger, Ponder, those areas that aren't going to be able to invest in these phases of things, that's kind of a built in audience to come in and take advantage of our amenities and save them some money. I thought about that too. So I think it's absolutely a draw Gainesville South to come to, hey, we'll just go to Denton and do it versus, because the alternative is you got to drive to Herre Point, you got to drive to Great Vine, Grand Prairie, or Little Elm. So all of it comes through Denton, so you might as well stop in Denton if we have it. But just kind of depends on the cost and that sort of thing. I'd really, if you ask me, I'd take one of those phases and overlay it over the skate park because people have been asking for a new skate park, and so it gives us an opportunity to repurpose that land and then also provide another skate park, kind of expand that. So I mean, that's my thought, but just for what it's worth. Maybe we can empty the pool and be a skate park during the, no, just kidding, all amenities underwater. Okay, any other questions? I'll just say to finish up, the other reason why I do think it's a good idea in addition to being fiscally conservative is space. I mean, we've pointed out several times the ability, the need for us to continue to buy land because we're running out of space. This would solve several needs and we could kind of capture it all in one space going forward. So that's another reason I had in my mind why I really appreciate and like what they did down there. A smaller footprint here, obviously, but I like moving that direction, so. Yeah, no, I look forward to what comes back and kind of enhancements on that page 65 approach thing. So thank you. Anyone else? All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Great presentation. Thank you. Okay, I will call the closed session, then we'll take a break while we set the room and then we can come back to it. So the city council will now at 3.36 PM convene in closed meeting to deliberate closed meeting item set forth on agenda, which includes the following a ID 231572 deliberations regarding real property under Texas government code section 551.072 and item B ID 231894 deliberations regarding personnel matters under Texas government code section 551.074. So we'll we'll take a break and be back at 3.45 to get started. Good evening. Welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council. It is 520 we're reconvened to take up our items a little bit out of what should be in order but for the most part, we'll our public hearings will start at 630. But we'll take up our consent agenda. Now to that end. Before I take a motion, that's did someone from staff here back from No, okay. So can I leave it in and then if they don't submit the application take because the opposite is hard to do if they submitted in late. How does that work? You can leave it in and if they don't accept it, we just won't cut the check. Okay. That way the ordinances got it. So referencing so they were all on the same page referencing item AK there was a question about the application requirements. And so the recipient had some questions they needed to have cleared up before they could receive the money. So we're working through that. But today is the last day for action for this fiscal year's budget. So I'm going to leave it in. So I'll take a motion on consent agenda, but for items B and that's it except but for item B. Mayor Pro Tem. I move approval of the consent agenda except item B. Councilmember McGee. Second. Okay. Motion by Mayor Pro Tem. Second by Councilmember McGee for the consent agenda, but for item B. Let's vote on this screen. Judge. And that passes 7-0. Access to item B ID 23069, consider nominations, appointments of City of Boards, commissions, and committees, planning and zoning. There's only two so we'll take them one at a time. Mayor Pro Tem. I move separation of the nominations. Yeah. Make your but go ahead with your motion. Okay. So I move separation. You want me to how do you want what are you asking me to do, sir? Yeah, I'm asking you to nominate who you want to nominate and there's only two so we're going to vote on them just separately. I move approval of Jordan Villarreal to planning and zoning. Okay. Councilmember McGee. Second. Sorry. Okay. Second discussion, I need to speak, bear with me. My concern is this. And so I don't have enough information to vote and I, Jesse, I'll add this into the record for, so that it can be added to that section and the agenda I'll give you, I have a copy for you and I have it marked up. So current commissioner Villarreal has, based on the last time he was appointed, he'd worked for several, a better said, a council member and it wasn't disclosed, so I wanted to look at the application again to make sure upon reappointing him that that had cured itself. But I don't have enough information to vote today because he lists the Texas House of Representatives and a district director position. But he didn't list his work, PLESA, P-L-E-S-A for Texas, I'm assuming that's regarding his work with Representative PLESA, and I'm not going to mispronounce her last name, the representative at the state level. He did not list Denton County grassroots consulting, but both of those are listed present jobs and based on the campaign reports from last year, or better said this year, $3,200 paid to grassroots and $3,186 paid to him as an individual, and then there's some other payments to those entities as well. So those are active employment and I just don't know enough about those, they weren't listed. I don't have time to review those. And then I will also say, my question is for the dais, if there's someone that is doing work with him as a consultant, those disclosures are required and this is what I'll enter into the file so that we have a time stamp and a moment in time that's documented because based on state law, this is, and let me get there, Chapter 176 of the Local Government Code states, business relationships mean a connection between two or more parties based on commercial activity of one of the parties, and then this document that we ask our vendors to fill out says, a vendor commits an offense if the vendor knowingly violates Section 176.006, Local Government Code, and offense under this section is a misdemeanor. So based on that legal description, those legal concerns, I don't have enough time, I wasn't proud of enough time to send out written correspondence to my peers here to document that if they wanted to go on the record and say that they stipulate that they've done no work with him in the last year, then that's great, I'll take that under advisement, but I will say going forward, this same form that we ask our vendors to fill out, it's form CIQ, it states, the law requires that you file an updated completed questionnaire with appropriate filing authority no later than seven business days after the date of which you became aware that the originally filed questionnaire was incomplete or inaccurate. So any changes are due seven business days after that's been known. So for me, I just don't have enough information, so I'm not going to vote on this nominee. If my peers want to speak to that and speak to add some clarity, I still have questions about the job listing and so for those reasons, I'm just not willing to put myself in that situation to be found liable for any legal action without those disclosures. So that's my statement. Any other discussion before we vote? Seeing none, let's vote on the screen. And I'm not going to, so whatever you got to plug in for me. And I have these copies, I have a highlighted version for you. And that passes four to two, and with one abstention. And that takes us to our items for individual consideration and-- Oh, I'm sorry. You're right. Thank you. And so is there a nomination for the second? Councilman Holler. Mayor, I'd like to nominate John Ryan for P and Z. Okay. Is there a second? Councilman Watts? I'll say it. Okay. Motion by Councilman Holler, second by Councilman Watts. Any other discussion? Seeing none, let's vote on the screen. And that fails, four, three. Okay. That takes us to-- Yeah. That takes us to our work sessions. I see. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm a little discombobulated. No, that's not it. I have a question before I move to the next item. How can a sitting P and Z member be appointed to a new position? If the vote failed, he currently has a position, but they voted him into a position, he's not been removed, technically, he has a serve. So if Councilmember Holland just leaves him, then he serves until he's replaced, am I right? Frankly, I don't know the exact facts scenario on when his term ends and when it doesn't. August 31st. So his term has ended. Yes. So now he will become vacant by him being replaced in the new seat. But he's not removed, he has a serve until, or no? No, by the fact that you put him in another place, he will now serve in that place, he will no longer serve in his prior place. Okay. There we go. Thank you. So just so you, you know, so that we all know what we need to do. Got it. Thank you for the clarification. Now, items for individual consideration, 6A, ID 23176, consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Dentex as establishing the rates for solid waste and recycling collection service repealing ordinance number 221855, providing for a repealer, providing for a durability clause and providing an effective date. Good evening, Mayor and Council, Amy Kaslick, Interim Finance Director. I'm going to be covering items 1736, 1741, 1742, 1870, and 1871. There have been no changes to these items since we last presented them. These slides are contained within the budget presentation, however, I'm happy to share those at this time if you'd like, otherwise I'm available for any questions that you have. For the first item, we are seeking approval on revisions to the solid waste and recycling ordinance. This includes a $5 increase each in fees related to grass, brush, and leaves to cover the cost of beneficial reuse, a $50 cart change fee for on-demand next day cart replacement, $15 recycling cart fee, and this is charged for each cart each month in excess of two recycling carts, as well as the removal of fees for contaminated yard waste, whole trees and stumps, and concrete. Got it. Any questions for staff? Seeing none, I'll take a motion. Councilman Watts? So moved. Is there, Mayor Partem? Second. Motion by Councilman Watts, second by Mayor Partem. Any discussion? Seeing none, let's vote on the screen. Okay, that passes, 7-0 takes us to item 6B, ID 231741, consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas, establishing the rates and fees for water and water service repealing ordinance number 221856, providing a repeal or providing a severability clause and providing an effective date. There are no changes to rates or fees for water this fiscal year, however, just as a formality in rates setting, we are asking that council approve the ordinance before you. Okay, thank you. Any questions for staff? Seeing none, Councilman Watts? So moved. Mayor Partem? Second. Motion by Councilman Watts, second by Mayor Partem. Any discussion? Seeing none, let's vote on the screen. That passes 6-1, takes us to item C, which is ID 23174, consider adoption of ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas, establishing the schedule of rates and fees for wastewater services repealing ordinance 221857. Thank you. We are seeking approval of changes to the wastewater rates and fees. This includes the removal of the rate for dyno dirt overs. It also includes 11% increase across all customer classes for both the facility and the usage charges. This equates to an increase of approximately $3.30 for our average residential customer. I know that you'll recall from our earlier discussions that the wastewater rate has remained unchanged since fiscal year 2019, at which point in time it was actually reduced by 5%. Significant capital investments are needed not only to keep up with the growth, but also to maintain existing infrastructure. Development rates really are no longer sufficient to support this utility. Okay. Any questions for staff? Seeing none, I'll take a motion. Mayor Partem? I move approval. Councilman Watts? Second. We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Show it on the screen. Passes seven zero. Takes us to six D as in dog, which is ID 231870. Consider adoption of the ordinance of the City Council of the City of Denton, Texas, repealing Ordinance 201.1-155, no longer committing to signing or restricting any recreational program revenues or fees or any fund balance of recreational fund. For this item, we are seeking the approval to dissolve the Recreation Fund. Parks and Recreation currently is operating out of two funds, the Journal Fund and the Recreation Fund. By consolidating operations all underneath the General Fund, this will allow the department to more effectively manage its resources. Okay. Questions for staff? Mayor Partem? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I saw staff's response in the backup, and I guess I'm not meaning to double down because I don't really have a bone to pick with either this one or the other one, the E, which I don't want to bring up too early as off-posting, but I didn't understand the rationale between why in one case killing one was operationally efficient and the other case adding one was operationally efficient, and I'm not trying to say that there's not management circumstances to make that. I guess I'm asking for clarity on what those management circumstances are between keeping one or adding one and repealing the other. Whereas in actuality in both cases, we are pulling operations underneath a single fund. Whereas in both cases, they are dispersed across multiple funds. All right, all right. Fair enough. Any other questions? Councilman Holland? Mayor, I'll move the passage of this item to dissolve the Recreation Fund. Okay. Councilman Watts? Second. Okay. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Let's vote on the screen. Passes 7-0, takes us to item 6-E, ID 231871, consider adoption of an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Denton, Texas, establish an environmental services fund. Okay, so in this one, we are seeking approval to establish the environmental services fund. The creation of this fund will allow environmental services to consolidate their operations that are currently funded in the general fund, water, wastewater, and solid waste and recycling funds. And just as the prior one, this will allow the department to more effectively manage their resources by having those in one fund. Okay. Thank you. Any questions for staff? Seeing none, Mayor Pro Tem? Given the explanation we heard a second ago, I move approval. Councilman McGee? Second. Motion and a second. Any other discussion? Let's vote on the screen. And passes 7-0, takes us to 6-F, which is ID 231704, consider approval of a resolution of the City of Denton, nominating members to the Board of Directors in Denton Central Appraisal District and providing an effective date. Good evening, Mayor, City Council, Cassie Ogden, Assistant City Manager. Here just with a brief presentation. So we go through this process once every two years. Each taxing jurisdiction is asked to nominate people to the Board of Directors. So this is not the actual vote that will happen later, that will happen in December, but this is just the nomination. So currently these are the sitting board members. And because of the change in legislation, the ex officio member will now become a voting member in 2024, as well as the chief appraiser. And so the board, currently they were serving two-year terms, they're moving to staggered four-year terms. So City Council can nominate up to five members. The total number of members is now changing to nine board members, one being the tax assessor and then three publicly elected members. And their current term will still end December 31st of this year. And then I have the eligibility, which has not changed from the previous time that we nominated. So just a quick reminder, we're gonna, after nominations are received tonight, we will submit those to the CAD. They will compile the list and then give us the full list that council can then vote on. We'll be voting December 5th. And then after that vote is taken from council, I will forward our final vote to the DCAD. They will compile all of the votes across the taxing jurisdictions and the five members receiving the most votes will be board members. And so of the 5,000 total votes, the City of Denton has been allocated 160 this year. With that, happy to take any questions. Okay. Do we need to, how do we want, is it just each individual share their names or their suggestions or if we put them all behind one person, is that, we just need to have that conversation? This is just the nomination. So you can nominate up to five. So it's your... Right. But we need to also talk about how to allocate the 160 votes. I'll come back in December and we can talk about that. We have to take a formal vote at that point. And that's when council chooses to nominate either, or excuse me, chooses to vote by using either their full 160 votes on one person or last year we split it between two people. So this is just nominations right now. Got it. Okay. Perfect. Great. Mayor Pro Tem. I just had a real brief question. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. For Michelle French, she's automatically nominated and the voting member, that's how it works. We don't need to nominate her as part of our process. I believe. That's what I understood. Now you can correct me if I'm wrong. So we're only voting, we're only nominating like we have in the past, our particular choice. Correct. Okay. Thank you for the clarity. Councilor Watts. Thank you, Mayor. I think in the backup, you had the number of absences by some of these nominees. Correct. Do you have that slide? I don't have it on the slide, but I did include it. Oh, okay. Here it is. Yeah. So a couple of questions. How many times do they meet? Is it once a month? It was once a month in 2022, they met less time because of because of COVID or something. I don't know. But in 2023, they they met more frequently. They had several meetings that were twice a month in 2023. So are you asking us to, you're saying nominate five, and it could be the five that you put up there, it could be only two or three of them, or it could be five totally different people. Correct. You can, you can nominate up to five. So you could nominate one, you could nominate anywhere from one to five. And are we voting on these names individually, whatever the nominations are? Or is this a slate? The nominations, Mac, help me with the process, but whatever is nominated tonight, you will vote on and then that will get forwarded to the CAD. They will compile the list of nominations and send us back the total nominations across the taxing jurisdictions, everyone that was nominated, and then you will vote at that point. Right. I guess my question is, go ahead, Mac, I think you were referencing for purposes of tonight and you're voting tonight, it's really up to the council whether you want to do it one at a time or if you want to put five names out there and then take one vote on at that. That's really up to the mayor and the council's discretion. Okay. Were these the five we voted on last time? How did these names come to us? These are the five current board members. Okay. And so that's got you. Yeah, that was the question that was sent in from, I believe it was the mayor asked for their absences. Yeah. And so that was just, that's just based on the meeting minutes from their meetings. Right. And that's why I asked how many times they met, just because, I mean, one stands out that, you know, close to almost half if they're meeting once a month, and if they're meeting less than that in 2022, then, so I just, I put that out there. So thank you. Okay. Okay. Council Member McGee. If there's an appetite, I would like to, if there's an appetite given the number of absences for someone, I wouldn't mind nominating my friend, Council Member Watts, happy to give a glowing nomination speech right now, if needed or wanted by this body. Because of the number, one, I don't know if he's accepted, if he wants to go through that, that's great. He can say so, but there's understand how the system works. We get 160 of 5,000 votes. So I just wanted to really give my nomination speech. That was all I just so it's okay. All right. So, so what are you saying, Mayor, I'm just, I'm just teasing you get some votes going is that I guess, is that even, I don't say legal, but I mean, happy to be your campaign manager. Yeah, that's what we will do. I'll disclose. I haven't thought about it, frankly, but I think there's compatibility issues there. Right. You may not be able to have it. No, and I appreciate the kind words and the warm thoughts, but yeah, I think it would create optics of something that might be crazy, but no, I appreciate that. So then I guess I have a question, given, I appreciate the mayor asking about the absences. Can we table this or do we have to vote on folks tonight? Nominees tonight, we're just putting forward. So for example, like I'm, I'm, I would put forward that we, the two names that I would like to put votes behind and that's and P and I don't know. And Alex, just when I talked to my peers, you know, I think those stand out to me and those who I want to get behind, obviously there's everyone else serves well, get it, but in the praise of this has had a great year this year, but those are the two that, that when I talked to my peers, bubble to the top of the list and again, kind of concentrating not wanting to dilute our one 60 more than two, my personal preference, but others. So we could just nominate yours and not the rest. Is that how the process could work? We can have up to five. So if we, we, the problem becomes if someone comes up with three other names and then the, the fourth name is a problem because we only can have five. So there's gap for three other names. We can vote on those next time, but okay. Okay. Thank you. So it only becomes a problem if we get above five, does need to receive our nominations before October 1st, which is why it's on the second for that or, or we'll, I guess she wanted to, and then I'll ask you to give me a second. Uh, no, I think just if, as long as there's less than five names, she'll take them and we'll vote on them later. So my question was, can we vote for our set, vote, nominate ourselves? Would there be a, depending on what our background is? I'm looking into it as quickly as I can right now to see if we can find an answer on that. He's looking into it. Okay. Anyone else? Any other names? Uh, okay. Well, yeah, yes, I, because we're going to move on, right? So I don't want to close it out, uh, but, um, I would assume the answer is the same that you gave, uh, I was going to say it sounds like there's an elected officials, employees of the taxing unit are not eligible, but elected officials are. So city, county and school district is my understanding. Yeah. No, it looks right. Um, just going to some attorney general opinions. I don't know how dated they are, but they seem to say that this not, it is not, it's not a conflict to serve on the appraisal district. That'd be a council member. So the answer is yes. Yeah. You can do it. Okay. Can I vote on nominate myself? Mr. Mayor. I'm sure we have space and nominate Vicki bird. Yeah. Okay. Any, any other names? Mr. Mayor. Does council member Watts want to entertain this happy to nominate him? Um, I mean, Have you ever done this before? Well, I'm very familiar with the appraisal district. So, um, and I'm familiar with the challenges and some of that they've overcome and some they have. My, my big concern is the optics because we set the tax rate and the appraisal board, you know, they don't set the appraised values, but they manage the people who set the appraised values. So, uh, I'm going to have to respectfully decline that as much as I would want to serve. If I wasn't serving on council, I would serve, but I really want to keep a fine line there. So I appreciate again, your consideration and max clarification of that rule and Cassie yours as well. Thank you. Okay. So we have three, three names thus far. Anyone else? Any other nominations? Seeing none. Uh, right. You. Okay. Got it. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate it. We have to, no, she's coming back. Oh, we don't vote. Yes. Do you need to vote for the nominations? We have to vote to accept those nominations, don't we? Yes. To accept the three or five. Okay. I did. Because we're going to vote and not allocate. You're voting to submit these nominations to the board that will collect these and then give them back to you. And at that point in December, you'll vote on the long list of nominations. Perfect. Councilor McGee. I make a motion to accept these three names that we've put forward tonight. Councilor Watts. I'll second. Could, could we, um, Councilor McGee, could we just go ahead and put those three names in the motion just so that, I mean, I know we all know who they are, but I'd like to get it a little bit cleaner just so for the record, yeah. I think he's got them on his, and then just add Councilmember Byrd. And while you're looking at that, the council was handed and emailed a clarified resolution just to make it clear that these won't expire. The terms won't necessarily expire at the end of 2024, that it'll be up to the board at a future time to figure out how they want to stagger that. So that, that was taken out of the prior resolution ordinance so that it's clear that it's not going to affect the terms necessarily what we do today. Ready for motion? Yes, sir. Okay. Go right ahead. So I would like to make a motion to nominate three people and Alex Buck and Councilmember Vicki Byrd. Great. And I'll second that. Okay. Uh, we have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Let's vote on the screen. That passes seven, zero, uh, okay. Takes us to item G six, six G ID two, three, one, six, three, two, consider approval of a resolution approving the city of Denton green sense incentive program, green sense incentive program manual. Good afternoon, Mayor, members of council, James Douglas, conservation programs coordinator and just a quick reminder. So this is items G H and I, uh, together for this presentation. If we do need to call all three, yes, I do bear with me, um, item six, uh, H is ID two, three, one, six, three, three consideration, pardon me. Consider adoption shown of an ordinance of the city of Denton amending the schedule of rates for electric service, providing a repealer, providing a severability clause and providing for an effective date. And then item I, which is ID two, three, one, seven, seven, seven, consider approval of a resolution approving the city of Denton's district distributed, uh, generation manual delegating authority of Denton municipal electric for certain amendments to the program. Yep. Okay, fantastic. Again, good evening. Um, my name is James Douglas, conservation programs coordinator, um, here to discuss the proposed changes to the green sense incentive program. Um, of course, before we get started, uh, we'll do a little bit of context, uh, for the conversation today. The green sense incentive program was initiated in 2009 and the last adjustments to the incentive program were made in 2018. In 2017, the year prior to those changes incentives covered approximately 8% of the total invoices, uh, for the work that was completed as a part of the energy efficiency, uh, program under green sense, uh, over time, that number has, uh, steadily decreased to the last fiscal year where the rebate dollars for energy efficiency covered just 4% of the, uh, total invoiced for the residents that took advantage of that program. Uh, for the, uh, green sense energy and efficiency incentives in 2022, uh, through 2022, approximately $2.2 million were invested. And we would take a look at the reductions. This is approximately 19 kilowatt hours of reduction per rebate dollar invested. Uh, just another note, um, the online applications for the, um, green sense incentive program began in January, 2023. Uh, this increased staff capacity, uh, reduced our turnaround times and also offered, uh, an easier method for our residents to apply to this program. Uh, as I said, we are bringing forward some proposed changes for fiscal year 2024. Uh, a summary of those changes are included below. So some new items that would be included in the program for this fiscal year include, uh, electric bikes or e-bikes to go along with the, uh, electric vehicles that are already a part of the program. Uh, also included would be HVAC tuneups, uh, also dedicated dollars for the fan giveaway, which has occurred the last two summers and has been a popular program thus far. We would also include weatherization kits for renters. Um, renters are, uh, currently not able to take advantage of the program. And so these weatherization kits would enable them to do so in, in that way. We would also be increasing rebate dollar amounts across the board, um, focusing highly on those energy efficiency items that, uh, return the most, uh, estimated conservation savings for the dollar invested. Uh, you can see the complete list of those below. These are all currently, uh, part of the program. Uh, the increases are strongly focused, like I said, on those ones that are sort of the most bang for the buck and that's the HVAC, the attic insulation and the solar screens. With this new proposed incentive, uh, structure based on the last fiscal year, the new dollar amounts for the program would cover 18% of the total, uh, invoice for the residents as compared to that 4% that the current program, uh, is funding. So we have a few, uh, um, uh, a brief, um, history here of the, uh, committee and board review. Um, so the structure was presented to the committee on the environment on August 6th of this year. Uh, for the public utility board, um, this was mentioned at the January 23rd, 2023 meeting and unfortunately we did not have a quorum yesterday, uh, but this item will go back to that body for ratification. Uh, the sustainability framework advisory committee, um, has seen this most recently, uh, in the form that's presented to you today on July 28th, but also had tutors that also touched on this topic. So we have two main action items before you today. Um, the first one is described here and it is an amendment to, uh, the ordinance for the green sense incentive program, uh, as well as the distributed generation, uh, renewable resources rider and the manual. For the green sense incentive program, this change would allow for both direct cash payments for the green sense program, as well as the bill credits that are currently utilized. This would also remove the cash incentive for the installation of photovoltaic applications. Uh, for the DGR there, um, it would, uh, provide an option for a power purchase agreement for systems greater than 20, uh, kilowatts and, uh, that'll be discussed in a little bit more detail, uh, on, on a few slides. Um, so the section, the second action would adopt a new resolution, um, again described below. Uh, the summary is that it delegates the director of environmental services and sustainability, uh, with the ability for, um, funding adjustments within the approved budget, as well as minor changes that do not conflict with council direction. Uh, it also requires prompt publishing of these changes, um, whether they be minor, um, or within that funding adjustment there, um, just letting the public know, uh, what those changes are so that they can effectively use that program. Uh, this, uh, resolution also includes the adoption of the new green sense incentive program manual that is attached in the backup. Uh, again, just a quick summary of those changes to the distributed generation manual. Um, so besides, uh, sort of general document cleanup, it clarifies that DME has the option to require a purchase power agreement for PV systems that are larger than 20 kilowatts. It adds language that allows customer, uh, PV systems that are capable of islanding to continue to operate when utility service is lost, which is really sort of the definition there. And then it requires that pictures of the meters, breakers, and breaker boxes, uh, be provided within the permitting application. With that summary, I'm happy to take any questions that you might have, and, uh, thank you for your time. Thank you. Uh, questions for staff? Councilman Burke? I only have one question. What is an islander? What do, what are these people? I'm, uh, going to defer to Bill for that question. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, council members. I am Bill Shepherd with DME. Uh, the answer to your question on islanding is, uh, typically older systems, when the utility grid is lost, when we lose power, they shut down the inverter for that system. So it does not continue to produce power on that house, and that's really a safety concern for our alignment on the lines. With the newer inverters that are available now, they can actually continue to operate the house and isolate that house from our system, which is called islanding. Um, this is a new option that every new, uh, unit will have from this point, or that, that decision comes from the, uh, homeowner? Yeah, it'll be from the homeowner, because it's a, it's an added cost for that system. It usually, uh, involves battery backup as well, uh, in a storage system. Uh, but we started, uh, allowing that about a year and a half ago. So this is really just bringing the, the manual up to par with what we're allowing now. So like a kindergarten level visual that I'm having in my head right now, I'm imagining those, I don't want to use this name of this company where I've seen on TV where they say, that you can put this additional battery backup. Is that like a battery backup? Yes, ma'am. Uh, for, that's exactly what it is. Right. Cause, uh, you need that battery system to be able to, to hold a major load of the house anyway. And so would that be a particular one that the city would, um, suggest to these people or they can go out and purchase their own on their own? Yes, ma'am. There's, there's plenty of, uh, battery backup systems that they can couple with a solar system. Thank you. You're welcome. Councillor Watts. Thank you. Uh, the pictures of the breaker and the breaker boxes and so forth, um, I understand the requirement for that in the permitting process, I guess, not knowing enough about our current code. Is that to make sure that the equipment is sufficient? The boxes, the breakers, their electrical system infrastructure is sufficient for what they're trying to install. Is that really the purpose of that? Or