Nov 07, 2023 City Council on 2023-11-07 11:30 AM (Joint Special Called Meeting with Denton ISD Board of Directors)

- So I guess I'll open my name first. So today is Tuesday, November 7th, 2023. It is 11.37 a.m. We do have a forum, so I'll call the City Council portion of the meeting to order. Turn it over to Board of Trustees and President Spieparst. - And we have a forum as well, so we can begin to (mumbles) - Excellent, thank you very much. City Manager, Superintendent, anything to start off with, open and safe, anything like that, Chair? - No, we're ready. - I'll get it. Okay. - Can I get a meeting for you today? - Yeah, excellent. Excellent. Well, but let's do, let's do point this out. So we have, Doc, so we had a World Series champion that went to where? Guyer, is that right? Associated with Guyer? - Jackson Rutherford. He's associated with Guyer High School, and his mom is a long-time PTA member. - Yes. - Jenny Mabry. - Excellent. - And she's an actress, too, which is kind of interesting. - Man. - Got Jackson Rutherford, again, state champion with Macy Wingard. - Yeah. - Cross country this last week. She's just a sophomore, so we expect a couple more. - Wow. - So exciting times for that as well. - Excellent. - And then three teams in the football playoffs this Friday night. Guyer and (coughing drowns out speaker) - The Broncos. - Ryan's hosting, Ryan's hosting in St. Collins, so you guys come out and watch them play against Lake Hill. - Okay. - It's Friday night. - Is it Friday night? - They're Friday night, and they are in Collier, okay? - Wow. - Yeah. - And then Guyer's playing compel at compel. It's busy. - Wow. - But of all the things, if anyone here gets an opportunity to go see the musical at Guyer this week, it's last week and this week, it'll be your least expensive ticket for the most professional show you'll ever be a part of. - Mr. Shep. - Fantastic. - Mr. Shep. - It's a different, it's a weird thing. I mean, this opportunity is really, really good. - Yeah. - Susanna, look it up. - Yeah, I just-- - Okay. - We'll let you know before we eat. - Yeah, we'll come back. - It wasn't one that was familiar to me. - That's why, you know, like, if it was Mamma Mia, we would know. - Right, right. (laughing) - We would know. - Yeah. (laughing) - Well, great. Well, I wanted to start off with those things so that those that are watching potentially, or we can share the link out, but congratulations to all those, and thank you for the tip for a date night. - Yeah, I'm telling you, it starts Thursday. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, a couple days, it's really good. - Okay, thank you very much. Okay, so now we'll take us to our first item, item A, ID 231731, receive a fourth hold discussion, give staff direction regarding an update on the implementation of education code, section 37.081, armed security officers required. - Okay. - Okay, good afternoon, sorry, morning still, members of the council, Mr. Mayor, and the ISD school board. We have a brief presentation for you to talk a little bit about the effects of House Bill 3, which, as we all know, dealt with security and policing within the schools on a statewide level, and exactly what that would affect how we do what we do currently with our SROs and plans for DISD. So today on the presentation is our Deputy Chief in charge of services that has oversight of all things SRO and DISD from the Denton Police Department standpoint, Deputy Chief Derek Bradford, and I'll turn it over to Derek, and we also, of course, have been working through this as a side note for several months with our partners of the ISD, Dr. Wilson and your staff have been very accommodating, and we appreciate that partnership and that continued partnership. So we're here for questions, we'll do a brief presentation, and I look forward to it, so, Mayor? - Chief. - Good morning, all, thank you for having us out. It's a pleasure to be here to speak with you. As Chief mentioned, House Bill 3 was a lot of legislation dealing with school security. Today we're gonna go over very specific things regarding armed security on campus. That's the provision of law that we're gonna talk about. Over to you today, we'll talk about the law, then we will talk about our plan to incorporate an interlocal contract via MOU to implement this plan with ISD in partnership with NPD, and provide you with a proposed timeline of how we envision that that's gonna come through. So the law in House Bill 3, as it relates to measures of school safety, went into effect on September 1st. Again, legislation was sweeping and had lots of things and multifaceted stuff to do with safety. Today we're talking about the provision that requires, by state law, an armed security personnel on each school campus. State legislators put out that the school board, and in this case, the Denton ISD school board, shall determine the necessary amount of the armed school safety officers, but at least one must be on each campus. Well, as all of you all know, we have our armed SROs on the middle school and high school campuses that Denton PD provides to Denton ISD via that MOU. So how does that affect that relationship? Well, they outlined security officer that there's three different options. The first one is it must be a peace officer. So any of our SROs that are on campuses already meet that requirement. The other ones are a school marshal program. You may have heard about some of that news. It's a specific training that the school marshal program exists via TECOL, which is our state licensing agency, Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. If you're not familiar with it, think of it as TEA in the school setting as to law enforcement officers with TECOL. They give us the credentials and the specifics that you need to hold a licensed police officer. They have a TECOL has created a program with school marshals that you would employ a school marshal to go through a specific training and be on campus. Or the other option was any district employee with training could carry a firearm and need one. The option that Denton ISD and Denton PD in conjunction would like to go together is a peace officer. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. Implementing that would look like entering into an interlocal cooperation contract via a memorandum of understanding between Denton ISD and Denton PD to assist with providing peace officers on campus. TECOL recently made a change where individuals can be licensed to be peace officers without being commissioned to peace officers. What that means is I, as a teacher and licensed to go teach at any school, it's when they hire me, I'm now teaching for that school. The same is now true with peace officers that you don't have to be attached and commissioned with a specific department, but you still hold all the same credentials that you would need to be a peace officer at an agency. So our plan is to allow Denton ISD to hire school security officers. That would be individuals who are licensed to be peace officers. The target market right now is someone who has probably spent a few years and is now a retired peace officer. And they would hold the responsibility with Denton ISD to be that armed peace officer on campus. They're not a Denton police officer, but they hold a peace officer license. What that would look like is that Denton ISD is going to be the hiring agency. So all facets of employer to employee relationship is handled at the Denton ISD level. What we envision is that Denton PD will provide support and training to those individuals via the ongoing training that's required to maintain their licensure, which was also updated by TECOL recently to include several different classes, including alert training if you're familiar with active law enforcement rapid response training, active shooter response, et cetera. That's an ongoing training now required for every peace officer in Texas. So that's where Denton PD comes in partnership with Denton ISD to provide that TECOL mandated training. In this interlocal cooperation contract, we're going to agree to provide all that TECOL mandated training to the Denton ISD school security officers. Just wanted to point out, 