Jun 03, 2019 City Council on 2019-06-03 11:30 AM

good late morning it is June 3rd 2019 and it is 1132 we're getting started with today's lunch meeting and so we will start with make sure we do have a quorum Paul is not going to be here today and mayor Watts is not going to be here today and so are there any adjustments for our column first item anything's changed okay very good so we will start with work session item a ID 19 - 1068 receive a report hold discussion and give staff direction regarding the city of Denton's cultural district program formation of cities first cultural district and the city's application to Texas Commission on the arts and cultural districts program good morning mayor Pro Tem and council members I am actually going to start off by doing something a little different we actually have a video to introduce the item today so I'm going to try and not break DTV so give me one sec I want to buy that motel on 380 the holiday lodge across the street from Mazatman I want to add a pool and make it real pretty the Denton music scene is like no other it's been way cool for decades now why is it you can't walk down the street without stumbling over somebody playing an instrument it's no wonder Denton is a certified music-friendly community but as of late the hip vibe in Denton is more than that there are thriving venues anchored by the historic square innovating creative diverse and authentic and that sets the original Denton district apart from any other place in Texas a lot of times you heard oh Denton is the new little Austin I was never so grateful when we got away from that because Denton is Denton and and there is no comparison Denton's cultural district is centered downtown where our community first began the area encompasses the creative people unique places and authentic cultural resources that make Denton Denton unusual and eccentric in the best way it truly is a place all its own our district is formed around an existing concentration of cultural assets clustered in a walkable area that we want to promote to both visitors and residents I also experienced that a bit vicariously when someone from out of town comes here and plays a show you know goes out to eat has a coffee has a drink and experiences kind of this especially this downtown area that we have and they're blown away I don't know how aware people are of how the arts it's fueling our economy when you have in an integral in any community where artists featured you're improving the quality of life for its residents they have a place to go that children are exposed to art they can see their own possibilities the arts here make all the difference in the world we have to recognize the value of the creative economy as an integral part of Denton's overall business community that creativity was on display with two unique art pieces we simply asked people to show us what they loved about Denton this artist showed us what we already knew to be true we may be a little odd but we wouldn't have it any other way and so it's called band on the run and it's supposed to be kind of this story of these two people that are just kind of on the run from somebody and you don't really know they still have their instruments on their back I feel like I'm most often encouraged by fellow artists but inspired by people that probably wouldn't consider themselves artists and so I think that's what's cool again about Denton is the interaction you know that's possible between art maybe art appreciators and art creators DBFF didn't like film festival we do two things we share black culture and we build community I think is really a perfect fit for the city of Denton because what we try to do is really define what black culture really is you know what's important about Denton having a cultural district is because it represents the years of hard work with the City Council with the community as a whole to really create a destination for the arts a place where people can apply their craft it really has created the fabric of this community and really given its soul that makes Denton stand out we've seen the wall and it's a 91 feet long wall by 17 feet high and that's not an opportunity you want to pass up as a visual artist we kind of did some Denton history research and thought let's just make it as weird as possible and this seemed to work Denton really encourages people to let their freak flag fly and it has always but the level of just sheer musicians in this town is something that should just absolutely be worshipped that people have access to honestly some of the best musicians they will ever hear just by walking down the street on a nightly basis this isn't normal this is not normal and that needs to be encouraged and nourished and protected I joked at public art that after that I was like you don't need me to do the rest of the presentation right so so that video was actually produced by one of the greatest teams we have in house which is our DTV crew so we were really thankful that they were available to help us out as we prepared for our application but I also want to take a quick second to think economic development public affairs facilities parks and rec finance just about every department in the city played a role in the information that I'm going to be presenting today so while I'm here as the director of economic development it was really a team effort and I want to make sure that they're all acknowledged and they know that their work is very much appreciated and so to get started today I'm going to provide an overview of cultural districts very briefly and then move quickly into the original Denton district and then the majority of my presentation will be an overview of the application that we're making to the Texas Commission on the Arts so this is just a recap of information that you've seen before what our cultural districts they are defined geographic areas we in which we celebrate arts culture entertainment and history and they are formed around existing concentrations of cultural assets and what those assets are can be anything from historic sites cultural heritage sites it could be performance venues it could be music music or musicians art performance art visual art graphic art you name it it's all included as those things that make us who we are and so we have a very extensive list of assets we'll be going over later another addition is that cultural districts can exist as a locally designated designated district and so one of the items that will be in front of you tomorrow is to actually go through with a local designation of a cultural district so the original Denton district is the the locally the name for the local designated district and the reason that we wanted to kind of talk about the name is everyone wanted to know where the name came from so there were actually advisory committee meetings that were held back in 2018 and they were asked to what words to make a list of what words describe Denton and the word that came up the most was original but people were using it different ways they talked about it in both original Denton meaning the older part of our community but they also used it to mean eccentric different odd and so when we came up with the name original Denton district it was really a you know fate that it's spelled odd and then we tried to play that up in all of our materials you'll see that throughout the application it does include downtown Denton so our core areas but it also includes southeast Denton council you saw the boundaries back in February and so we made that extension to include Fredmore Park and Oakwood Cemetery and that's the map that you'll see in your backup so the streets aren't labeled but it goes all the way to this this side over here Bradshaw Street and this is Wilson Street down here so it does include Fredmore Park and Oakwood Cemetery and that's pretty much the background on the local designation but I'm happy to answer questions specific to the district the rest of the presentation is going to be on the application portion so any questions on the this portion okay thank you sure all right so about a little over a year ago I guess now February of 2018 council gave direction to staff to pursue a state designation and that designation is made through the Texas Commission on the Arts through their program cultural districts are seen as primarily an economic engine generation of cultural tourism and a marketing tool for communities if you are selected and designated by the state you do become eligible for grant funding grant funds are typically used for high quality art programming cultural district enhancements that includes capital enhancements improved signage and wayfinding marketing and promotion of the district and support for the management and operations of the district there is grant funding eligible as part of the state's recently approved budget I went ahead and checked and made sure it was in there there is funding that's eligible so if the city does achieve this designation we can make application to the state for grant funding and the really administrative requirements are that we have to submit a report to TCA every year and we have to be recertified every 10 years quick question councilmember breaks and then councilmember so on cultural district enhancements does that mean since we're focusing on a walkable area that lighting or infrastructure can be covered or is that something different the specific guidelines for the grant program aren't available yet for the next cycle but in the past it has included things like signage and lightings and sidewalks so I don't know if that'll be included in the next year's grant cycle but it has been in the past thank you okay two-part question one so if we get the the TCA state designation what kind of oversight in terms of auditing etc is there and how we assuming we apply for grants and get them in terms of how we spend those grants auditing etc you know and then the second part is if you could explain unless you had that plan for coming up soon how hot funds works in terms of auditing related to the state grants that would be part of whatever the application is so since the next cycle hasn't been that those haven't been released yet so whatever those requirements are if we were gonna make application to the state we would come back and say these are the things that we're gonna have to do to be compliant with the state guidelines so it's a little hard to answer that question they're usually fairly typical it's gonna be very similar to how we oversee our hot funds which we'll probably have to say we're going to spend money on these things and then probably submit back up to say yes and here's an accounting of how we spent those dollars if there's any type of match requirement or things like that that's to be determined in the next cycle this cultural districts are eligible for hot funding so the public art committee as the oversight agency would have make application to the hot funds committee to have funding designated for the operation and management of the cultural district so they are eligible to use that but they are subject to the same requirements as any other applicant yes and follow-up question and do you happen to know so say that public arts committee applies for for hot funds for that