is it, I mean, cause if it is, then we need to, are there some standards we can give out there? Cause I just don't want there to be this kind of issue where, okay, you give them, you give us a picture and then somebody makes a decision of, well, this, so do we have standards of electrical panels? I mean, as far as their capacity or age or things like that, that are already in place or is this kind of? I'm going to speak a little bit for development services cause that's actually a, a new restriction or requirement that they have, um, uh, for the permitting process starting October one. Right. That was just changed. However, uh, I would make that same assumption. What we don't want to do is have somebody install something and it not be exactly what they specified on their, on their permitting application. Uh, but they do have to follow the electric code when they're putting in these breakers in the panels. And a lot of times when a large system gets put on a house, they have to upgrade the electric system in the house as well too. So. Okay. Yeah. Fantastic. One other question. Yes sir. On the presentation, it said that there was some authority delegated to the director of environmental and sustainability services or something like that. What I mean, uh, to make modifications within the budget, so forth and so on outside, you know, not outside accounts, what, what's the interest that we're trying to promote in that? Is it, is it a time saver? Is it a, um, yeah, I can give kind of an example of when that would come into play. Um, so recently, uh, just as an example with the, um, new HVAC rating requirements, uh, they changed the rating system from AC or two AC or two system. So certain languages adjustments like that, that would keep the, keep the program going. I think that's a good example. All right. That's a good example. I appreciate that. Thank you. Oh, you already had your question. Okay. Any other questions? Uh, seeing none. Yeah. Counselor McGee. You have something. Yeah. Thank you mayor. I'll keep it brief. I was just going to ask, do we have a lot of customers that we're purchasing power from with DGRs that are greater than 20, 20 kilowatts? Just general knowledge question. Currently. Currently, we have two systems that are under PPA that are over 20 KW. We have another two systems that do not have a PPA that are over 20 KW, but by and large out of the over thousand systems we have, uh, connected to our grid, they're less than 20. Okay. Thank you mayor. Thank you. Councilor Watts. Thank you mayor. Thank you. Uh, I see Scott McDonald in the back and so I was wondering if I could maybe pose my question about the picture requirement to developmental services. Uh, you'll know it's a, it's an easy question. Sorry. You shouldn't have come in. I mean, and you shouldn't be wearing that bright shirt where I can see you. Yeah. I was working on something else by golly. Oh yeah. Just real quick in this resolution, we're, we're asking during the permitting process for the installation of solar systems on, on structures, a picture of the electrical panel, the breaker boxes and something else. Is that just to make sure everybody's on the same page of what's there currently? That's what's going to either stay there or they're going to modify it. I mean, we're not saying you got to have a certain type or a certain, just validating that, that it's going to be a safe system. Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Easy. Thank you. Thank you mayor. Okay. Any other questions? So, uh, James, when was the, did you report, did you present last week or before that? I did not. This is my first one. It is. That's what I thought. Okay. Well, here I come. I got it. I just want to make sure before I see you all. Well, I just want to thank you city council. Appreciate you. Well done. You, uh, they, they gave you a, oh, we'll get by the moment. So they gave you, they gave you three at once, first time out that, that, that must mean a lot. So, so we have an elephant here to, for you to remember your first presentation to us. And, uh, again, thank you very much. Well done. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Yes. Okay. Uh, so I'll take, we have to take them one at a time. So take a motion on six G. Mayor Pro Tem. I move approval of six G. Councilman Watts. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? It's filled on the screen. Passes seven zero. I'll take a motion on six H. Mayor Pro Tem. I move approval of six, or six H. Councilman McGee. Second. We have a motion by Mayor Pro Tem, second by Councilman McGee. Any other discussion? It's filled on the screen. Passes seven zero. Takes us to our last one, six I. I'll take a motion. Mayor Pro Tem. I'll round it out. I'll move approval of six I. Okay. Uh, Councilman Watts. Second. There's a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none. It's filled on the screen. That passes seven zero. That takes us to, we'll have to start at six thirty, but let's take up concluding items to get that taken care of. Any concluding items? Uh, Ms. City Manager. Um, Frank, Christine, and I, well, all of us actually will be in Austin for the International City County Management Association meeting starting Saturday, this coming Saturday. I will not be there until Sunday, and then I'm coming back on Tuesday. They'll be coming back on Wednesday, so, um, we'll have somebody here that can, well, you know, Carissa, she pretty much runs the shop anyway, so, but, um, we'll, we'll be in Austin for just that little bit of time and I'll be back up here then. Okay. Councilman Meltzer. Yeah, before we meet again, there'll be a national night out, and I look forward to seeing y'all out there. I'm sure many of us will be showing up. I'll be stopping in at, uh, at Southridge. Should be a lot of fun. Okay. Anyone else? Uh, Councilor Holland. Mayor, I spoke to Cub Scout Group 940 last night, a whole bunch of budding leaders that, uh, that were very, very courteous and, uh, and asked excellent questions, and I wish them well. They and, they and their, uh, troop leader, uh, den master Jamie Brooks, uh, he, he will be a, an important, important personality in their life as they grew up. I enjoyed it. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, we have a program, uh, across the city that seems to be organically starting of, uh, bike buses, walk, walk buses where, uh, bike and ped, uh, enthusiasts, their parents and, and budding enthusiasts in, in K through 12 are, are organizing, uh, bike walks to school, um, and, uh, and a new one is starting up at Nanny Schultz Elementary, so I encourage people to check out these, these, uh, budding, uh, bike buses, uh, and, and their, uh, their commitment to a better, more sustainable den. Councilman Burt. I wanted to, uh, send a shout out to, uh, Reverend, um, Chambers at the Mount Calgary Baptist Church. He is setting up, uh, his church to become like a little mini, I kind of thought it was like a little mini United Way, but there's, uh, Hope Services, it's gonna, um, start out from there, and I had an opportunity to tour what he's doing, and I'm, I'm very proud of him for moving forward to adding that, uh, to the community. So I just want to let him know that I'm very thankful for that. Thank you. Okay, anyone else? Um, I have a few, I, I would be remiss if I didn't at least speak on it, because, uh, I'm, I'm really shocked at today's, uh, PNZ appointment vote, I, I thought this body was moving forward, uh, I'm trying to move forward, but, um, knowing the universe of things, knowing the conversation last week, I would just, uh, I've talked to legal, I, I'd like to get consensus to bring back onto the agenda a, uh, stripping down the application process to just the information that we absolutely have to have, that being address, et cetera, uh, because I, it's just not fair to those that are appointed to have things outside of what's listed on the application, um, if you think, hey, this is what the application is, this is what they're going to base their decision on, uh, right or wrongly, I, I just think we need to send a clearer message in that application process, uh, so I'll pause there for a second to, to see if there's three others that would agree, uh, to have, uh, have that on the agenda to discuss stripping down that application, uh, process. Councilman Holler. Mayor, was that a motion? No, no, there's no action. Just kind of given like a work session, given direction. Oh, okay. Yes. I would support that. Thank you for the opportunity. Councilman McGee. I'm a little confused. Are we talking about odd falls? No, we're talking about planning and zoning, uh, appointments. We're talking specifically about your comments about the Facebook post on someone's personal Facebook page guide in your direction. I think we should give people an opportunity. If that's going to be the case, if that's going to be your evaluation, that's great, but we don't need to have an application that captures ancillary information and we can't have an application that captures all those things. So I'm just saying pare it down to what we need. Councilman Watts. Mayor, I think I'm in support of a conversation like that. I'm not sure that, um, concluding items based upon, you know, if we're asking for consensus and all that, um, uh, so I don't mind having the conversation. I don't know if I'm comfortable giving direction in this agenda item. So, but that's just, that's just me. No, that could be fair. Uh, yeah. One of the items that says under close is to accept proposals to place items on upcoming agendas. I think the mayor is just trying to say, okay, that's something we can talk about for deliberation really. That's not really a vote. No, no, no, that's fine. I, I, I thought that helps me expand my understanding of concluding items. So no, I'm okay with, with having a conversation of that in general. Yes. Okay. Got it. Uh, is, is there anyone else? Okay, got it. So then my, my, uh, following comments would be, um, I, I just, it pains me that we've come this far and that we'll have these type of contentions, uh, and, and that's okay. But I will say this, I'm going to start pointing out Facebook posts. I'm going to start pointing out when someone at this day has shows up at a public meeting and has a shirt that says, excuse me, or he says, please, I identify as a white woman and you're a black male. Uh, I'm going to start pointing those things out. I just, I don't think it's right to blindside people or call out behaviors and you don't model the same behaviors. So, uh, excuse, just like the consultant said, uh, what do you expect when we had our retreat, they said, what do you expect, uh, if you do certain things, those things have repercussions. And so this body has made it to me, made a statement tonight by rejecting an application that, uh, we're going to go back into, uh, personal issues, be guiding decisions at this dais and guiding future actions on, um, how long people serve, if they get to serve their full term. I just think it opens a door that, that reluctantly, uh, we have to live in, uh, but I'm not going to continue to be blindsided and not speak on things, uh, expecting people to reciprocate. So that being said, events this Thursdays is the city block party. Uh, and so, um, that's from six to eight and we'll have lots of events here at Quaker Town Park, so please take advantage of that. I want, I missed saying hello to Mr. Willis and principal Haley at Braswell. I was able to spend some time with them, uh, last week. And so want to just give a shout out to them and the entire staff and students really enjoyed my time there. Braswell High