'cause I know I've actually been in this room, I think last year, talking with folks about if a law enforcement event were to happen, who's in charge when law enforcement shows up at schools? Inside this interlocal contract, it will state that any criminal response, if Denton PD shows up and it's Denton PD's jurisdiction, will reside with Denton PD. The school safety officer is there to maintain, school security officer is there to maintain safety and security, and if an event were to happen, they would take action, but once Denton PD arrives on scene, it's now a criminal response handled by a Denton police officer. So the timeline that we proposed is Denton ISD actually made an offer to hire a civilian director of safety and security. And so going forth, we'd like to create that policy and procedure with the interlocal contract, and their director of safety and security works on their own in-house procedures and policies, uniforms, all the minutiae of a new program, et cetera, all through November, eventually hiring some SSOs to come on board with Denton ISD in December, looking to get the MOU approved by both entities here in December as well. Then all through December, early January, we'll be making sure that the school security officers are trained and ready to go to be on campus, and Denton ISD would decide where they would implement those that get hired on first. It's gonna be a plan that they're gonna come up with in-house, but they would be on campuses coming January. And then as we move into the rest of the year, February, Denton ISD, Denton PD would get together and actually work out what the ongoing training would look like from this point forward, and discuss how that's gonna merge together and what trainings they'd be brought in, et cetera. And then moving forward after that, we would continually reassess that relationship and make sure everybody's getting what they need out of it, whether they're receiving the training, the school security officers receiving their training that they need, et cetera. So with all that in mind, do we have any questions about the school security? - Questions for Stan? - Thank you. Will there be any kind of a matrixed reporting structure for the school security officers, for the SROs? - And the reason I'm asking is I was so impressed when I went through Citizens Police Academy, learned about the SROs become really caring role models, just 'cause they're, by their nature, just service-oriented individuals, it goes so like above and beyond. I'd love to see a culture that they've developed, how to be, you know, that presence in the school, shared with this new, so would they in any way be part of our shared management structure? - The initial response is no, as far as employee-employee relationship. The SSOs would report directly to the Director of Safety and Security at Denton ISD, and whatever management structure that they would set up. That's not to say that part of that ongoing training might be communication with SROs to develop some sort of mentorship aspect of education for them, but as far as reporting to the SROs or in the chain of command with the MPD, the answer's no. (clicking) (mumbles) - Thank you for the information, it's very helpful. I guess, and this is something that we've talked about over the years, because right now it seems like the city of Denton provides the current SROs, and the school district subsidized, or reimburses the city for some of that cost. I don't think it's 100% of the cost yet, is that correct? - I don't think it is, I think it's for the 10 months where we use them. - Okay, all right, but so you're covering the cost for the time that they're actually in, okay. - And some training, but then some training goes. - So what, I guess, the training that you're talking about for these new hires for the DISD, is that training that we're providing, is that part of the MOU, that there would be some kind of cost reimbursement associated with that, I presume? - Correct, without looking at the document itself, I believe it says that we will provide the training. Most often, we are already hosting that training for our own officers that's required, so it's as easy as plugging them in, and the cost associated would be nominal, like semi-mission rounds for active shooter responses. - I'll jump in as well, council member. So short answer is we won't be billing DISD for the training, that's part of sort of just the working relationship we have with DISD, so they'll be included in, as Deputy Chief Pratt mentioned, our specific training. So we have that overlap of training, so everybody's on the same page, it's the response, how to do this, and that should the thing happen, lead to a much better, hopefully, outcome because of that. So we want that partnership just as much it benefits us, it benefits the city, it benefits certainly our school district if we do that. So that's our way of, we understand that there's a challenge with the legislation in terms of some funding potentially, so this is our way of just being good partners with DISD and working forward. - So I guess, and I've had this question ever since I've been in the office, is there at some point DISD has a goal to have their own police department? I mean, or is it always gonna be something that the city, 'cause now, right now, what we're having is it's being bifurcated. You're having some licensed peace officers for this new legislation, and then we have some that are Denton police officers. And as you build new schools, which one is gonna apply? Will you be hiring new people according to this plan for each new school that's built, is that right? - So let me, I think I can clear up part of that. The school security officers have one function. Safety and security of the school. They're not enforcing criminal law. They're not arresting people. They're not involving any of those things. Any crime within this community is gonna be handled by the Denton police department, whether it's at a school or anyplace else. Now, at the middle school and high school, we have student resource officers. They're providing safety and security and law enforcement. At the middle school and high schools. Current, in the current order. They're not just safety and security for security purposes. - Okay, so this-- - So if it's a middle school or high school that's built in the city of Denton, we'll move forward with the same thing we've been doing. We'll, student resource officers, law enforcement, safety, security, criminal activity. If it's an elementary school in the city of Denton, you're gonna get a safety and security officer who is a licensed peace officer. The decision we made, we could have had any person serve in this role as a safety and security officer. We felt like this community deserved to have someone who was trained, someone who had background, someone who had a little bit more development in relationship than a armed security guard company. - Right. - Right? In other words, we're looking at retired peace officers, people that retire from the Denton County Sheriff's Office, people that retire from city of Denton, city of Corinth. Wherever they happen to retire from is the employee base for these people so that we get a huge background of information and work and coverage there, a higher quality. The state legislature gave us $15,000 a campus. This is gonna cost 65, right? And they said this is the law, you have to do it. So, I mean, whenever we put the pencil to it, we're about almost $4 million underfunded to meet this statutory requirement, but we don't need to do that at the expense of not having the most highly qualified person provided the safety and security of the elementary school. So, go ahead. - Well, my original question was, so it sounds like you answered it and that is, there's not really a policy moving forward of the DSD having their own, and I'm not talking about security officers like they're describing here. I mean, you know, some independent school districts have their own police departments. - If you read the Uvalde Report, they will tell you the biggest, one of the biggest contributing factors to the issues at Uvalde was that Uvalde had its own department. - The Uvalde