it does does that hot funds from the applied for from the public art committee for the cultural district is that come out of that designated percentage for the arts or does that depend on the kinds of projects that they're gonna look at but I think it's dependent upon the type of project that's being submitted for okay good yes so just because it comes out of the public arts committee right it doesn't mean that it's gonna that it's necessarily gonna take away from that arts percentage it could just count for toward arts history culture yes and the name of the committee the public art committee is now a little bit of a misnomer because they will have if approved if the ordinance is approved they will have cultural districts as their as a responsibility and so they may be bringing forward projects that are not necessarily public art as defined by the public art policy they might be bringing forward cultural art district program so those would be separate from the traditional public art projects thanks okay thank you counselor Davis so apologies that this is later on in the presentation or tomorrow's presentation but what has the committee already been talking about as far as grant applications like what is the thing that they want to the very first chance we get to apply for a grant that they want to go after they have not made any recommendations at this point for a preliminary grant application is there any kind of talk chatter I mean when we're when we're looking at this funding source and making it available for this cultural district what are we most excited about getting done in the district with the new funds that are available sure included in the application is the cultural district plan and I'll go over that a little bit later but I'll give you a preview now there's five strategic goals that are associated with that plan and some of those have specific work items some that are related to creating better you know sort of the guidance for the district itself what is administration and management and operation of the district look like some of its marketing some of it is maybe considering art related projects and some of it is some of the more entertainment related projects looking at a possible performance venue was one thing that has kind of come up through our community engagement pieces is is there a public performance space that might be available for grant funding so those were the type of things that continued to come up and all of those are addressed specifically in the work plan what we told the public art committee during the presentation was once we have approval our goal would be to consider October 1 the start of the fiscal year the first operating year of the district itself so throughout the summer our goal would be to come back with them with a plan of what do you want us to execute on in that first year so part of that would be what projects would you like us to move forward and start doing that preliminary assessment for possible grant funding now I'll go over the cultural district plan a little bit yes thank you go ahead all right so the application itself is pretty lengthy I believe it's about 95 pages in your backup so I'm sure everyone's read all of that I apologize it is very significant but we were submitted a required letter of intent in January of 2019 an application is due June 15th so with affirmative approval from the City Council tomorrow we'll move forward with the final finalizing all of the documents related to the application and then get it to TCA I will say we submitted our application for preliminary review last week and we got excellent feedback so we're in the process of making some adjustments to the short form application that you'll see it's kind of the narrative based the first part of the application but our marketing plan and our cultural district plan they told us those would become the new standard which they would send to people as they were making applications so we took that as a very positive sign that we have some good work behind our application so as I mentioned the cultural district application is pretty significant there were eight required sections and then an additional 10 attachments that we had to include I'm not going to go over all of these I promise and I'm gonna go over them pretty quickly but it is all in your backup so if you have questions please feel free to shoot them over either today or tomorrow so going through section C this was where we had to do our asset inventory so we had to count organizations we had to count festivals we had to count restaurants bars clubs entertainment menus that sort of thing and some kind of significant digits that kind of stood out is one that we think a very conservative estimate is that we have more than a million visitors come to the district every year and that's only about 2,700 people per day and I think that if we counted every trip to the disk district per day we'd probably get it a get a higher number than that but as well about already two point two million dollars in marketing dollars are already spent marketing events or venues in the district so we thought those were pretty significant and section D was a narrative profile of the application and I really wanted this photo we thought said more than our narrative ever could we sent a photographer out for about an hour and said try and capture the district and this isn't a musician walking down Hickory Street with a guitar on his back and this was just a regular Wednesday afternoon so if this this is sort of what Denton is and it was pretty easy to capture and but what we tried to convey in the narrative portion was that this is an area it's both a place that people come and enjoy music and art but it's also a place where we live and we work and we wanted to make sure that that was conveyed in our application and section E was our assets and amenities section this is where we conducted a comprehensive asset inventory so we actually documented stories people places pieces of arts performance venues music venues bars restaurants you name it and we came up with a pretty significant listing it's multi-page and to the point that we couldn't include everything that we had in our application so we actually attached our asset inventory to our website so if you go which again a website was a required attachment part of the application but if you go to original Denton district comm and click on visit the district then you can actually see the asset inventories that we have and so if we missed anything certainly let us know but they're pretty pretty significant this is the asset inventory as it appears online you can click on each of those sections and then we did a graphic representation of the assets in a map trying to show the concentration of assets and how dispersed they are throughout the district so each of those little markers are not an individual asset if we did that we'd have layers upon layers of them stacked in some areas so some of those are just designating a general area where an asset is yeah can you explain how you define how asset was defined for we took as comprehensive of a meaning as we could so it was everything from historic markers in the district so those are designated parks are considered assets cemeteries art installations whether it's publicly or privately funded bars restaurants clubs they even considered stories as historic assets in terms of the application so one of the things that we tried to convey was significant figures so in our asset inventory we included a story of Fred Moore and how friend more park is included in this and friend more high school is included and so we tried to convey everything we possibly could that contributes to the culture and experience of a visitor a resident in the district so it's a very broad definition yes yeah follow up to that so and I love I love the original Denton district and so I'm not I'm not arguing with this map but I do and I I don't know if there's any if there's gonna be any weight to this mapping of the assets or if that's just kind of something no that wasn't a part were required part of the application we added that okay okay yeah because so just then kind of as a side note you know I while I agree that there's a great density of assets in around the square I bet you know if you're counting all the different the things you mentioned the different stories the history art I bet we'd see a lot more dots all over the place including of people's homes where people live who are who are artists and maybe we should better call this kind of tangible assets there are intangible assets that occur so this certainly doesn't capture a parade route or a story or something like that so those that we considered as part of the assets as well this was more of the tangible physical assets that we have okay one quick question yes point of a clarification so Fred Moore High School's off of a rowing right so that's no we included the story like of that naming of Fred Moore High School and Fred Moore Day School and all that in the in the package in the asset package okay thank you and section F was the cultural district planning section and the actual application part you kind of just do some summaries of the planning process but in that we had to come up with our vision and mission statement for the district and so these started as drafts when the advisory committee was meeting in 2018 and then as we held different sessions and I'll talk about the community engagement section and just a few slides we integrated the comments that we were getting at each section into the vision and mission statement so one of the things that we were hurt hearing was concerns about this creating gentrification so we changed the statement here to include affordable housing and so as we were hearing things we were trying to make sure we were adjusting what the vision and mission statement would say to convey the community feedback that we were getting so the planning section again we kind of have to communicate to TCA the extensiveness of the work that we were being that was being done so the work started in earnest in February of 2018 and continues to this day and this is a very abbreviated timeline of everything that we did we have a more significant timeline in the cultural district plan itself and part of that timeline that's kind of not sorry the abbreviated timeline was all of the community engagement that we did and we held four major engagements throughout the spring we held a feedback and ideation session at the Patterson Appleton Art Center we did our two community art piece engagements at the community market and the Arts and Jazz Festival and if you haven't seen the art pieces they're out in the hallway definitely making the hallway a little bit more narrow they're pretty large but go take a look at them and see everything that everyone wrote they're really impressive in person when you kind of see it they're as tall as I am and a couple feet wide and then we again held a community conversation at the Martin Luther King Junior Rec Center a few weeks ago and got some feedback on on the application itself we also did digital engagement these were some required parts of the application as well so we had to create a website because saying as well as some