School, getting to know people and what they're working on. Same thing with, uh, Evers Park Elementary, uh, got the visit with, uh, sister Lawson and principal, uh, Vanell and all her staff and administrators, uh, and so really got to, uh, experience what, what great work is happening. Not only at that elementary school at WS Ryan, go to a lot of those, uh, went out to the Classic Academy as well. So really enjoy those conversations. Uh, sadly, uh, Matt Luderman from the Golden Triangle Mall, he was a former general manager and then moved up. He passed away, lost his battle with cancer. Uh, there is a gold, there's a page on Golden Triangle Mall's Facebook page. We're kind of, they opened up for people to share thoughts, memories, that sort of thing. But I enjoyed working with him. He obviously steered the mall through a lot of tough times. And so I appreciate his leadership and my condolences to his family and his coworkers and friends. Uh, then I want to thank Denton County for hosting the Denton County first, the very first Denton County Emergency Management Preparedness Fair, went very well, very well attended. Um, and the thing that I came away with from an action item that I'll share with those that are watching along is Denco Area 911 has an AED registry. So if you have a church, a business that has an AED in it, you can go to their website, again, Denco 911 and it's under AED registry and you register it. They come out, confirm it's there, confirm it's working, and add that to their list so that when someone calls 911, they have it on a GPS, on a map and they can say, if you go, you know, there's an AED close by, go get it. And then you can help the person in distress. So that is a great opportunity for everyone to do a little, to help a lot. Uh, so that registry is available, so I want to pass that information along. With that, it is 6/19. We will adjourn until 6/30, uh, or it's now 6/20, so we'll adjourn until 6/30 and take up our budget and public, uh, hearings. Thank you. Welcome back to this meeting of the Denton City Council. It is 6/30 and we are now taking up our public hearings and that will conclude our agenda for tonight. We've, pardon me, we have worked through the other items on the agenda if you're tracking along. So the first thing that we'll take up is item 6A, hold a public hearing, consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas amending the Denton development codes reasonable and reasonable accommodations process and SUV, pardon me, use specific standards, parking minimums and definitions for elderly housing. And I'll open the public hearing. Good evening, Julie Wyatt and I'm presenting DCA 23-1 and this is related to reasonable accommodation, group homes, community homes, and elderly housing. Um, so just a quick summary, this, uh, this proposal is to update our, um, DDC regulations related to these items. Um, it's going to touch upon several subchapters. I'm going to try to be as brief as possible. Um, there's more information in your backup, but, um, but feel free to ask any questions. Um, we're, we're looking at subchapter 2, subchapter 5, subchapter 7, and then subchapter 9 in the Denton development code. Um, and these regulations went through, uh, the DCRC process earlier this year, so this is going to look really familiar to some of you. Um, so before we get into the, the code amendments, I just want to touch upon, um, two key concepts. Um, first, uh, um, what are the laws related to disabilities? So, um, these, these, um, DDC regulations are, are related to, uh, disability, um, and that, uh, each law defines it a little bit differently, but, but the laws related to disability generally have two items. One, that there must be a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, and then two, there must be a record of such impairment. Um, now this doesn't include current use of drugs or alcohol, uh, but individuals in recovery can be considered disabled. Um, and so what is a reasonable accommodation, and this might look familiar because this was something that, that, um, came before you, uh, earlier this year, this summer. Um, a reasonable accommodation is, is an exception to a rule, um, that is necessary to remove barriers for persons with disabilities, um, to allow them to, uh, enjoy housing similar to persons without disabilities. Um, courts have determined that a reasonable accommodation must be necessary and reasonable. So, given that, um, given those two concepts, staff, uh, went through a review of development code regulations, and we, we went through them with an eye toward clarity and toward consistency. Um, we looked at our reasonable accommodation, use regulations, parking regulations, and definitions, and what we found is that some of our regulations weren't very clear. So, for example, our, our, um, our reasonable accommodation procedures were under our minor modification standards. They were very limited, they were difficult to apply, lacked a clear procedure. Use regulations, some of our use specific standards, um, just weren't, just were confusing. They weren't really clear. Um, um, we didn't have any provisions for these specific uses we're talking about tonight, uh, with, uh, respect to maximum persons occupying a dwelling. Um, parking regulations were difficult to apply, and then also definitions. So with that, we're gonna briefly talk about the, uh, proposed code amendments. Uh, so we're gonna start with reasonable accommodation. This is in sub-chapter two of the debt and development code. We are proposing to create a separate flexibility and relief procedure for reasonable accommodation. Um, it's got its own criteria for approval, and that is, um, related to removing those barriers for persons with disabilities, um, provided that they don't, um, um, fundamentally change our land use regulations or provide an undue financial burden for the city. Um, we provided for a process in these, uh, these new regulations, uh, so that, such that, that we, uh, need an owner authorization, um, but no fee for a reasonable accommodation. We want it to be a quick process, so, uh, the 30-day process. Um, approvals, uh, or denials would, would, uh, rest with the city manager or designee. Um, one thing I do wanna point out, any appeals associated with the city manager's decision, um, we originally determined that it should follow just our standard appeals process, and that would either be appealed to ZBA or the city council. After further consideration, we determined that the city council really is the best body, um, to, to determine those appeals. So we are proposing an amendment to that appeal for reasonable accommodation, such that it would only go to city council in the event that someone wanted to appeal the city manager's decision. Um, and then reasonable accommodation would, uh, would comply with our non-conforming regulations. Um, we also are proposing changes to the table of allowed uses. Um, uh, specifically to elderly housing, we are proposing to add use-specific standards in MN, or, I'm sorry, in MD and MR, adding the use to SC and HC with a specific use permit and use-specific standards. And then to remove that use from our general office designation, or, uh, zoning district. Uh, given that, that general office, it does have some uses. It's got, um, light, uh, uh, light industrial, it has warehousing uses, things that would have big truck traffic, and we felt like, uh, elderly housing maybe just wasn't necessarily appropriate in that zoning district. We do have one property in the city that that affects, um, a property on Spencer that is um, um, zoned GO, but does have, is an elderly housing use, um, staff is, has already started working to, um, rezone that property if this was approved so that we would get that property in conformance. So, so we know that it is impacting that property and we're gonna, um, um, take steps to, to, um, um, correct that, uh, going forward. Um, and then we're also proposing changes to group home to add it to R1 and R2 with a specific use permit, just consistent with our other residential districts. Uh, use specific standards, making some, um, minor changes to the elderly housing use specific standards. First remove that maximum square footage to, um, uh, for R6 and R7, where it requires a specific use permit anyway, also R6 and R7 have, um, limitations as to the building size and setbacks. We feel like that maximum square footage really was unnecessary and then we just, uh, clarified the design standards. Um, for community homes and group homes under our current code, those, those use specific standards are all squished together. It's really difficult to apply, apply them. We're just proposing to separate those out, make sure it's consistent not only with state law but have really simple and clear to, um, read, uh, processes associated with them. Um, parking, we're proposing to modify our parking standards, uh, for community home. That's one space per bedroom. That's consistent with state law. Um, elderly housing, given the, the broad gamut that elderly housing can run, it can be all the way from a single family home that's, that's, that's used for elderly housing up to an institutional type nursing home structure. So we felt like it was appropriate just to have that, uh, director determination for that use to, um, to make sure that they have, there's enough flexibility that it would meet their needs without requiring parking that was unnecessary. Um, group home, we're also proposing one space per bedroom. That's consistent with community home. I want to take one moment. We did, we did, uh, present this to the Committee on Persons with Disabilities last week, yes, last week. Um, they did have one, uh, comment related to the parking for group home. They were concerned that that might be too much parking because, uh, especially residents who live in group homes may not have cars. Um, I did, I did tell them I would let y'all know that, um, and then also let them know that we are, um, looking at our parking standards overall. The city is going forward with a parking study. So I suspect, um, that we could certainly revisit that going forward. Um, so this is just a summary of all the, um, of all the proposed changes. I won't read all of these to you. I just want to point out one other thing on the, the bottom row, other. We are proposing that exemption for, um, community homes, group homes, and elderly housing for that provision, uh, related to maximum persons occupying a dwelling. And then we all are also proposing changes to our definition section, adding a good definition for disability, which is consistent with federal and state law, um, taking out some extraneous definitions that really, um, just created confusion, um, and making sure that, um, it was just consistent with our use tables. Um, so this was presented to the planning and zoning commission. They recommended approval of the request. Staff also recommends, uh, approval of the proposal. Just with that note that the change to the appeals process for reasonable accommodation is it has that minor change from, um, the planning and zoning commission, and I'll be happy to answer any questions. Okay. Questions for staff, Councilman Burke. I wanted to go back to the group home, um, slide in the parking. I'm sorry. Yes. Yeah. My question is about parking and group home. And it says one space per bedroom and you all were considering taking, well, the, a disability committee was discussing that. Um, but I was thinking that a lot of times those group homes have maybe one or two employees. So keeping that at least a parking space or two available, uh, for that would be, sounds reasonable to me, although they're thinking that maybe those folks may not have a vehicle. Just a couple, just something to put out there. And that was kind of staff's reasoning that there may be, um, that watchful environment, um, um, um, and, uh, persons living in the home. So we felt like that was appropriate at this time, but, but once again, it's certainly something we could revisit in the future. Absolutely. Okay. Any other questions? Uh, this is a public hearing. So anyone that cares to speak can come up and, uh, speak if they'd like. Seeing no movement, I'll close the public hearing. Councilor Watts. Yes. Mayor, I'll make a motion to approve staff presentation along with the amendment as proffered by the planning and zoning commission. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. I'll second with some clarification. I thought the amendment was proffered by staff. I think they had to vote on it no matter what. It came out of P&Z. Right. Um, the, the change to that appeals process is, is currently reflected in your backup. Okay. Then, then, then with the, and I'll leave it ambiguous. I'll second the recommended, recommended changes. Motion and a second. Any discussion? Let's vote on the screen. Pass the seven zero takes us to item six B, which is hold a public hearing, consider adoption of the ordinance of an ordinance, the city of Denton, Texas approving an alternative environmentally sensitive area plan on approximately 14.76 acres of land, generally located on the southwest corner of Hickory Creek Road on FM 2499. And I will open the public hearing. Thank you, Mary Hesbeth and council members, Christy Upton, environmental compliance coordinator. And tonight I will be presenting AESA 22 for Cyrene at Hickory Creek, also known as Barrel Strap Residential. This is a, a mitigation plan that the applicant is seeking approval for to mitigate for the removal of a complex of environmentally sensitive areas. Staff is recommending approval. The site plan was presented to staff and a preliminary plat was approved on June 22nd, on 2022. And this will be a 14 acre development at the intersection of Barrel Strap and Hickory Creek Road. An AESA field assessment or environmentally sensitive area field assessment was completed by an environmental scientist who identified this complex of this riparian buffer and undeveloped floodplain. It offers ecological resources to that stream segment. And the, the purpose of this is, is the proposal to remove some of that environmentally sensitive area, specifically for the, and the impacts to those ESAs are, are as outlined here on this slide, to support the, and provide the infrastructure to support the development. There's a mitigation plan that the applicant is proposing to offset that removal of the environmentally sensitive areas, including to improve the current habitat conditions of the remainder of the habitat. They will be removing an invasive plant called privet and replanting with the native plants, a group of native plants. And then there's, there's additional components to this plan that was incorporated. There is a tree removal or tree protection plan that was put in place. Some of the trees along the edge of this, are the remainder of the upland habitat may be at risk. So staff has written into the conditions to, the requirement to replace in kind those trees that might be damaged or, or destroyed through the development of, of the project. And then there is a, a secondary condition that staff is requesting to be placed on this project where the FEMA floodplain, regulatory floodplain that is outlined here is going through a modification and through that modification, there's a, there may be some more temporary disturbances of the environmentally sensitive areas and staff is asking for a 10% allowance of, of, of temporary disturbances of that environmentally sensitive area in order to allow for this development to move forward. That remainder, if it's disturbed for the purpose of the meeting that floodplain regulatory requirements would be also restored in addition to, or following the restoration plan that's already outlined in this plan. Recommendations were made and there were four responses in opposition, a neighborhood meeting was held in March and at that neighborhood meeting there were, there were a few questions about the environmentally sensitive areas. The questions were more related to the nature of the development. And the recommendations being made to staff are in your backup material. I won't go through all of them here, but I'll leave it up for your review and discussion. And with that, I'll stand for any questions. Thank you. Questions for staff. Councilman Watts? Yeah. Just one question on the privet removal. Is privet, privet's tough. Is it a, I mean, if somebody, if there's a landowner that has privet, can they just, do they have to do something if they want to take it out? Or, I mean, is it a protected species? Tell me a little bit about that. No, it's not a protected species, it's native to China and it is highly invasive. It has decimated some of our habitat areas already and so we are constantly looking for partners to remove this from their land as much as possible in order to reduce the impacts that are being seen. Just to kind of outline some of those impacts for you, the plant takes over very quickly and crowds out all the understory, which then reduces the ability for native plants to be able to grow. And then as it crowds that out, it also reduces the overstory trees from being able to grow. And that reduces the ability for the tree to regenerate. So over time, as one researcher said, he can see a future where all the trees, the overstory trees die because the privet also, it competes with those overstory trees over time. And as that dies off, what he saw a future of without maintenance, without restoration, that is just a sea of privet. And so that is a major issue for sure. So in a, I say an ESA, I mean, is removal of privet considered damaging an ESA? Is it neutral? Is it, I mean, because I've had a lot of personal experience with privet and everything you just described is absolutely true. So we see up here part of the mitigation, their plan is to remove the privet and then do some restoration of native plants. So that's really the positive impact. We're removing it, but we're also putting back something that's more native that's not going to be as invasive and as destructive as that is. Right. Okay. Also the idea is with reintroducing native plants that you're out crowd, you're crowding out the ability for that privet to regenerate and reintroduce itself. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Mayor Proctor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I ask about this in the backup, but when we did the assessment, this entire, not this slide and you don't have to change, but the other slide that lists the floodplain, the FEMA floodplain, this entire drainage is pretty much in the floodplain, give or take a little bit around the edges. And I know past mistakes. We built the bridge and channel to the north, or well, the overpass over the channel to the north into the, forget west, west something park that goes to the north. I know we built that over the channel, but it concerns me that we're potentially extending this channel over floodplain, sort of the most impervious surfaces that we can have. And while I really commend the developer for taking the extra steps to try to remove the privet and do the kind of steps that Councilor Watts was talking about, I guess, can you talk me through what steps, if we're removing sort of half of this floodplain and the pervious surfaces that it represents now, how, and we're not really doing construction and drainage renovation to stormwater runoff to the south, how are we not introducing additional flowing water hazards to that HOA lot north of Ocean, as well as the HOA lot south of Ocean, as well as potentially back up to the park to the north across Hickory Creek. Can we talk about that a little bit? So I'm in the environmental side of things and I cannot speak to specifics of engineering of this project. We did reach out to our floodplain administrator who confirmed that the city has reviewed this development plan and has used our drainage standards and applied that to the review of this development. And this development has demonstrated that they are able to meet the drainage standards as well as the floodplain standards for this project. I guess I appreciate that a little bit, but the entire neighborhood to the south is, you know, LOMAR permanent special regulations for flooding and right now that entire parcel is pervious surface and we're taking out allowable amounts and I want to give the developer credit. They're doing extra steps, they're removing privet, they've removed gas wells, they're doing a lot of good things. I think the issue that I'm keying in on is putting the roadway entrance right there at the median break and I understand why street engineering wants to do that because there's already a median break there, but we're adding just a ton of impervious surface and as well as the development itself is going to run. I can't see how that's not going to change without additional stormwater management, which I didn't see proposed, the flow, the downstream flow. And that's what I was going to address. Scott McDonald, Director of Development Services. Our floodplain manager obviously has looked at this very closely. We scrutinize any impacts to the floodplain as well as the downstream and we require downstream assessment. The other piece that wasn't mentioned in this and again to Christy's point is that she's talking about something completely different, is the entirety of this site will have stormwater management. So anytime that we go in and we're building streets, we're putting in all of the other infrastructure, water, wastewater and stormwater. So keep in mind that the conditions that will exist after this will manage that stormwater more effectively than how it is naturally. Even though that there is a great deal of pervious area here today, it gets inundated at whatever point after you get so much rainfall and then that's how we end up with floodplain. Where it is that we have a conveyance system that we can ultimately take that water out and convey it safely or more effectively and that's part of the civil engineering plans that will occur with this project and that's what's taken into account through engineering. I know this is the Alt ESA but because it impacts the entrance way, are we able to move the entrance away from this area to a different location? I don't have the answer to that. I would make the assumption knowing our staff quite well that we would have vetted every possibility to avoid doing this, meaning the Alt ESA and anything that would impact that floodplain. Just based on my experience, there's no question that our staff did that. I just can't give you an honest answer because I wasn't involved in this specifically. I appreciate the question. Thank you. Councillor Harlow? Back to Council Member Watt's question about privet and privet hedge, is that the same thing? Yes. Okay. Thank you. And is the term remediation, how is that done away with? Mitigation or restoration, so you want to know how will they remove the plant? Yeah. Okay, so some of the specifics on the removal of the plant is there's a couple of different ways that you can do it. There's foliar spray or there's cut the stem and treat the stem. You have to treat it because it recovers from the roots. It's very pernicious type of plant that you really have to tackle it multiple times in order to really kill it, and so they will be using multiple tools in their toolbox to be able to address that. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions for staff? Okay. This is a public hearing. Anyone care to speak? It is, anyone can speak. It's a public hearing. Just need to come down, give your name, and fill out a card after the fact. Hey there, Justin Pasternak with Curve Development, I'm with the development team. I just wanted to touch on kind of the alignment. Oh, can you hear me better? Yeah, you can just, you can, there you go, yeah. So this is really kind of the ultimate puzzle of trying to fit everything together, right? And I don't have the exact dimensions and distances, but it was really trying to figure out the alignment, the best alignment of that entries, right? We also have an entry-off nautical, but it ties to the distances to the intersections, right? So that was really the driver behind it. And then once you enter the site, the interior proximities, both lot distance and all the intersection distances. So it was really trying to find the balance of everything, and we netted out with that alignment of the existing medium. So essentially what we're doing is extending it south, right? So the culvert is being extended south a little bit to help mitigate what Scott said. That kind of helps to contain all the drainage flows and better manage it. Okay. Got it. I don't know if, I don't know if he can, he's not posted for questions. So got it. Thank you very much. Is that all your comments? Yeah, that's it. If you have any other questions, I... Okay. Got it. All right. Any other questions for staff? Okay. And I will, and any other speakers, then I'll close the public hearing. I'll take a motion. Councilor Watts? I move for approval. Is there a second? Councilor Byrd? I'll second. Okay. We have a motion and a second, and a comment. Council Member Beck? Yeah, I want to comment because I'm going to vote no, but not because I'm opposed to this development, but because I'm opposed to this piece. I understand that they did a lot of good work. I'm not trying to punish them. I appreciate them doing the gas well mitigation. I appreciate the efforts that they went to. I appreciate that they're trying, but I'm concerned that we're running the risk. I heard Scott's words, but we're in these areas, and I'm not yet convinced about the stormwater runoff management for this. The impacting of the future homes in this parcel and the downstream homes, and to some lesser degree, the upstream homes very much concerns me. This is not against the developer. I wish they would come back with a future plan, and I probably could approve that. Maybe something away from this entrance, but I'll be voting no. Any other discussion? Councilor Watts? Yeah, Mayor, and maybe my memory's failing me. When staff presents something that PNZ has made recommendations on, and I guess this is for the city attorney, and it's in our backup, that is part of staff's recommendation. Is that correct? I'm not sure I understand. In this presentation, there were five or six or seven items that Planning and Zoning, I believe, had recommended in addition to this issue. Because it's in staff's presentation, and staff is recommending those recommendations, I don't need to- Those are already written into the ordinance. Okay. Got you. I didn't want to do the same thing I did last time. Yeah. I'll just reiterate my motion for approval. Okay. Thank you. I have a question for staff. Did I hear you right of reading the presentation somewhere, or in the backup somewhere? Third party did the environment on this, right? Correct. So explain to me, so that's third party associated with the city, third party associated with the applicant? No. The landowner's responsible for bringing in a third party environmental scientist to perform that work. So on the outside of their organization, you go hire a subject matter expert? Correct. Yes. Right. Yeah. Thank you. That really guides my decision. I just am not willing to sit here at the dais without subject matter expertise and feign as though I'm a subject matter expert. And I appreciate the comments from Justin, where you can't live in a singular space and make the best decision for all involved. I just don't believe that, because looking at this intersection, you can't move it further to the east because you'll have some level of staging at that intersection at 2499, a major highway, and you move closer to that, and then there's rear end accidents, there's all kinds of car accidents, so you avoid one thing and move closer to another. And so it is everything, holistic and in balance, and taking into all considerations, and then considering that it is a subject matter expert that came up with this analysis. So I was waiting and listening for challenges to that science, to that data, to that information, to the study, and I've heard nothing challenge the study itself. And just if I'm going to opine that I guess or I think that's not sufficient for me to kind of guide my decisions. And also just say from a time standpoint, yes, when I look at Ocean Drive, it goes right through that section. And so it's kind of like a moment in time and it's building and these things were set in place when Aaron Lane was put in place. And that's unfortunate, but that's the challenge this council has and that's the decision before me is what to do now with an established neighborhood. I look at the established neighborhoods across 2499 to the south of Lighthouse. And I see where each one of these segments has been challenged with doing the best they can and protecting this area. So I'm going to be in alignment with the subject matter experts, hearing nothing that challenges their data at that level. And I think it is my opinion based on what the data and the analysis say that it will enhance this area and probably give people in Lighthouse and Ocean some peace of mind that their homes won't have as much water damage. And if you lived in Texas anytime, that consistency, right, when you're talking about your foundation, it's that inconsistency that gives you foundation issues. But if you can have consistent water around your foundation, around your home, you really are better served. And so in my estimation, adding that system, adding controls where we're not depending on the amount of rain flow, et cetera, will be a benefit to these people. And hopefully they won't have to call out foundation repair people, et cetera, et cetera, because it rained a lot in 2024. So I just wanted to share those thoughts. So let's vote on the screen. And that passes, wait a minute, four to two, got it. Thank you. It all happened so fast. Councilman McGee left. Okay, that takes us to, thank you all, takes us to seven, the budget, seven, eight, which is ID two, three, pardon me, ID two, three, two, seven, eight, consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, adopting the fiscal year of 2023, 2024 annual program of services and the capital improvement program on the city of Denton, Texas for fiscal year beginning October one, 2023 and ending on September 30, 2024. Good evening, mayor, city council, Cassie Ogden, assistant city manager here one last time to present the fiscal year, 2024 budget to you. We've reviewed this same presentation several times now, so I'm going to move quickly, but we are proposing the same tax rate as the current fiscal year. So slightly over 56 cents. You can see the no new revenue rate was about 49 cents and the voter approval rate was 57 cents. Over the last several years, the city has reduced the overall tax rate. However, the average home value, so average residential home value has increased. So this is proposing to increase the average residential tax bill. So you can see the total impact to our average residential customers earlier. You already approved the wastewater rates. So that is the only utility rate changing 11% increase. Like I said, the tax rate is not changing but the overall taxable value is made change. And so this is your general fund forecast. We are presenting a balanced budget for FY24. So the FY23 estimate, the drawdown of reserves of the $666,000 is for the Bezos Academy, the one-time payment that council authorized, but you can see personnel increases really driven by the comp and class study that was completed this year. And so that is a large increase year over year. The supplementals that are being funded in this budget include firefighter positions, police positions, community services, animal services, development services, library, human resources, parks and rec, internal audit, and the city manager's office. So for a total of 27 new FTEs in general fund for $4.9 million. And Mayor, I'm not going to go through the utility funds since we've already discussed those tonight. I'm going to skip to the capital program budget. I did want to mention for a couple other funds that council has discussed, the sustainability framework fund is currently budgeted at $750,000, the catalyst fund is budgeted at a million dollars for FY24, and then the street improvement fund is budgeted at $25.7 million for 2024. And then the five-year CIP budget, so this is the general government portion is $376 million with $126 million of that for FY24. You can see the 2019 bond election, we have two more years of issuance to close out that bond program. And we are proposing several facility improvements, drainage improvements, roadway improvements in next fiscal year. And then again, just a quick recap of the utility CIP, $262 million for FY24, that is combined for electric, water, wastewater, and solid waste. And with that, I'll take any questions. Thank you. Questions for staff? Seeing none, I'll take a motion. Councilman Melzer? We ended up with a fairly complex formulation on the data center revenue part, because there were some very good points made, particularly by Councilmember Watts and McGee regarding catalyst fund toward the end, so it's kind of a complex deal. So what I would like to do is propose, is to move approval with the amendment at the data center revenue, just be straight up 1/3 catalyst fund, 1/3 streets, 1/3 sustainability, just not two levels and all that. Is there a second for that? Mayor Pro Tem? I'll second that. Discussion. I'll start. I'm not going to support this. For those watching, we had a robust conversation as stated last week. There's no discussion, and I'm disappointed by these last-minute kind of attacks on our discussion. It doesn't give me time to prepare, doesn't give me time to read the proposal, doesn't give me time to communicate with my constituents. It gives me no visibility, it gives no one any visibility other than whomever had the opportunity to visit with Councilmember Meltzer before this, and so I think in the balance of things, that is for someone that watched our last meeting and said, "This is what's going to come forward," you had the same presentation last week that said, "Here's what's going to come forward," and at the 11th hour at 710 on, just before we vote, to give people notice that, "Oh, by the way, what you saw and what you anticipated has changed." I just can't do that. I can't support that, and I wish that we'd take a greater evaluation of that value of those who watched the meeting. I hear from a ton of people that do gain information or that do follow along after the fact, and they need some notice. I'll also note, again, for those watching, that my hesitancy is that bankruptcy hasn't even settled. We have an anticipation, we have a belief, but we don't have anything in place. There's nothing signed, it's not resolved, and so