Independent School District had its own department. - Had its own department. - Okay. - The JANA command, the actual piece, and you know, in our city, we've got Texas Woman's University Police Department, University of North Texas Police Department, City of Denver Police Department, North Central Texas College Police Department Chairs, Sheriff's Office. There's a lot of overlap within all of that. And our students are citizens of the community too, right? I mean, they're all in there together. Some schools have made the decision to get their own police department, and it's because they don't have great working relations with their cities like we do. Most school districts in our county that have their own police department don't have the same relationship with their cities that we do to have that reciprocal piece go back and forth about student resource officer in the school help us in the community, right? All the way through, all the way around. So what we had to work on here from the school district's perspective, and Chief and I talked a lot about this, from a public safety perspective, Chief didn't wanna have people who weren't highly qualified in, and that could be troublesome for our Dent PD officers that show up if the thing happens. - So then why don't you, if that's the case, so you've answered the question as far as moving forward, that the Dent Police Department will continue to provide those security services for SROs, and then DISD will reimburse the city for the costs of those services through the 10 months that they're providing. So then you're saying that 65,000 on campus provide these people and they're licensed police officers, but they're not commissioned. So what is it costing then if we provide an officer? Because if we're providing an officer for 70,000, and you're hiring someone, I guess what's the advantage of going this route or going the route of having other police people who are actually licensed police officers on the campus? - I'll take a stab and let Chief take it. You're already short officers within the department already. We're looking to grow the employee base, the resource by which we can recruit people to do. - Okay. - And it's got to do with human capital. Our smaller municipalities, Lilliam, Correct, and Aubrey, they are not short officers. They have different requirements, and it's different kinds of things that play with that. So we are entering into those agreements with them, right? - Okay. - And so for us at the city of Denton, we just felt like it was important that we not try to recruit from each other. Like if we've got our own police department, we're trying to-- - No, that issue, we put that to rest. - So then the next part of it is, how do we get the best person? - Right. - How does someone who's been in law enforcement for 20 plus years possibly retire and can go work at a school from seven to four every day and be security and armed and have 20 plus years of training in the background and do the updates? Chief, do you want to take anything else? - So the people that they're going to be hiring are not people that we would be hiring as police officers. If they're retired, is that what I'm hearing? - Yeah, and to continue to focus on what Dr. Wilson said, quite frankly, our staffing levels have, and will be for some time, not able to fill all the specialty assignments that we have until we staff out appropriately. So we balance that with the agreement, and we've had, like Dr. Wilson said, many, many conversations about this, as well as with the board, to say, look, we value the relationship, we're gonna continue what we're doing. This is a good alternative that we've all agreed on that we think is effective, and I would double down on what Dr. Wilson said about, we don't want your everyday, your run-of-the-mill person with a gun being in charge of safety and security. That's just not-- - Oh, no, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying, if you're hiring somebody that you're paying 65 or 70,000 for, that's not going to be doing the things and can't do the things that a Denton police officer can do. - Sure. - But if you're saying, so that just brings me to the point then, then that's something that the Dent City Council needs to look at in continuation with the Independent School Board, to say, hey, if we're short, and we wanna provide the best possible public safety measures in our schools, and if we're, from a city perspective, we can hire, and from a financial perspective of how much has it costed, well, that's something we need to look at in the next budget. So I'd say, if we're short on police officers, whether or not the schools are in the city, we need to address that. - Sure, if I may, as a point of clarification on that. So we've had, we're blessed, I think, that we've had council backing on hiring new officers and adding officers to staff, so that's not an issue. Keep in mind that this House bill passed very quickly, and the implementation was not so long ago, very, very quickly, but they now shall sort of do it. And with that comes, whenever we hire a peace officer, there's a lengthy process of the application. They have to go through testing, they have to go through an academy, they have to go through field training, and so you're talking close to a year before that officer even comes out. So the delay on that is really significant. Our calls for service are continuing to increase as the city grows, so we have to balance that out as a whole within the city itself. So I don't want any of you all to feel like there's no support felt by us, quite the opposite. - Oh, no, I don't-- - We just wanna continue to recruit more and more people for the job. - Yeah, okay, well, and the timing is the thing that makes the most sense to me, because in the end, if we want that maximum protection, I think we need to start talking about and thinking about that this is possibly a transition period that if we need to get, you know, unless you just think that in the elementary schools, there's not that need. - Well, that's kind of, here's, if you talk to many law enforcement agencies across the state, they would quite often tell you, part of the issue with individual district police departments is you take certified commissioned police officers that wanna work in a police department into a school district police department when cities are short, right? This law went into effect September 1st, which affected about over 1,056 school districts that all had to get into some kind of compliance. And so what the city of Denton Police Department was mastering was making sure that whatever we did is consistent with what we value in our community, that we had the highest quality possible. So in the event that the thing happens, we know exactly who, where, how, why, what, and we have our hand on that. And it's a, there's a human capital piece, right? There's also, and we think this is gonna work for us, we may not be able to find the people, I don't know. Right? I mean, we're gonna put it out there and see what we get. We know how many applicants I got for $15,000 a year when I posted it for that. (audience laughs) Which was one. - Not even minimum wage. - Which was one who, I had one applicant who couldn't pass the background check, right? So that's when you say to yourself, let's work through this. So, you know, from a school district perspective, I fully anticipated that there would be additional resources come forward to help us pay for this. But we're in the middle of the soon before special session. - Yeah, I appreciate the info. That's it, thank you. - Let's go. - Okay, any other questions? Let's go, Councilman McGee, Bernd, and then Councilman Harlan. - Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Without restating what Councilman Watts says, I just wanna say I absolutely agree. I think that conversation needs to be had in budget time. So I'll just ask one question. Is this what you're doing, is that gonna be consistent with all the 18 cities that you serve? - It's different. - What's it different based off of every different city? - It's different based on very different city. Depends on what they do in their city as far as how their