social media channels and where we've been sharing some events and different things that are going on to date we've had about 13,000 impressions on social media which is pretty significant it's only been a little less than two months and then we've had 569 website views which again is pretty good we've been driving traffic to the website to to help people understand what we're doing so we thought that was pretty good given we were just getting started and here's just a quick summary of some of the community comments and these are all incorporated in to the cultural district plan itself was that there was a need to support local artists including providing access to business resources the requirement or the ask of the community was that history is preserved that there be more centralized planning related to the arts and so bringing a lot of diverse organizations together maintaining walkability and really what we heard more than anything is let's just be Denton we don't really have to change who we are we're already pretty special so let's convey that and the marketing plan was another required section of the district and this is again it's a 15 page section in the application itself so this is the very abbreviated version we focus the marketing plan around five key themes that you see on the I guess it's your left here and what our keys to success were we're really about thinking back to that already two point two million dollars that are being spent in the district that we don't have to do a lot separately from that it's about leveraging those existing partnerships and maybe providing key resources to our marketing partners like the CBB and making sure that those dollars are effectively being used to market the district the required attachments were the most significant section of the application so you got to see our audio visual sample to start off the task there was simply convey your district in video and I think that the DTV crew did a pretty good job of that and as well as some of the items the more standard items the map of the district the resolution from City Council which you'll be considering tomorrow as I mentioned we'll go over in more detail the cultural district plan but we had to do the five-year cultural district marketing plan as well as a list of pertinent web links again that's ours is about five pages long trying to put together everything that you could a visitor could access in the district and then letters of support we received letters of report support from Denton County the Chamber of Commerce the Convention and Visitors Bureau and some artists around the community so the cultural district plan itself this is the item that back in February Caroline had brought to you about hiring a consultant so we hired Suzanne Smith of social impact architects and Suzanne completed a needs assessment and then worked with me on the asset inventory she also completed an evaluation and analysis of data and surveys that were gathered through a variety of different projects so we focused on information that was gathered through the City Hall West committee the advice 2018 advisory committee the feedback sessions the community art projects and the community conversations she also reviewed any of the city's plans so the downtown master plan that didn't 2030 plan the historic preservation plan the district overlays the downtown district overlay standards that have been going forward to council so all of those items were then coordinated and consolidated into the cultural district plan and after that we completed a SWOT analysis and then developed the strategic plan and timeline for implementation so that is pretty much the majority of my presentation just kind of to finish it up the next steps are what we need council to do so there are three items for consideration tomorrow there's an ordinance that amends the public art committees duties that adds cultural district oversight to their duties there's a resolution that designates the original Denton district as an local cultural district and then there's a resolution that supports the district's application to the state upon approval of those items then we will be able to slip them into the attached to the application and submit our application to the state before the June 15th deadline and then next steps for the district itself like I mentioned it's really taking that cultural district plan and that implementation and working with the public art committee over the summer to come up with what will the work plan be for year one and so we would be looking at how are we going to implement the year one marketing plan items how are we going to implement the work plan items in year one of the cultural district plan and then defining kind of the as council member Davis said the priorities and opportunities may be related to grant funding or hot fund funding moving forward and that's it okay great thank you and so it does call for direction but can you help me frame what direction we need to give you today in preparation for tomorrow you could give feedback on any of the items related to the application itself certainly wanted to give council the opportunity if you had any additions or changes to the application to the cultural district plan or the marketing plan or if you had any changes specific to the application the items for consideration tomorrow are pretty straightforward there the ordinance itself just adds a simple kind of bullet point to the public art committee ordinance and says you guys are going to be the advisory body for cultural districts so if council certainly wanted to change what advisory body that was you could do that as well as the resolutions designating it locally and then support of the application are pretty straightforward great so any feedback application wise or about advisory body wise so we'll go councilman Briggs and then council member Arbic I'm good with all the recommendations that are coming forward tomorrow I just wanted to say thank you I know this is a lot of work and thank everybody else for working on it but specifically you I know that in the beginning when it first rolled out there were a lot of questions people were unsure they you know they were a little hesitant but you stepped up and you were right there answering all the questions and I want to thank you for that because it it showed them that you were listening and so that's really appreciative here and I just I'm excited for this I think it gives us a chance to start focusing on on the things that are important to what to make Denton you know Denton the great people and artists and musicians here and so I I think it's going to be really great and one comment I really like the the I guess the art piece that everybody was writing on someone had asked me recently why can't we have like a giant graffiti wall somewhere so that kids can and I saw this I thought well this is perfect so just if I see parks is in the room here just as I am as a future fun item I think I'll talk to Gary about it yeah that's really cool thank you so I have a number of just kind of comments first feedback and then just a couple questions so comments just my my thoughts I love the emphasis on walkability and I would love to see you know some of the funding put towards that that walkability to make it even more walkable because there are parts of you know as you know that are more more walk more walkable than others and so it's a great opportunity for us to to do that including connecting I think especially way where you know around Carol and Bell you know connecting the the the fringe parts of the the ends of the district on both sides that was one thing number two you know I would love to see some consideration about some sort of a city campaign more of a kind of education campaign than it ordinance but about how important it is to pay and tip our musicians and and to to pay local artists I think that would be awesome and really much appreciated by our local musicians and artists again I'm saying just some sort of you know pay your local even t-shirts I don't know pay musicians don't forget you know musicians need to live to you know some form of artist housing would be great I don't know you know to answer that now but you know to what extent that you know we could get funding for that through this program kids after school program I loved in the video there was the the you know picture of kids drawing and Georgina Ngozi from from GDAC was talking about kids in the arts and so after school kids arts programming and also summer kids arts program would be I think a great use of funding you know also is Emily Fowler library included in that yeah that's what I thought so another as a venue is sourced and assets that's included there and then I you know just mentioned that you know when I think of kind of the walkability of this area this whole district I think of two events the MLK March and the Juneteenth March which really goes it walks this whole area so those two events are events that really illustrate this and and are about history and and I think you know especially Juneteenth with all the music and the attract and the attractions that could be something that could really you know count for hot funds and so anyway those are my comments and then just a couple questions just one will they the application be be public okay our plan is once the application is final we're gonna upload the full application to the to the district's website so that everyone can see it great great and will there be so you mentioned when it's when it's final when um will there be kind of a period for public feedback on the application before it gets submitted or we're on a pretty tight schedule we could certainly post it as it stands today and have a week and then make the application send it submit it next week that's certainly doable it's what I would consider a complete draft every component of the application is fulfilled with the exception of the council resolution so we certainly could post it and and and do a little digital engagement and say give us your feedback if you have it the only concern from that would be if we got feedback would council be comfortable with us with staff incorporating that feedback and not bringing that back to count that and that's a good point well I mean I would love just to have it public as soon as it it could be made public definitely you know I think I would like to see if there's some feedback that's you know real cause for concern that I know I for one would like to see something come back to you council but then that changes the timeline so I'm not quite sure how to answer that question other than to say that's a very good question but at the very least like to see it be public and and then finally just that I'm just question about the marketing it would it be a combination of city marketing and CVB marketing and kind of has that been worked out it's not very specific the plan itself we tried to focus on broad strategies and so like I said a lot of the marketing plan is how do we develop or better develop partnerships to market the district itself so whether that's through the CVB whether that's through GDAC or through the fest of festivals how do we work on there's a lot already going on we don't need to try and invade