to then change that, and that's the very point Cassie made last week when she said, "Hey, this percentage gives me that flexibility we need because it's not resolved," and so I think this is premature. It gives no notice except for those that talk privately with Councilmember Meltzer, and so I can't support it because I have a duty to have an open process, and I don't believe this is open. Councilmember Holler. Thank you, Mayor. We asked staff to work on this project, and I think they did, Cassie particularly did a fantastic job on this, and then at the last instant to come back and drop a bomb like this I think is disingenuous. I'm very disappointed. I will vote against the motion. Councilmember Meltzer. It exactly follows from that whole conversation, and I think if we had a in-work session, which is public and on public record, and frankly I think we probably would have arrived at exactly this spot had we talked for two more minutes. So I don't think it's out of the field. I think it's completely continuous, it's in the spirit of where we landed, and frankly as I look at the needs in the Catalyst Fund area, as Councilmember Watts spoke to, particularly when I look at downtown, we've got so many opportunities there around the square with fine arts with all the blank areas while there's still obviously vitality there, but so much missed opportunity. When I look at the ambitious climate goals that have been adopted by Council in comparison to a pretty modest ask for sustainability and the need for incremental funding for streets, I think we made it clear in that conversation that all three of these are pressing, need more funds than what the base general budget can provide. I think it's nothing but a logical extension of the conversation we already had. And I encourage you to support it, consider supporting equally Catalyst Fund streets sustainability. And I'll recognize you Councilmember Watts, bear with me, but Cassie, can you give me the timeline, was this conversation last week or the week before? It was the week before. So the week before we had this conversation, last week you presented this exact same thing. Yes, we had a public hearing last week. No comments. No comment. Then this agenda was posted Friday. Here's the question and answers that were provided by Council Friday for the weekend to give us some notice, nothing on here. So it is absolutely the last minute and it's well documented that it's the last minute. It has no pre-warning at all anywhere for two weeks, two and a half weeks. This is the first we've heard of it at seven 10 at night, one minute before we vote. So I just, it is not right to frame this as anything other than last minute. So I just want to be clear that there were three different opportunities, the week that we talked about it, the last week during the presentation, this week and Friday when we got the agenda. So it is, it is absolutely the latest possible time that it could happen. Senator Watts. Could you refresh my memory prior to the current motion and the percentage splits, the equal percentage splits? I don't remember if I saw it on the slide, but what we had sort of arrived to at the last meeting as far as the initial percentage split and then, you know, Council Member Meltzer had made a proposal that if it goes over a certain amount that was originally budgeted, then it would be a another split between sustainability and, and catalysts. Yeah. Do you remember what those percentages were originally? I don't remember them all off the top of my head. I think it was 16, 16, 62, 21. Say that one more time. 16, 62, 21. And the 21 was the catalyst fund or sustainability? 16 sustainability, 62 streets, 21 catalyst fund. With the, and the agreement was over that month, over that amount as in the budget was one third, one third, one third. Oh, I thought it was only one half and one half. Oh, you're correct. I misspoke. You're correct. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, you know, Council Member Meltzer, I mean, however this pans out is fine. I was real comfortable with your original proposal. I thought it was very creative. I thought it, it really met the interests of, you know, we wanted to make sure streets were funded and then, hey, if we get more, then, and, and so I was comfortable with that. I'm comfortable with this as well. I think I'm probably more comfortable with how you had originally proposed it just because I thought it was just a good idea, quite frankly. And yeah, so, so because we do need the street funding and we're not talking about a whole lot of money here. So I was willing to say, hey, I appreciate the importance of the catalyst fund, but the catalyst fund will almost, if it goes over that amount, it receives more of a share and so does sustainability. And so, yeah, this is, this is, this is terrible. I mean, I, I can't say I'm going to vote against it or vote for it. I mean, so it's, it's a very difficult situation, but if I had to, I would prefer to go back to the original proposal of, let's go with the percentages and then, and it, did we memorialize his proposal or is it memorialized here in the budget or where do we? It's in the budget presentation. Yes. Okay. Okay. So it's there. So his, okay. So I think I'm probably more inclined to support that proposal, not because the current one in, you know, just as amicable. So yeah, those are my comments. Okay. Anyone else? Is this you in queue again, councilor Meltzer or no, yes. Yeah, and, you know, my, my heart won't be broken if it goes the way it's in the picture. You know, I think this is, I think it's better, I don't think it's like an outrage. I also don't think that it's correct that when you do a public hearing that that's for us to opine, the public hearing is for the public for, and for us to hear what the public has to say. And I didn't have a question about it for it to have been submitted as a question. It's a proposal, and we're allowed to make proposals and if it, you know, if it prevails, it prevails. If it doesn't, it doesn't, and, you know, we'll see how it goes. Got it. So just to be sure, just to be clear, you don't, you don't think proposals should be taken back to our constituents? You don't think we should talk to them or not? Well, I, you know, if, if, if you want to sort of stretch all of that into everything we do on council, I mean, I think you're going to eventually trip on yourself. We are allowed to modify legislation right here. It's a hundred percent in the rules, but if you don't want to vote for it, that's okay. Just don't vote for it. No, no, no. I just value, last week we were told about the value of voters, and this week I'm saying the value of voters and the value of, I would just appreciate an opportunity to go back and talk to those that I represent because there's, there's not often that I get to do just solely what Gerard wants to do. I think there's times where you get to go back and talk to your constituents that you're representing and say, this is, this is a rep representative body. So I need to go back and say, Hey, here's what I'm thinking. Correct me if I'm wrong. But your points taken, do you think mayor that, uh, it is in, that is impermissible to amend, uh, a proposal at the day as always be, unless there's an opportunity to stop and go back and do public input. No, I just think it should have come up before two weeks. Council member, uh, or mayor pro tem. Yeah. I'm not going to belabor the point, it just to say that I brought this up during the public hearing, uh, not, not specifically out loud, but do we have, uh, we weren't, we were given direction that this was a public hearing, that it was time for comments, that we were not receiving direction from council at that time. So I asked about direction. So we're that that the two week delay is simply because that meeting was, well, I, I, you know, I don't know when Paul came up with, with his change of, of mine, but, uh, that presuming it was right after the meeting, that two week delay is, is, is entirely understandable. Okay. All right. Any other discussion? Please. Councilman holler. Apparently they came up with it just a few minutes ago. Uh, we talked about this over and over and over, um, and, and I thought we had, had a, had a clear decision. The mayor, mayor asked over and over, is there anything else? Nobody opens their mouth until just now. Um, I recently went through an election. I heard over and over and over that we need to get our streets squared away. We have a reputation for lousy streets in our city and this is an opportunity to do something about that. I thought we had this squared away with the help of city staff and, and at, and at seven 20 we're, we're, we're starting at square one, literally starting at square one. Okay. Any other comments? Let's vote on the, in the motion before us is that what councilman Meltzer put forward the, the change to a third, a third, a third on the, uh, on the data. So that is correct. Yeah. If you support what he's put forward, vote yes, if you don't, don't vote yes. Okay. That fails a four to I'll take a motion councilman Holland, Mr. Mayor, I'd like to, to move that the, uh, uh, what was it ID 23 to 78 be accepted as, uh, be accepted as submitted. Thank you. Is there a second councilman Meltzer on second discussion seeing none, this vote on the screen passes six zero, uh, takes us to item B, um, ID two, three, two eight zero consider adoption ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, levying the ad valorem property tax of the city of Denton, Texas for the year 2023. Mayor. I don't have a separate presentation for item B, C or D. Okay. Any questions for staff, mayor pretend. I don't have any questions. I don't want to get away in questions. I was going to move approval. Certainly. I'll take it. All right. Is there a second councilman bird? I'll second motion by mayor pretend second by council member bird. Any discussion seeing none, this vote on the screen council, there's a specific language that needs to be stated as far as this motion table. Yeah. I apologize. Can, can I change my motion? Yeah. Um, uh, let's see. I moved that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of a tax rate of 0.5, six oh six eight two dollars, which is effectively a 13.3% increase in the tax rate and to approve item 23 dash two eight zero. Yes. And so council member bird, I'll second. Got it. Okay. Uh, now let's vote on the screen. Okay. So it passes six zero and one absence is council member, uh, McGee. Okay. So that takes us to item C, no presentation here either. So I'll call it ID two three two eight one. After adoption of the ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, approving the 2023 tax rolls and providing an effective date. Council member Holland. Mayor. I still move the passage of this. Okay. Motion by council member Holland. Is there a second, uh, council member bird, I'll second. Got it. Motion by council member Holland, second by council member bird. Any discussion seeing none, let's vote on the screen. That passes six zero takes us to our final item for this evening, which is item D ID two three two seven nine. Consider adoption of ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, gratifying the adoption of the fiscal year 2023 2024 annual program of services, uh, and the capital improvement program of city of Denton. Is there no, no presentation, right? We're good. Great. Is there a motion? Uh, mayor pro tem, I move approved. Councilor Watts. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none. Let's vote on the screen. That passes six zero at seven 25. That'll conclude tonight's meeting. Thank you.