arrangements work with the other school districts in their city. They're being consistent with that. If they provide student resource officers at elementary schools in Little Land, they're providing student resource officers at elementary schools in Midlands. But it's consistent with what their city is doing, right? Same thing with Corinth. If Corinth is providing student resource officers at the elementary schools in Lake Dallas, then they're gonna provide student resource officers at elementary schools in Hawke. When they're smaller, it's different. There's a lot of different pieces. Their calls aren't the same. Their work level's different. It's just different in those different municipalities. Then County Sheriff, you can't find jailers. You can't find people as it is now. So our schools that are served by the sheriff's offices will be working through school security officers and doing it, and I'll give you that part too. - And if I may just finish on Mr. Mayor, I appreciate this. Again, I'm gonna co-assign, Mrs. Madden City Manager. I'm with Chris and I'm very interested in that conversation. I would love to see what it looks like if we review our budget. I know we're opening up FTEs for, I believe, five offices a year. As we, the last joint meeting we had, we learned that we're gonna double in size in 25 years. I'm very interested in having that conversation to see if going forward, if five is enough, if we need to hire at a more, open up more FTEs at a more aggressive rate from a policy standpoint. I know it's difficult to find them, but we have a job to do, so I wanna thank Councilmember Walsh for bringing that to the floor. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. - Councilmember. - Well, I'm thinking in regards to not finding your employees that you're looking for, and a lot of retired people like me. Not necessarily interested in messing up our Social Security. So if we go out and add too much to their, another wage, that's gonna offset their Social Security, and they don't get that back once they make this transition. Then again, the next year they may not be doing that, then thus they have lost their Social Security, or they're some type of pension, you know, the windfall profit thing going on there. So in my head, I'm just, and we can just put this on the table as well. We may want to think about hiring people at part time, and that's why that $15,000 kind of make more sense to me than a full $65,000, $70,000 for someone that's already retired. That might be where that interest is lacking there. So if you all could go back and just kind of research that, I would assume that we would want to do that. - Oh, whatever we have to do to get it covered, whether it's three part-time people, or two part-time people, or one full-time person, we don't get into the how. - Yes, it's gonna cost. Yeah, and then, you know, saying you're gonna go work for a school district these days is not something that is a pretty thing. - I disagree completely. - I do, I do disagree with that. I disagree with that. - I'm pushing back, I'm pushing back, Ms. Bird, I'm pushing back. - I'm pushing back on that statement as well, because I know it's something that's very necessary, and I know that, you know, I enjoy my time. But you know, just out there in the world, how people are looking at our education system. - They love it. - They do, they love it. But it could be, you know, sound, I don't know, it could just sound a little bit more attractive. I don't know how you all are putting that out there. I haven't seen, you know, the equipment materials or what have you. But those are the two things that's crossing my mind right now. I would certainly wanna do that if I wasn't doing this. I'd probably, you know, scrap one of my little, no, I'm just kidding. But thank you all. - That's good. - Thank you very much. - Councilman Harlow. - Thank you. Is there not some duplicity between an SRO and an SSO? - There is, with one exception. The school security officers are not going to enforce criminal law. They're not gonna arrest people. They don't have arrest powers. They're not gonna need that. If something criminal happens at an elementary school, we're calling the police department. - So will that person patrol the grounds, the homes? - No, they're gonna be armed or on campus for security purposes only, not to enforce criminal laws. - I see. - Okay, those are the differences. That bifurcates the difference between a student resource officer and a school security officer. - Thank you. - Thank you, Mayor. - Any other questions? Okay, I have one kind of handoff question. So in this, I fully support this. I think this is a great solution to something that did come down the pipe really fast, but from a kind of how it's gonna be implemented. So SROs are on campus. Heaven forbid something happens that SRO is kind of the point person. Is that? And then other officers arrive, let's say that's needed, unfortunately. What does that look like? Is there a handoff or does that person, I just wanna understand that handoff. Obviously in the SSO scenario, that's different because we would show up in an assumed authority, but here you have a officer that's already on site and has the most information available. How does that handoff work? - We identify that as someone who's in command. The training on our end is, that's literally all you say over the radio is show me in command. And you are in command of inside that scene until you are either relieved of command or the situation is over. Being relieved of command is usually a supervisor who shows up on the scene, gets briefed, and then assumes command. And again, it's just taking over of your radio. - Got it, okay. Thank you, just wanted to understand that. Missy, go ahead. - I think it's important to note one of the key words here is collaboration between the school, the ISD and the city. This does not happen in every city. In every city, they have different policing matters. They don't work well with the school district. But in this case, there's a partnership here that's very important to us as a city, but also very important to the school district so that the training is undertaken together so that if there is, God forbid, an emergency, that all those individuals are trained as to what happens. And when that command is turned over, should there be an incident, that we have all the people well prepared to deal with. - I wanna say that because this is a lot of work between the city, particularly our police department, Frank, Chief Shoemaker, Deputy Chief Bradford, and then of course our school system, just to get this all worked out. The proof will be in the pudding, but the key word here is collaboration and partnership. On the other part, as far as from police officers, we have been very active in making sure that we have put officers in the queue so that we don't sit there and not have qualified, quality police officers. But Chief Shoemaker is absolutely right. It takes approximately a year to get 'em on the street. And so we're always kind of ahead of ourselves. If you recall, we came back to council before the budget and asked for some positions. And then as a part of our agreement, we put in five through the budget process. I can assure you, both the school board and the council, that we will continue to take a proactive role, not only in our police department, but in our fire department, because emergency services, because that is one of the most important things a city can do. - The message I'd like for us to leave here with today is we could have been in compliance with this law with some very low-level, low-trained, low-fidelity solutions. That's not what this community values. That's not what the school district values. It's not what Chief Shoemaker values. That's why you see it being this intentionality in this level, in the actual license and TECO certification and training and all that. None of that is required to be in compliance with the House, not one of those things, right? Only thing is required that you have someone armed on campus to meet the letter of the law. We need more than that. We have a higher expectation than that. And our community expects more of us