that space we need to work with them in the elements that already exist and leverage those partnerships to promote the district even further okay and that's that's great I like I like the way you answer that question also by raising the question yeah and by raising those questions and can you remind me what what is this city at least for for for this current fiscal year the city marketing budget outside of CVB I think it's done department through economic development the city the marketing budget for economic development oh goodness I don't know off the top of my head okay but it's it's smallish right it's pretty small yeah I remember at one point hearing I want to name a figure but I hesitate in our yes it's an engagement I remember being so much shocked by how small it is compared to the CVB funding so that's anyway so yeah thank you that was it okay great yeah customer Davis so I'm on the topic of budget and knowing that the budget that's gonna be included with the application is kind of perspective and we haven't done the budgeting process for next fiscal year and can you and it's not an enormous sum of money it's not but can you kind of walk me through specifically salaries and benefits and it's page 10 of the application and what it is we're looking at the budget requests coming up sure so this budget itself the district's budget is a little bit misleading and we had to complete it in terms of the way that the state wanted to see it so salaries and benefits are not any type of additional expense it's simply a percentage of existing staff salary and benefits that plan to work on this as part of their normal work duties so it's a percentage of my salary and benefits and of a staff member in economic development so those are already going to be included in our regular general fund obligations and the local government support and is the hot funds dollars and you'll see those are pretty minimal those are as we noted on the next page subject to approval by the hot fund committee so that they are placeholders and our goal would be to work with the Public Art Committee to decide what do they want to make application for and how do we best use those dollars and then the third line of that you see on the state government support that was based on a recommendation that we actually received from the from the Commission on the Arts in our preliminary review they said the evaluating committee likes to see forward-thinking districts that intend to apply for grant funding and so they said it would be best to just go ahead and put a placeholder number in there and so then on the next page in the narrative section we say you know we put in $25,000 that's the minimum amount we were told we could apply for but certainly that will change based on the projects that we decide to submit for a grant in the second year you have artistic salaries what what's envisioned there again not a huge sum of money but what's the intention so the again this was based on feedback we received from the Arts Commission so we split that $25,000 onto two expenditure line items one would being artistic salaries and benefits with the thought of that could be some type of art piece that's subject to review by the Public Art Committee and City Council again we note that in the narrative that those are placeholders and then the other $12,500 in program and event costs which could be anything from support of an existing event creation of a new event again simply a placeholder and we tried to make that clear in the narrative section of you know we're we're in year zero as we've been calling it and that in year one we would make adjustments as needed so kind of in the vein of providing direction there's a lot of work that's already gone into this and again I want to echo what the other council members said and thank you for your efforts and the community efforts in going to that went into putting this together and we are months and maybe years away from a grant application actually putting in an application for funding from the state and but I think one of the things that's really important to note from your presentation in the community engagement is what we're kind of doing is defining something that already exists and has developed organically over time as part of the Denton culture and so I think it would be really important when we're making our grant applications to do things that are like the wayfinding like the signs like the walkability improvements things that are less on the operation side because we could get it we get ahead of ourselves we get in our own way if we start kind of over programming the district and one of the items of feedback that you really highlighted was let Denton be Denton you know just let's just be ourselves we could really overdo the programming and the marketing and all that kind of thing so things that help us define who we are and where we're at and how to find something as opposed to something that tries to I don't know get get kind of outside that box so okay and good good tangible assets yeah we can if it's not already addressed in that capacity we can take a look at it and see if we can make a change to do that I don't yeah I don't mean to say that there's anything in your current application needs to change just going forward as we're looking at grant applications things they're gonna have good return over time you know like the walkability assets like the signage and those kind of things as opposed to you know a lot of staff burden you know as opposed to all of a sudden we need an economic an executive director of the district to program the thing for years and years when we already have all these things happening within the district that were we're already building on and that's very much our intention is to not have an increase in staff related to the district so yes well we'll definitely address that copy thank you great comes from right thank you ma'am I'm happy with the way that it is right now I like for us to move forward on that kind of a follow-up on councilmember armator on the input from the public can be used on that that third bullet point up on the screen right now to further define those are those comments can go to the Public Arts Committee in help to define those as opposed to trying to adjust anything that we're gonna send now I think what we've got is good and to proceed okay thank you got it so just to recap I think the questions that jumped out at me for today were post post application and so I asked the council do you want to wait finalize the application then posted or posted in its raw draft format and get feedback at that point so I did not get a clear feel for where we were on that item so go ahead speak you know since you mentioned that it's pretty polished as a draft now I would I think it'd be nice to have it up there now in that way people at least know that you know they've had a chance to see it and and comment okay councilman run run yeah I would agree that after tomorrow once we have actually passed the resolution and it is a complete application that we could go ahead and put it up on the website at that point okay I agree with that and plus we've got the we've got the draft already in our background materials that are already publicly posted and then once we've passed it it's no longer a draft it's our application so okay very good so yeah we can work to have it posted tomorrow following the council meeting and then if we do get any feedback we'll certainly then take it back through the Public Art Committee great okay well thank you very much great presentation thanks very good thank you that'll conclude item a and that will take us to item B ID 19 1197 receive report hold discussion and give staff direction regarding establishing a living wage requirement and before you get started let me let me let me set ground rules if I could because I think this one could could will spur a lot of conversation so so I think it would be best especially in this item if we allow staff to finish the presentation or at least pull best we can and if there's a good stopping point or if you if you can kind of give us direction we'll follow your lead on when it's kind of a good time to ask questions about a particular segment you've completed that way will allow you to complete your thoughts and I'm sensitive to that just because of the numbers and there's just kind of different trails we could go off on so I want to make sure we have succinct conversations thank you so my name is Cassie Ogden I'm the director of procurement here to talk to you about living wage for city contractors this is just a brief summary of what we're going to be highlighting in our presentation and then to give you a little background of why I'm here we received a council request back in September to provide research on what other cities are doing for requiring city contractors to pay their employees a living wage we provided an informal staff report in November and then in your work session on March 4th it was identified as a top priority for you so under Texas labor code cities are allowed to impose a minimum wage requirements for not only employees but also city contractors that are hired by the city specifically and cities are prohibited from setting living wage policy for private businesses and then the current minimum wage is $7.25 an hour and that was effective July 24th 2009 so to give you a comparison of what other cities in Texas are doing we we we specifically limited it to cities in Texas to be more comparable Dallas and Austin both have living wage policies that require that are specific for city contractors so it's it's really geared toward procurement contracts and then Austin and San Marcos both have chapter 380 requirements in for living wages in their economic development incentive packages you'll see didn't listed on here we do not have obviously a living wage policy however I did want to point out that our employee pay plan starts at ten dollars and sixty cents per hour but I had a question this morning about what our current lowest paid employee benefited employees and it's fourteen dollars and ten cents an hour so as of today and then we do include a contract requirement that vendors are required to pay obviously the minimum wage 7.25 an hour in our contracts so it's interesting to note and I will go for go into more detail in a minute but Dallas and Austin their procurement contracts are really limited to general services which means they're kind of non-professional not construction contracts they are things that have been competitively procured and we'll talk about that in the minute and then the current rate is listed in the last column so Austin they enacted a living wage back in 2008 but their resolution was adopted in 2014 and their contracts for emergencies construction goods and non-professional services from a supplier so that would be a good with transportation component so if we're buying if they're buying bricks and they're having them delivered on site to something in the city those are all exempt from their living wage requirements however they do include revenue generating contracts in their requirements so for instance for the city of Denton that would be like a vending machine services contract for us that would be a revenue generating contract but it's competitively procured it goes through an RFP process Dallas they and their living wage policy applies to very similar to Austin competitively procured general services exceeding $50,000 because that's the state limit for when we have to competitively procure contracts it's at that $50,000 threshold so that's when we go out and do an RFP or a bid and then we bring those items to counsel for approval and for Dallas their vendors are required to to provide the actual hours worked in each calendar year for their contracts and then they actually took it a step further and established an evaluation criteria and their RFPs to include a living way to include considerations for how they are going to meet the living wage policy requirements and then I did want to point out that both Dallas and Austin use breach of contract provisions to enforce compliance with the policy and then Dallas specifically uses suspension or debarment of vendors on future bids for complying with the policy and both both cities the complaints in the process is handled through the purchasing office Austin has no appeal process and Dallas does so potential impacts obviously providing workers with the opportunity to meet their basic needs is important it could increase economic growth lower employee turnover for those services however on the flip side it may limit competition due to increased labor costs and then that cost could be increased and passed on to citizens increased record-keeping because both of these require the policy would be managed through a purchasing office if it's related to procurement contracts and then there's no guarantee that the people who are receiving the benefits of increased pay are Denton residents so for fiscal impact unfortunately it's very difficult to estimate what an increase would how much that would cost the city if council were to decide to enact a living wage requirement because right now we do not ask our vendors to supply employee record payroll records how much they pay their employees but like I mentioned earlier we do have a requirement in all of our contracts that they must pay at least the minimum wage however when trying to come up with what it could look like I did find I did research some what Dallas did for their living wage policy so they originally estimated in 2014 and 15 when they were their council was looking at adopting this requirement that they estimated a 43% increase in their service contracts alone which they usually spend about a hundred million dollars annually on these services so they identified in 2015 19 contracts that were up for renewals through that year of those 19 they really only renewed six during that first year after they adopted the living wage increase or excuse me living wage policy and that that those contracts are listed on the bottom of the slide and then the total they spent just on those six contracts were seven 71 million and they rolled the other 13 contract renewals to the next year and so this information was of as of February 2017 when they went back to their budget finance and audit committee to roll out the first year of living wage there's also no indication that this was just living wage increases obviously when you go out for a bid and you know prices increase just in general cost of living things like that so it's not solely attributed to living wage so to compare what Dallas did to Denton because obviously Dallas is a lot larger and spends a lot more money on their contracts annually I tried to compare what Denton spends annually or contracts with annually on general services that have been competitively procured so it does not include emergency services sole source things like that construction is not included in my numbers here and I do want to note I did find a duplicate in my 2019 numbers so that's slightly lower but it's it's still roughly the same so on average we're about 28 contracts a year with a value of 30 million dollars and that I made a note that the 2019 so far we have we did go out to bid for a new stop-loss insurance contract and that's eleven point three million dollars so it's very it's a it's a big number it's a big dollar contract so that's going to change our numbers a little bit so and then some considerations if council is interested in moving forward with the living wage policy is how to determine the rates some councils set the rate and then move on from there other cities have used the MIT living wage calculations and rate to set their their living wage and then additionally what types of contracts to include because I as you could see from the comparison table cities do it differently and just between Dallas and Austin there's some differences how we're going how would we would enforce our provisions and then any exemptions Austin does allow their City Council to exempt any contract that they would like from living wage policy and I'll open the floor up to questions I have some additional information that I I found on employees after getting an email this morning about some of that so I can talk about that now or I can take questions we'll take questions but could you before we take place questions can you follow up on your last point about exemptions and how that works with the RFP process so do the bidders just know that when they bid there there's an option for them be exempt how does that that would be staff recommendation would be that council gives us direction before we go out to bid on what what would they would like to see exempt and then we could include that in the solicitation documents before it goes out to bed okay with that councilman Briggs did you have questions just yeah okay mommy on the lowest paid I guess employee you said that that came back as fourteen ten of ten fourteen ten an hour okay so the is that for full-time or part-time or any time just any any individual working for the city of Denton doesn't make any less than fourteen dollars an hour so that is benefited employees meaning not our temporary seasonal employees so HR was kind enough to provide me this slide that kind of walks through the differences between the benefited and the seasonal the seasonal pay plan starts at 725 an hour right now however they've already made adjustments to the temp seasonal pay rates and then in next year's next fiscal year there will be adjusting the pay plan to kind of match those pay raises can you explain a little bit more about the the pay rate so it's not 725 anymore it's gone up a little bit so do you know what that is I believe it's nine dollars an hour I'm not looking to Carla to make sure I'm saying this correctly um but I believe it's nine dollars an hour right now for seasonal employees and part-time as well the seasonal mean part-time or is that different it's different because part-time employees aren't benefited though right there can't they keep we can't have benefited part-time employees but seasonal employees are not benefited that makes sense right well when I think about seasonal I think of generally like summertime employees the majority are parks camps or things like that but I do know that we have part-time employees that aren't benefited that work all year and so those are the ones that I'm trying to I'll let Carla answer that one they still fall on our seasonal pay plan so if they don't receive benefits they'll be on our we actually call it a special agreement pay plan okay so they could be making set between seven and nine dollars an hour at this point at this point they could be making anywhere from 725 up to you know $20 an hour okay okay um so that that's good information to have I am I'm actually in favor of exploring this more I think that we just we learned about the Alice report that just came out you know earlier this year at the end of last year where it says that 21% of den counties does not make enough pay for basic needs and I just learned last night from a Salvation Army presentation that that number is considerably increasing so I don't know if there's a way to directly tie this to people with addresses in Denton County or the city of Denton per se but I would like for it to be directly benefited I know that was one of your potential you know well we can't just we can't tell where it's directly going but I do know that we gave over 20 million dollars to a local contractor just in the last year or so so to know that any of that money is coming directly back into our our city with a living wage for the people who they're hiring I think would be it's not a lot to ask councilmember Davis and then councilmember Armitage could you go back to slide 9 for me sure so this is kind of a multi-part question but you might be able to knock it out with with one answer because I'm trying to wrap my head around what the target contracts would be for Denton so what I'm looking at with Dallas is some things that I don't know that well we certainly don't spend 28 and a half million dollars on temporary clerical professional in the city of Denton we don't have a convention center that has the kind of event set up that the K Bailey Hutchison Convention Center so these are contracts that I wouldn't be expect to see come across your desk can you help me understand what kinds of contracts something like this would apply to in Denton and what kind of numbers we're talking about there sure so some of the contracts and I have a list for you that I'll I'll give you also but HVAC maintenance and services some of our parks instructions contracts janitorial contracts mowing and maintenance tree trimming welding services vehicle wash maintenance heavy equipment rental trucking services those are some of the contracts that this would apply to you and can you give us a rough number around number on how much we spend currently on those contracts so this that is the number of that we contract with annually for those types of services and I have a breakdown specific with the on the Dallas slide are there any of those thank you are there any of those that we can even anecdotally say that the increase is tied to the new procurement rules I mean because obviously like a 76% increase on the convention center that can't be solely I mean they must have changed the scope of right and that's and that's one of the things that Dallas staff did mention in their presentation they tried to keep the scope as similar as possible from the previous bid however obviously needs can vary from year to year but that's this is the best that they could do as far as what the increase would look like or had looked like in their experience for the first year that it was enacted did they give you any kind of feedback on I mean knowing that and knowing that they they gave you those kind of caveats to their to their numbers did they give you any kind of feedback on their sense of how this went or if their procurement process was was more difficult if they're having trouble getting bids for certain things if they're you know they're one good contractor that they're always able to go to and least get a good bid from isn't applying anymore isn't putting a bit in anymore because of this unfortunately no Dallas is much larger than Denton so they do receive a lot lot larger number of bidders to on each project but no they couldn't say definitively whether it increased