than that, and that's why you see us trying to bridge this, and we'll grow it and see how it works through. Many other schools are trying a similar approach. Some have their own departments. Some have municipalities that want to go ahead and do the full student resource officer, 'cause they don't have as much of a human capital issue. They say that until they have vacancies, right? You might not have an issue now when you start asking for another $4,000 of them across the state. There's a delta. So from the trustees' perspective and the council's perspective, you have leadership in the school district with Dr. Russell and in the police department with Chief Shoemaker that are taking a high level of fidelity and implementation and not just check the box for compliance. It's cheaper to check the box for compliance, but it's not the quality you're looking for. - Correct. Council member. - Thank you. One quick follow-up. I don't know if this is for Frank or Chief. With the increased training, is there gonna be any increased budgetary need on our side? - Well, that'll be ongoing conversations that Chief and I we've been having and going to continue to have, 'cause in the same vein, we don't wanna have just any training out there. We're always gonna bring forth the best possible training for all of our employees, including the assessors. - Thank you. - Frank, anything else? - One real just, sorry. I know, Mayor. So in the elementary schools, just so I understand the difference between security and criminal law enforcement. So let's say a fight breaks out in elementary school, either between students or a student and a teacher. So the SO is on campus. So they go and try to figure out a way to break that up, quote unquote. - What would be a different scenario? I mean, what would they not be able to do that an SRO would be able to do? I mean, if somebody needs to be detained, all right, we've seen all that. But if something like that happens, do they have those capabilities or is it you kinda separate people and then you call the police to come in and then they take care of whatever further actions need to be taken in that regard? Is that my understanding of that? - I'll go ahead. We have that today. - Yeah. - Right. - Assistant principals and principals break those things up and if they need to call law enforcement, they do. - In the elementary schools, in the high schools and middle schools, we have an officer there that can take care of it. - But the principals and teachers and everybody else break those things up and if they need to call law enforcement, they do. - Fair enough, yeah. - Right, it's just that it's off-site at the middle school and high school and they would have to call the elementary school. - Okay, gotcha. - But it's no different in our day-to-day. It does give us an extra person to be there, right? - Thank you. - Anything else on that? Sure, y'all. Okay, takes us item B. Thank y'all very much, appreciate it. ID 231732, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction, regarding an update on the city of Denton construction projects that would impact Denton High School and the surrounding areas. - Just don't give him the phone. (murmuring) - All right, good afternoon. I'm Trevor Green, I'm the director of Capital Projects and today I'm gonna be giving an update on some of the construction projects that we have that are in a vicinity and affecting the ISD. (murmuring) All right, so here we have a quick overview of some of the projects that are directly affecting the new Denton High School. So I have them color coded here. The project in the red is I grade phase six. So of course, that goes from 380 all the way up to US 77 and also a portion of Ronnie Road right there. In the blue, Ronnie Road East. So that is a project where we're going to match the existing project or existing street width all the way from 77 to right in front of the new elementary school site. And then in purple is the West Gate Road project that does affect West Gate, East West West Gate, North South West Gate and then a portion of Windsor Drive. And I'll get into those a little more in detail in the next slide. So Bonnie grade phase six, like I said, US 380 to US 77 project scope, roadway widening, pedestrian facilities, utility installation, along with traffic signals and lighting project schedule. So current phase, we're at 100% design. We're working through the final comments from TxDOT to be able to get this project out to bid. This project does have a large portion of TxDOT funding. So we're having to work with them in order to get approval to bid this out. We're looking at construction starting tentatively in quarter one of 2024, and then construction complete tentatively quarter three of 2026. So DISD coordination, of course we have that ILA for improvements to Rodney Road. So that portion that runs from North Bonnie, from Bonnie grade to just in front of the new site for the elementary school. And then that's going to be in coordination with the opening of the new elementary school. Rodney Road East. So this is west of Hardaway Road to US 77. Project scope, very similar, roadway widening, pedestrian facilities, utility relocations. And this does have a parks trail component that will connect North parks to the new elementary school location. So project schedule, the current phase, we haven't started design yet on this one. The design contract is actually going to council next week. So we'll be getting started on that relatively soon. Construction start, we're looking at Q1 of 2025, and then a construction complete in Q4 of 2025. And this does have that trail system that's going to align with the new elementary school. West Gate Road project, including Windsor Drive. So this one's a really fun project, just because we get to talk about East West West Gate, North South West Gate, and all the fun stuff that goes with it, but projects extent. So Windsor Drive from West Gate Drive to I-35, North South West Gate Drive from West Gate Drive to Windsor Drive, and then our East West West Gate Drive from I-35 to Bronco Way. Project scope, roadway widening, pedestrian facilities, utility installation, and then some drainage installation as well. Project schedule, so we are at 60% design and looking to tentatively start construction in quarter four of 2024. Construction complete and tentatively for quarter four of 2026. So this will provide that connection to Bronco Way, and then once we are complete, we'll work through renaming the existing East West West Gate to Bronco Way the entire way. So that'll be the end of the East West North South conversations. So a couple of additional projects, these are in the vicinity of DISD, Barrel Gravity Sewer Lift Station Abandonment. So this was, or is installation of about 4,500 feet of sewer along the rear of North South West Gate. And it's currently under construction, has an estimated completion of quarter one of 2024. This does have minimal impacts to DISD, but is in the vicinity. So Northwest Water Transmission Line is an installation of approximately two miles of waterline from our Northwest Elevated Storage Tank to the Rodney Road Elevated Storage Tank. This one is also currently under construction, and it has an estimated completion date of quarter three of 2024. This one does have a few impacts. We do have a road closure that's scheduled for Monday now that we're gonna work through. But once we get through that road closure, they, we should have minimal impacts moving forward. - Yeah, we got Randy. - We got Randy. - We got Randy. - And with that, I'll stand for any questions. - So, Trevor, I have a couple of things. So thank you for that. Or better said, for the school side of things, while I have you. Obviously, Rodney Road is important to me from a, just your other elementary schools in the city of Denton, I say this regularly, have neighborhoods around it by and large so they can absorb that traffic. The question is, how do y'all, what is your average kind of feel for how many cars, how many people for school, first day of school, that sort of thing, or major events at school? How many cars are we anticipating? Just, I wanna make sure I track that from our end to make sure we're building that in, we're accounting for those things. There's just, the margin for error in this area is just so small because there are no neighborhoods to absorb it. Obviously, North Lakes absorbs some of it, but just kind of, what is that, first day, everyone brings their kid to school, two parents, two cars, what does that look like? - It's hectic. - Yeah, honey, what's the number of it? (audience laughs) I get a pro seat to it. - So, just to kind of, we try not to make, first of all, let me leave it at this. We try not to make our long-term decisions based on the first day of school or special events. - Sure. - Because you've got less than 10 of those special events first days of year, right? But if it's 650 kids, sometimes two cars a kid, if mom and dad want to bring their kindergartner and all that kind of thing, it's a large number, right? But I think when you see the way that we handle the traffic at Sam Houston, right? When there's neighborhoods across the street and whatnot, people walking back and forth. There'll be people walking through North Lake to the new school as well. But the first couple of days, people like to take their kids to school. So, we just have to get through the first couple of days. Dr. O'Baron, do you know about how many car tags you gave out at Hawke? - I'm thinking probably 350. - So, Hawke, which was a neighborhood school that had a lot of walkers, still had 350 cars in a residential neighborhood area, which doesn't have nearly the infrastructure and runways that the need of resources is. - But it didn't have transportation either. We didn't have to provide much transportation because it was a neighborhood school. So, to your point of it not being embedded in the neighborhood, we will likely have more that would-- - Half a dozen buses or so. - Yeah, no, and I take your point that's valid, but to avoid kind of pacing on those kind of out of the norm days, but on this instance, you'll have somebody parking on Bonnie Bray Street, right? Like, that's tragic. But we experienced it with, we had people parking on Airport Road. I mean, firsthand, people will just throw it in park and hustle to where they need to be. And that's in that area, it can turn. - Part of it you have to think about is if we try to use university as our southern boundary to that school's piece, you're not gonna have anybody coming from South Bonnie Bray to North Bonnie Bray. If most everybody's coming from the west side of Westgate or the new development just north of Denton High School about across the street from Bonnie Bray, you've got a east-west transportation loop. You've got the apartments and townhomes across the street. You keep going east on Riding Road, you get to 77. I don't think there's going to be as much loading off of Bonnie Bray as there will be online, which is the reason why we delayed the school for a little while longer to let all that work come in together. We're building additional turns into the school site off of Bonnie Bray to allow for stacking on site. And then you've also got additional parking in North Lake Park. So one of the things that will be important to communicate when the school opens is in the event of large events, first day of school parking, here's where overflow parking is, here's how you get there. So that's more administrative managerial stuff than it is anything else. I think the loads of the traffic and the traffic stays have been done are more than sufficient for what we have going on. - Excellent, thank you. - Does that make sense? - Yeah, great point, I appreciate that. - Last thing I had, and this is just kind of to equip those at the school board, if those questions come up, we've already seen them some, the construction closure on Monday. So what is the answer as to why that wasn't planned when school's not in summer, winter break, et cetera? - Sure, so one of the driving things for that is in order to do that road work, we're having to use, it's a bore, a jack and bore is the type of construction where we don't have to dig it up, we just dig some bore pits on either side and we kind of push the pipe through. And so that subcontractor is, it's a subcontractor for the contract, and so they're having to, we have to schedule those people. So we missed a window earlier, so in order to get them in here, if we didn't do it now or Monday, then we're months or weeks ahead of the time. So it's really trying to find that right spot in there to where we can get the crew in here, get it knocked out in a short amount of time and then move on to the other construction. So it's really just trying that scheduling and those types of things. - And Mayor Trever and his team, they've done a super job of thinking through this a little bit, I mean, people might not think about this. We got five days of construction next week, we got a week off at Thanksgiving. We come back for three weeks and we got two weeks off at winter break. So three of the next six weeks where this work might be going on, there aren't kids in school, right? So it's not like we went October the 1st all the way through Thanksgiving, had eight weeks of every day. So you've got some time in there built in. So it was at least, let's try to minimize the impact as best we can. And then we talked a little bit today about, you know, they'd like to kind of get started this week but we got rainy things coming up and then we wanna make sure we over communicate this is coming, right? 'Cause people, we've kind of coached people to come in that other way. And so we're gonna have to have some traffic mitigation at that intersection of Ronnie and Bonnie and Bray just to kind of help keep people moving. Because a lot of people come in out of that school and they go north of 377, north of 77 out. Or they come in from that side and they go. So it's gonna be a little bit of a learning curve. It's gonna be like the first day of school Monday. So everybody, you're gonna be okay. - Yes. - We'll get there. - That's great, I appreciate that communication. That's really good, yeah, good to know. - Well, Trevor and his team's helped us tremendously talking through it and giving us pictures. And here's what's gonna look like and all that. But using the Thanksgiving break and the Christmas break, that helps, right? - Got it, good. - Nothing just won't rain during those weeks. I'm sure we'll see, okay. - Excellent, thank you. - Here's to us. - Any other questions, Mayor Fritzell? - Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, I really appreciate you bringing that up 'cause I've been feeling a lot of the same comments, Ed. And so I'll just co-sign on his questions. And I'll encourage, if you and Trevor, if the school and Trevor have already worked out the traffic flow and the plan and the mitigation efforts, if you could get those out to the parents, especially, but the public in as advance as you can, and maybe get it to council and staff, so we can see staff, so we can spread the word as well. That would be, let us all help to mitigate some of the EOT that we know we need. - Yeah, yeah. - Sounds great. - Any other questions? - Okay, very good, thank you. - Let me off easy. - Takes us to item C. ID 231734, receive report, hold discussion, and give staff direction regarding an update on the City of Denton summer camp program. - Nice to meet you, Director of Parks and Recreation. This is Megan Thomas, she's our program area manager for our Leisure Services team. Kind of continue the same theme of partnerships with DISD, we've been working a lot on a number of projects right now. We're working with LaGrone on some little deep bike racks that you can see around downtown. The students are fabricating those for us right now. So that's just one kind of snippet of what we've been working on with administration and students. The other thing is our summer camps. We've had some real challenges with the growth of the city and the growth of our summer camps, and Megan's gonna give a little update on that program. - So earlier this year, City of Denton and Denton ISD partnered to expand our summer camp programs. And what this does is provide additional school sites and transportation services for 10 weeks of the summer