or decreased there the bids received thanks councilman Rometer yeah so first of all thank you so much for to you and also to you and I know HR staff applied a lot of the data supplied a lot of the data and finance so this is all really interesting and helpful so obviously I'm in favor of this I had suggested it but you know one of the the questions before us it also is kind of what the this is right what um so um I I agree with with councilmember Briggs that local you know employment is a key issue and she cited the figure that was a 20% of Denton's at Denton County 21% yet county residents can't are you know are not making a livable income that contributes to our homeless problem which is a big issue for us if you know this this fiscal year and hopefully and continuingly so as a council um you know I would if you could turn to are we already on I don't know I guess we're one over if you turn to slide 10 then yeah that's the next one you know one thing I think that the you know I appreciate the data about about Dallas and the costs and I understand I sympathize with their kind of difficulty in being able to say exactly what the impact is because it's so hard to show the cause and effect and and I think a great example is if you just look at our contracts without a livable wage requirement just from looking at our eligible contracts that is you know through some combination of the doubt what Dallas and Austin consider eligibility which you've done here just look at the huge jump in the amount of money from 2017 to 2018 and that is for a number of different reasons and you know having to do with need and all kinds of things so and you're gonna see that in any city so it's it is hard to because needs change year to year to really track that you know for me kind of the main question is you know is this something we can afford to do and are the benefits worthwhile you know and I I believe that we'll find the answer will be yes you know what I would love to see is moving into budget season would be kind of you know two sets of figures of you know how you know what the cost of the budget or you know maybe break broken down department by department and mr. city manager this might just be too unfeasible but some form of this you know kind of looking at what the difference would be with the livable wage and again it would all have to be an estimate because we're not collecting that data right now but with a livable a livable wage requirement and without I think that would be helpful moving forward as we determine the budget for next year for me that would be the most most helpful thing you know I think that we sometimes underestimate you know when we talk about jobs and looking at economic development as an opportunity incentives tax incentives an opportunity for job growth we sometimes forget that the city is such a huge local employer and you know sometimes people look at the budget and they say oh no all the staff and they imagine some you know just big you know top-heavy bureaucracy or something but no these are the people who are who are keeping our city running and we're a huge local employer and and we can really do a lot to to help with our employees being able to live here including those and I was struck in that you don't have to have to turn to it now but you know the figure you gave of the big number of park staff you know who are the who are non-benefited part-time and you know making less than you have fourteen dollars an hour so I would love to see factored in there a increase to and I appreciate that there's an going to be an increase this coming year but I would love to see an increase to what we determine little livable wages at the very least I I would like to see it equal whatever the the bottom is for for full-time benefited employees which did you say fourteen dollars and something that's the current the lowest rate that we pay currently yeah yeah for full-time benefit plan the pay grade is 1060 an hour so can you just explain the difference between that the pay grade and the lowest rate so that's the lowest rate someone could come in at that they could be paid however we don't we don't current we don't have anyone that we currently pay at that that low yeah so I would and that's a good example of something where so because of that if we raise that if I'm understand correctly there would not be any kind of him impact as far as the budget for this coming year if we currently don't have anybody who's who's making who with with that pay rate so if we raise the rate to fifteen dollars an hour I believe it would be about twenty four thousand just for benefited employees twenty four thousand a year increase to the budget that does not include the seasonal employees but if we and that's included in this this analysis the 339 includes all of the seasonal employees but only 24,000 of that would be the benefit and employees okay and so how so I'm trying to figure out if 14 and and for me for me that's a fine well worth considering what we get from that as a city can you explain how if the the lowest is that we're currently paying anyone is at that level is fourteen dollars and ten cents ten cents so we're talking about a ninety-cent increase to all of those employees right there there are at various levels on the pay plan and that's something that would have to be studied further and HR would have to study is if we were to make an adjustment how that would line up with the different pay grades and pay levels so there could be some compression because obviously if you lift the lowest level on the pay plan how does that compare with the next level and so on and so forth yeah but yes twenty four thousand for the twenty two benefited employees currently making the you know the fourteen ten an hour yeah that would be the impact okay okay and it can just kind of one more thing for now can you can you explain I tried to find this on my own why is is construction excluded in both Austin and Dallas is it because of the cost of construction it's harder to track construction contracts currently have a prevailing wage rate requirements so it's by skill trade there's different requirements of by a by that skill that they're required to pay so I think the thought was they're already making a certain amount so it doesn't make sense for living wage it's not that we can't do it it just hasn't other cities haven't done it yet okay thanks Councilmember Ryan thank you as I look at this I look at this is a fiscal responsibility issue more than anything else and if if we had the 30 million dollars on average contracts that would be subject to this if we had the same impact as what Dallas did at that thirty thirty six point five percent we're looking at 11 million dollars that's that's a 20% if all of that were having to come into our property tax income because we can't adjust our sales tax income that's a 20% increase the states just set our limit at 3% that means that we've got to cut 16 and a half percent of what we do right now as a city we're gonna have to cut back if we if we went into that situation just to be able to afford that it just does not make sense there's a reason why we have entry-level jobs as well as living wage jobs I find it kind of interesting that the council members who want to push forward on this also voted against an incentive package for a company that was coming to town that was paying on average $20 an hour so I cannot support this you're picking and choosing the actual cost is not what's going to be going to the employees most of that cost is a regulatory burden that is a that's affecting those contractors the reporting mechanism the additional cost of having to put all that data together is where most of that cost is going to end end up going and you know from that standpoint it just if we want to look at or encourage I mean we're under a great economy right now that things are booming and one of the things we've noticed in this great economy is we get only one bid or two bids where we used to get six or seven bids and that's if we're down to one or two bids they may back out from bidding at all and we may end up with a lot of no bid contracts if we go to this system thank you and councilmember Davis could you give me your leanings to proceed or not I noted your comments but I didn't capture your thoughts I'm so glad you asked yes so I'm not there on this yet I'm not saying that I couldn't be in favor of something like this in the future but my concern is that we don't have the only thing we know about the final cost is it's going to be more and it could be a whole lot more or it could be a little bit more we don't know how much yet I'm I'm trying to ballpark it by going down the list of these contracts you provided for us and see that you know for instance mowing and maintenance those are folks who are probably gonna be most impacted by something like this as opposed to our three biggest contracts which are for insurance services there's not gonna be a change in those in those contracts so we could be talking about a small increase we could be talking about a big increase but I'd like to have a whole lot more information about what our projected fiscal impact would be and how we plan for that as opposed to kind of thrown it art out there and worrying about how many more millions of unfunded dollars are we gonna have to spend on things like mowing and maintenance when the purpose of contracting some of this out is cost reduction that we don't maintain certain departments you know we don't have a tire servicing department because instead we pay briscoe tire to take care of our truck tires and it kind of reverses that whole calculus I'm also concerned about the burden on staff that now we need to introduce maybe another couple of FTEs of contract enforcement folks that not only do we have to go through the whole procurement process but we also have to make sure we're we have all these additional submissions from the contractors with their bid and then we have to follow up on that and then we may be at some point during the year kicking a contractor the curb with breach of contract because they're not meeting the requirements we've set out so I'm concerned about not only like councilmember Ryan said maybe not having contracts available not having bids available but also that we're doing more work to get less bids I'm much more concerned with our role that last slide you had up a while ago our role as an employer and being a good employer and being the kind of place that attracts the very best employees I'm I'm less concerned about our role as you know pushing our contractors to make changes in their behavior I think it's more important that we that we pay our people well so I'd be more interested in in knowing more about the pay structure for our own folks and I also just kind of a part of this conversation I'm a little more concerned with like how many things we're having to contract that contract out as a city than I am with how much are those people paying their employees because if we tighten up the one we kind of tighten up the other you know there I don't know how many mowing companies on this list and I don't know why there's so many folks on there all doing the same basic kind of work and how that process works so my concerns are in a different area and I think kind of like councilmember Ryan said there are economic pressures outside of this room that have more to do with the living wage and anything we're going to do here the other thing I'm also very concerned about is if you go down this list some of these are big companies you know United Health Care eleven million dollar plus contract to United Health Care this isn't going to make a difference there but it could make a big difference on some of these small local companies that you know every fifty cents or every quarter you go up in there minimum they're required to pay their employees that's less money in our local economy that's less money that's going to support a small local business it's very difficult to keep up with rising wages as it is so it puts a lot of pressure in the places where we don't a lot of unintended consequences I think could come out of something like this so I just overall I'd have to know a whole lot more about what this actually would do to our bottom line into our small businesses before I'd be comfortable with something like this okay so I'm gonna reframe and say so we're two - I'm on record of saying I want to live in a world where some meritocracy and so I think to your point the the job description and some the base payment based on skill level significant to me which this does not capture I also am concerned about the fact that we're per staff estimates we're just short of 1 million dollars we're gonna lose in our right-of-way funding for this year right so I'm not in a hurry to go try to pair that pair this blind corner with another blind corner and see how it works out that that is concerning to me we need to nail down some real numbers on both those issues and so for me I think we won't have a consensus either way and so I would ask kind of comments going forward we can sum up and we can give staff notes on what we'd like to see going forward to do further analysis for maybe it to come back and in that regard I'd like to see some sort of sample option where we could incentivize current contracts RFPs to say if you're willing to pay a certain wage we'll give you an extended year or or just have the have the the applicant make that offer to the city to say you know what are you willing to put forward or ask to pay living wages something like that I would like to see this in electronic format if we don't do we have it already I appreciate that just because I think you you make a good point that I could toggle that on the spreadsheet top to bottom and kind of get a feel for that and then yeah no and I'll summarize with this and then I'll ask others to give notes on what they'd like to see back but yeah for me I think councilmember Davis is spot-on our if you look at our response rates I mean we're probably three or four respondents to our piece as is it's just the work environment is not user-friendly right now and and so or it is depends on which lens you're looking through but so in that end I don't want to do anything to hurt the value that we would bring to to our citizens as far as those contracts so I open it up for other feedback for staff councilmember Briggs so just just a reminder seven dollars and 25 cents was last increased in 2009 and it takes at least $11 and 48 cents to live I mean that means to pay your rent to eat to I mean pay your utilities to do just to survive to live comfortably and so we we can't tell private businesses what to pay their employees but what we can do as a city is we can make sure that we're doing the best that we can on our end to make sure that our employees and those who do work for us in the city can live and can have their basic needs taken care of they can eat they can feed their children and I mean we are going to pay 20 million dollars to one company a year I mean at least we can at least we can ask for them to show us a pay sheet before we continue to fund them I mean we can say how much do you pay your employees right and we can at least ask them maybe we can't mandate that they pay it but I mean it's gonna be an issue of mine going forward if we're if we're paying contractors millions and millions of dollars but we don't expect them to pay someone a basic living wage a human being so that that's where I'm coming from and we are gonna sit here as a council and we can either pay for it at the beginning of the process or we can wait and we can pay for it at the end of the process where we're looking at funding homeless shelters where we're looking at food pantries I mean we can do it we can do it on either end but at some point if we don't step up and make sure that people are getting a living wage it's gonna have to be done at some point I mean or our whole city is just gonna be a shelter I mean I mean that that's where I'm coming from here and I'm not trying to put it on the backs of small businesses I mean it's it's just it's a responsibility that at some point we all have to step up and take care of and so I would like to see a skill pay chart that that goes in those construction contracts if we're not saying that we need them to make something I'd like to know at least what each skill level is getting paid I would like to see if we continue to give local companies a benefit if they get first priority when we're contracting then I would like to at least see what they are paying their employees before they get that priority so those are those are the two things that I would like to see and and I would also like to see how many part-time employees not seasonal but part-time employees make that make less than ten dollars an hour thank you thank you councilmember Albert I just want to first just respond briefly to a couple of comments have been made so about you mentioned councilmember Ryan mentioned the Tyson incentives you know which I had voted against and you know the reason being was because there are very few jobs new jobs that they're offering and they have a history of what I would call labor abuses at the very least it's objective fact their history of legal action against them in settlements versus this opportunity before us now where we as a city are an employer we're a direct employer of a number of people who live here in the city of Denton our constituents both those who vote and those who don't vote and aren't following local politics we have a responsibility to them want to follow up what councilmember Briggs was saying that we're paying for this anyway our whole discussion about shelter you know you talked to people staying at men senior king number of them they had apartments here they were musicians artists all kinds of professions sometimes it's mental health issues they can't pay for a 725 an hour is a fifteen thousand dollar and fifteen thousand eighty dollars a year I think we can all agree that's that none of us could live on that it that is poverty if you can't live on that fifteen dollar an hour livable wage is only thirty one thousand two hundred dollars a year that's actually it's kind of I think it's kind of tough to live on live on that in city of Denton and getting increasingly so so we're we are paying for this anyway in a number of different ways and I think to kind of isolate this cost and not to look at the ways where we're paying for it you know including with emergency medical for people who can't afford health care because so much of their money is going towards rent you know for me it's this is the fiscally responsible decision it stimulates our economy to have to be paying good wages then people have more money to go and spend in our economy to go eat out to go get a drink after work so as far as kind of you know substance of things moving forward I'd like to see you know since there there is obviously there's no consensus on this as a package deal contracts plus contractors plus employees today but I but I am seeing interest in you know at least four of us present for kind of continuing the discussion about import raising employee salaries so I would like to see a separate work session on that using and again using this this data that we've got here now anything else want to add to that that's something that would be a lower cost it's also a cost that we can control more so I don't want to let that go by bundling these two together again a very sad and disappointed we don't have consensus on this now I would like to see we're missing two people and we've got at least kind of two of the if I'm understanding correctly you know Councilmember Davis and Councilmember Hudspeth I had some figures that that they would like to see you know moving forward about the cost for contractors you know I too would like to see as I mentioned before those costs factored into the budget discussion so I I don't see or I should say I don't want to give up on having this a more pointed conversation again about contractors with some more specific numbers once we get in the the budget season and I would also as I said like to bracket off the issue of employees because that's something we can control the numbers much more manageable I want to you know second what you know Councilmember Davis mentioned about and and I realize you were just kind of using this as an example the mowing you know contract that is you know maybe even requested an audit on that or at least just numbers we could even pluck that out as an example you know about what would change I would love to see you know what would the cost be if we directly hired mowers instead of contracting and we were able to make sure that we're hiring locally for instance and and you know have more control over what we pay those employees you know maybe that's unfeasible for very good reasons but I at least like to see you know numbers on that so and then I also want to I want to add you know Councilmember Ryan had mentioned you know sometimes we have only one and two bids that's absolutely true and we can we can put exceptions in exemptions in our in a livable wage requirement stating well not only as far as sole contractors go which as I understand it that means not so much that you that you've gotten just one bid but is that when there's just the one person who makes the thing correct yeah so but there's nothing saying that we can't have a rule saying if we've got only one contractor right then that doesn't apply we could do that we could have a rule saying if we've got only two contractors that doesn't apply so you know we could really make this almost anything we want and so in the end I think it's again I think that this is the fiscally responsible thing to do not just from a moral perspective but it's fiscally responsible it stimulates our economy I think it's bad for our economy to have employees who can't afford to live here and those you know subcontractor people who are working for the contractors many of whom live here who can't afford to live here either that's not good for our economy thank you thank you Councilmember Ryan thank you looking at this chart you've got 22 benefited employees that are under $15 an hour but the lowest that we pay anyone is 1410 correct so all of those are in that 90 cent range there correct of the seasonal we don't really have the figures on those right now I mean as I look at 353 parks and recs most of those are summer jobs that kind of like to know if we