program. So by adding three school sites, we were actually able to increase our service area as well as our program capacities for children and families here in Denton. Enrollment increased by 73% over the 2022 year, and it added additional amenities such as playgrounds and the gyms. So staff were able to provide transition times easier between scheduled activities. Another benefit of having these facilities is space to serve the summer food program. We were able to increase the meals served along with the attendance and then just to provide additional nutrition to those children. One thing we did find out about the summer program is the summer food program is it cannot operate at the same time. The Denton ISD food services program is operating. It was a minimal impact to us. I think it happened maybe a week or two later in the summer. And staff were able to address that pretty quickly. And it's just something we need to communicate in the future. Transportation was phenomenal. Staff were very appreciative of it. They addressed that the children, these children see these bus drivers throughout the year. These are the same drivers that they get during the school year. So they had familiar faces, especially the first couple of weeks of camp when they are learning with the counselors and a little uncomfortable themselves. And it also provided just that opportunity for the kids to build relationships with them. And staff felt that more than just a service, the transportation, the drivers were really an extension of our team. Here in the chart, you can see that the summer camp expansion really improved our wait list numbers. We were operating previously at a double what we had enrolled on our wait list. It dropped down from 213 to 79 on a weekly average, which is huge. Let's see. But we also know Denton's still growing and it's not slowing down. So that's why we would love to continue this partnership and continue to look at future opportunities for expansion to allow additional growth for our summer camp program and for our community. - So what we figured is if there's 1,000 students a year, 850 that are in our summer camp age bracket, there's a percentage of those students that we're currently meeting or currently serving. So as the school district adds another 850 students in that age bracket, we need to grow at like four or 5% just to maintain a base service level. That's not actually growing, that's just maintaining the pace. So over the past few years, we haven't maintained that pace 'cause we didn't have the facilities. It was through the partnership with DISD we were able to service those families. So we need to try to at least maintain that, if not try to get ahead of it and actually grow the summer program. So we're making sure that they have good quality summer activities that they can learn to be social, engaged, inter-athletic and all that. So in fitness related activities. So we can't do that without this partnership. So we wanna continue working with the schools so we can try to capture those opportunities when the schools are shut down, not under construction or repairs, try to balance that and also strategically place those schools in areas where we're underserving the community as well. So that's all we have and we'll open up for any questions. - Okay, questions for staff? - People are quiet today. (laughing) - I will ask, Gary, are we sharing or Megan, are we sharing information with didn't I say on parents not out those events, those sort of things? 'Cause I think that would be good if, we may already be doing that, but just curious. - Yes, I know our Recare group does reach out and share that information. They also, we are starting to put information in the peach jar flyers that go out to the elementary school. So we do have something going out later this, at probably the end of this week to, for the December programs. - Great, okay, thank you. Any other questions? Okay, all right, thank you very much. Appreciate that. - That takes us to our last item. Item D, ID 231735 receive a report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding an update on the installation of public art on city of Denton traffic signal boxes. - On that same theme that we've talked about most of the morning and partnerships. The past three or four years, we've been pretty aggressive in ramping up our art program. So we've instituted a number of sculptures around the park system, around the city. And one thing that we've been working on for the past couple years is trying to beautify our transportation boxes. Every intersection has one. They're functional, obviously. But what can we do to make those a little bit more beautiful and kind of almost hide them in plain sight in some aspects? So we applied for a grant that Omar's gonna talk about and try to continue to enhance our art and communication throughout the city. This one was focused downtown. We're gonna be expanding that, and I'll turn it over to Omar. - Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. So this program began in 2022 with a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts that had a level of funding of $6,000, which the city matched with another $6,000 for a total of $12,000. So that gave us enough money to do 10 vinyl wraps in our TCA-designated cultural district, which is the original Denton District, which accounts for the square, the area around it, and goes sort of all the way east to include Fredmore Park. But so under the terms of the grant, we had to apply that funding in the original Denton District. So what staff did was we reached out to faculty, fine arts faculty at Denton ISD, and got with them to encourage their students to create pieces of art and submit them to our Public Art Committee for consideration. And eventually Public Art Committee chose winners, and these are some of them that you're seeing here. Actually, these are all of them. And these are the locations around the original Denton District. And if you look at the map, you see we have some areas that are not fully, aren't filled in yet, but are designated for upcoming vinyl wraps from UNT students and TWU students, and a couple will feature senior center art. And I'll sort of show you those in a second. So just to go really quickly through the offerings we got from the Denton ISD students, we wanted to sort of showcase the two winning entries from each campus, because they are just really, really works of art. And it sort of shows you the sort of level of talent we were lucky enough to work with from Denton ISD. So these are the two winners from Braswell High School, Nicole Velasquez and Ariel Hall. These are the two winners from Denton High School, Anne-Hen and Ella McGee. The two from Geyer, Dylan Ricardella and Ireland Labasse. From Le Grome, Luis Barbosa and Ethan Jimenez. From Ryan, Andrea Hernandez and Janice Alvarez. And finally, we wanted to sort of point to the staff at the various campuses at Denton ISD, without whose help we couldn't have realized this program. So these are the fine art faculty that we worked with. But then moving forward, we have some forthcoming wraps as you saw in the initial map. The two images on the top are senior center art, art from artists who worked through our senior center. So those will be on Bell and Mingo and McKinney and Elm. And then on the bottom of the two that are blue are by Casey Martin, who worked in our sustainability department and is associated with UNT. And she's providing one, the one on the bottom left is actually, I don't know if you can see this image, but it references the 2024 eclipse. And then the other one is based on her mural at the Pratt facility at the landfill. So it sort of has a sustainability theme that includes art by Denton ISD students as well, as you can see in the image, if you look closely. These are the TW wraps that will be on the TW campus forthcoming as well. And then for the next year, we have about $12,000 to do perhaps about 10 more wraps. But this funding is coming from our Hotel Occupancy Tax Fund. So this allows us to sort of move beyond the original dent industry, because we're not constrained by the terms of the TCA grant. So we're still sort of considering the theming and location and what other community partners you might wanna work with. But here are some of the intersections we're thinking we might choose for these upcoming wraps. All right, any questions? - Okay, questions for Seth. Councilman Carlin, Councilman Johnson. - Thank you. Is the material leaves resistant to vandalism, i.e. spray paint? - Yes, we have an anti-graffiti coating on the vinyl. And in fact, we had one of the boxes tagged recently with spray paint, and parksmen and staff were able to go there and remove the dirt. - Very good, thank you. - Thank you, Mayor. - We can always replace that section too if we have to, if it's damaged by anything. - Thank you. - As you look forward to consider other sources for these new wraps going forth, is there potentially a role for dead and working artists and as well as graduates or participants in the MFA programs at UNT and TWA? - Yes, certainly. I think we would love to work with working artists. I think if we do that, we'd want to make sure that we're allocating a portion of the funds to provide an honorarium or some sort of support for their labor. But we have had those conversations and it would be great to give them so much talent and then focus, showcase that and that would be great. - We need some talent here. - Yes. - Okay, any other questions? Councilor Watz. - I just want to say, I'm just blown away by the talent of the DISD, just their submissions. I mean, good heavens, when you look at the pieces and the messages they're sending, it's not just about the art, it's about the message behind it. It just is so great to see that kind of just talent and awareness in our students. So I just wanted to do those kudos. - Mayor Proctor. - So following up from what Councilor Watz just said, we do, and Councilor Meltzer as well, we do have a lot of artists. What's the lifetime for a given rap, do we think? - I think generally speaking, these vinyl raps will last about five years. - So are we anticipating them replacing that with another piece of art in five years? Is that generally the process? - Yeah, I've seen some last more than five years. In fact, some that I put up with a prior employer are still up, and they've been up for over 10 years. So it just really matters if they're shade, direct sunlight, 24/7, it could impact that. But our intention is to replace them, whether it's with a new piece or with that same art. - Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, then it's not directly in sync, but this is the only time I have. So congratulations to the Parks Department, Tech Stop grant, almost $11 million, right? Yeah, yeah, so we're doing great things there. And so I appreciate the collaboration with the school district and all you're doing, and continually thinking creatively, and kind of getting out in front of things. They're really good about that, and making sure we maximize every dollar we can, especially as we move forward, and I look forward to future conversations like this. We'll talk about, obviously I know the ISD and the city's already talking about Mormon and some of those things, and look forward to these discussions are really helpful. It just helps me understand all the things that are happening in the background, and I'm grateful for those discussions. The citizens are getting benefit from those collaborative efforts, so anything you wanna say? I just wanna say when we travel throughout the state, and other school districts here about the relationship we have with our city, they are often amazed, and a little envious, because they understand the value as we do, and appreciate the value. Consistency is everything in education, and when you have a consistent policy with your city, with your law enforcement, with your art, it enhances the community completely. So we really do appreciate this, and your continued patience, and the joint funding helps tremendously. We're fighting for every dollar we can scrounge up, since we're not getting a whole lot of state this year, so again, we really appreciate this process. - Okay. The city manager, Dr. Wilson, anything? - No, just a big appreciation to the partnership. I was in a meeting just two weeks ago, I led a conference with the Texas Association of Suburban Mid-Sized Urban Schools, and the number one question that the leaders at those school districts have was, how do you work relationships in your cities, and municipalities when you're both going together? You know, when you get into all those different pieces, and it's like we have this really good foundation, because we know what's about to explode, West of I-35, and we're all gonna have to put our creativity hats on whenever that hits here, and those things start coming to pass, because if they're gonna continue to move to Denton County, it's gonna be second fastest growing county in the country. People aren't gonna bring roads, they're not gonna bring water infrastructure, and they're not gonna bring classrooms with them. And we all have to be mindful that there aren't any of those things that are inexpensive. And when they bring those, while the new growth may pay for some of that, it doesn't always pay for it in the beginning. And we have to be mindful that you have an amazing place for people to live, and when those things start to explode, and those three things aren't brought with them, we have to continue to work together to make that happen. It's significantly important. Or you end up with some of those pop-up communities like North of Houston right now that they're having special call sessions to talk about. It's extremely important. - Excellent, okay, thank you. Two things I did miss before we close out. One thing, giving credit where credit's due from your board leadership all the way down to every teacher. Man, I visited at least six or seven elementary schools, a couple of high schools this year. We've been on a tear. But I tell ya, it is an amazing experience. Man, it is fantastic. The work they do, the skillset they bring, the ability to educate, teach, kind of all those things. I'm blown away every time. So thank you for all y'all do. Yeah, it is just impressive. And then in closing, if you've not driven by the old didn't high side, man, good night, man. I don't know who came up with that plan. It's pretty awesome. It's pretty weird to see a playground on my own high school footprint. (audience laughing) I don't remember marching by this in band practice. But it has been. It'll look like it's always intended to be there. So whoever pulled that together and kind of made the best use of that, I'm truly grateful. - Jerome, just one quick thing about that. I want to thank Joe Holland for planting a seed when we were walking in the neighborhood one day, that made a lot of sense. And it's, you know, there's a lot of purple in Fulton didn't high. In Calhoun, former school colors were orange. Well, now Calhoun's colors are purple. So very efficient with the color change. You don't have to change everything. And they've changed from being the Cougars to being the Colts. So if you have horseshoes and Broncos, they're now Colts, which are just smaller Broncos, right? - Right, and Colts grow to be Broncos. - Colts grow to be Broncos. And so there's a little bit of a subtle change into growing up purple and gold. - Right, yeah. - And it's pretty interesting. We just had a little discussion about it. We worked on it, and next thing you know, you're not buying a bunch of different color paint to color over what's there. And you can put those resources elsewhere. - Yeah. - It's good. - Yeah, no. I mean, to me it's important, again, not to belabor that point, but man, your efficiency, we've talked about TDI and some of the folks that use, I mean, the tools you leverage to make sure our taxpayer dollars are well spent, well managed is noteworthy, and I appreciate that. - Next Tuesday night, Energy Audit. - Yeah. - All the solar things, all the geothermal, that's next Thursday, or next Tuesday night, next Tuesday night. - Okay, well, very good. Well, at 1246, we'll conclude this joint meeting on the City Council side, Dr. O'Neill. - And I will return on the get nice site. Thank you all for being here. - Thank you.