have the data on it how many are high school or college students that are just taking a part-time summer job because that that to me is where your entry level differs from your living wage you're just trying to make a little money for college you know have a little gas money a little date money that kind of thing that you're more than likely still supported in other ways and also on the other seasonal employees we kind of get a little bit of a job description breakdown 28 in the police department what do those 28 kind of what is that job description is it because it's probably most likely not as an officer and so if if at all possible just kind of a little bit more information on what those seasonals are on a wage basis because I would venture to guess that probably none of them are at the 725 range and so we're moving the seasonal pay plan to nine dollars would be the lowest that the seasonal employees are making but it includes things like life guards crossing guards preschool leaders recreational leaders for parks cashiers at the water park and then the benefited employees the 22 that are listed it includes water meter mechanics for our water utilities some of our library assistance assistant court reps records technicians and civilian civilian duty officers and so to to wrap up I think what my notes say in summary kind of take away is one council member Arbintors requested a work session I guess that would get in line with the surveys I'm assuming I'll leave that to staff to process that and in that whatever that comes back it would be staff staffing staffs analysis of wages and I think that kind of dovetails into the 1410 analysis those employees I think that's kind of the genesis of that also in a component of that could be some sort of draft analysis that the staff would say here's some other exemptions here's how the people doing it again whenever that comes back I don't I don't know how that works and then to the mowing service and analysis on that kind of you know give us your feedback based on the conversation keely had touched on some numbers she requested as far as a particular contractor and those sort of things if that'll come back and then lastly council member Ryan had mentioned the job description breakdown of the police positions that sort of thing and think that's the just of it yeah I think I think we can certainly put together supplemental packages for all these items for the council to consider right now if assuming we work three percent above or three cents above the effective rate you have four and a half million dollars to work with in the general fund in the rec fund we're currently studying right now because it's about a million dollars upside down so these these are things that through the the budget process we are going to be reviewing policy with you over the summer to give you choices we're taking a look at all the programs and what what trade-offs it might take to get there we can we can also provide you a couple of you know interim steps as well you know ten twelve fifteen dollars what the policy implications would be if you wanted to step it up so we can come back to you over the summer providing you options we'll have our rec fund analysis completed sometime in July so before we get to the final August dates where we're winding down the budget we'll be able to have that discussion with you as well we can also comb through the the packages as if we if we function similar to how Austin Dallas are functioning try to get a little bit more meat on that bone what we would expect our incremental costs to go up to see you have a little bit better data but I think the way you're breaking it down and working through it gives us some direction to give you options now so happy to do it okay thank you and and I'm gonna call me but one thing I do want to clear up because I think it's important and I think I've asked for it before so it may be just something you need to read we may have to send back out but can we can I get a a report just in a Friday even because the emergency medical component that's the county and so if there's a city component to that it's not those two are separate and so it's if the city's right in the county a check I just want to understand that because those numbers are often put out but I think it's important for people to understand county hospital bills in city hospital bills and indigency etc I just I just want to clear that up so everyone has a good working number for that going you know at whatever point we can compile those counselor Davis so I think you might remember from my first comments that I don't disagree with councilmember Briggs and our mentor on the the necessity for people to I mean give the work minutes was wage right you you pay someone what they're worth that their work is worth and they can live better they can take care of their families the economy is better and all those kind of things the thing that we're missing today though is hard data about and not even that hard just any data about how much is it gonna cost on the back end and I agree with you that if you go to the very back end we end up paying more when we talk about shelters and care and all those kind of things what I'd like to propose is that we introduce evaluation criteria for a living wage that we collect data from our contractors that we as part of our process for applying for contract it's not dispositive it doesn't say you don't get the bid it's just we now know how much you pay your employees and that will help us gather data about well if we institute something like this in the future these are the contracts that are going to be most affected but these other contracts well we know you know the technology services and fiber optic cabling these guys aren't affected at all the mowing contract that is going to be affected and we know because we have that data the other thing it does too is when you submit that bid that's a matter of public record and so now we know well these are the guys who are paying their guys minimum wage and these are the guys the the contractors who are paying their guys better than minimum wage and still getting the job done so I think we get the benefit if we put those evaluation criteria into place and make that part of the process we get two benefits one there's kind of some sunshine on on that process and what these folks are getting paid and what impact we can have and two we have some data on whether we're going to have an impact or not and how much it's just going to cost us to have that impact and then we can make a responsible decision is that a burden that we take on that we're going to fix the living wage problem in the city of Denton or is that something that we leave to economic pressures okay thank you very much and thank you for your presentation and we'll conclude that item and then we'll take a five-minute break at 111 and okay thank you and we are back at this special lunch session we are up to what better said it is 1 19 afternoon and we are up to item C which is ID 19 9 11 receive report hold discussion and provide staff direct direction regarding the implementation of an acceptance of sponsorship and donation policy good afternoon mayor pro tem and council members my name is Heather gray I'm the business manager for the parks and recreation department I have a newly proposed policy for you today which is the acceptance of sponsorships and donations just to clarify this policy is regarding the city accepting sponsorships and donations not us giving out co-sponsorships so just to start off with a brief overview why does the city need a sponsorship and donation policy currently the city does not have a policy and staff realizes that there are individuals and businesses out there willing to help donate or sponsor our programs and events we just have not had a formal process to do so so just to clarify this would be a citywide policy Parks and Recreation took the lead on this as we figured to be a primary user of the policy so if this policy is adopted it was established structure and consistent citywide guidelines for the solicitation administration and acceptance of sponsorships and donations some of the benefits of adopting the policy would be promoting staff empowerment and ownership of programs as well as creating collaboration and buy-in from our residents and local businesses and this would allow the city to offer affordable programs and events since we consider this an alternate revenue source to help subsidize our programs some of the highlights of the policy itself the policy states that donations and sponsorships must be in the public's best interest and they must reflect the city's image in a positive manner the policy defines the type of donations and sponsorships that we can receive such as cash or in-kind sponsorships as well as gives examples of benefits that staff can leverage and return to the sponsor for their contribution the policy states that city staff are not permitted to accept anything for personal benefit when going through this process such as a gift and this is per the employee ethics policy the policy also defines the public display guidelines just some examples of sponsorships under donations that could be received we could receive an in-kind contribution of food for a program or event we could receive a monetary contribution to help offset program expenses or support youth scholarships some of the examples of benefits that could be given back a typical sponsor benefit would be to have a business logo printed on the back of a race t-shirt or on a banner at an event or the opportunity for that business to place flyers and a goodie bag a typical recognition for a donor would be a donor plaque or an acknowledgement such as installation of a bench I'm sorry we have one question the flyers for the goodie bag do any does anyone who I guess advertises their business or product through the city and a goodie bag that we're handing out do they have to follow any policy guidelines that we have to do that if you mean if they were a sponsor and they were allowed to put well the staff would review the material that's put in the goodie bags to make sure we don't have a set policy on what they can or cannot but they do have to be a sponsor in order to be able to put items in the goodie bag but the staff would review it to make sure it's appropriate okay oh I just mean like you know the business and if they you know have fair hiring practices and and things like that okay that's something we can note I'm just curious yeah we there's a we don't have a policy or not on anything that we we could just if they give us money in a flyer and it doesn't say naughty things on it we say okay yeah this the staff would review it but yeah correct there's not not a policy directly for that okay on the donations I guess one exception to that or addition anyway it would be that we would require notification of our compliance division just so they had a record of what was donated and that sort of thing so that would probably be the only exception of that okay thank you okay so next let's just walk through the proposed approval levels this is based on dollar amounts for this is for this workflow is for solicited sponsorships or donations so for the first level we have proposed up to five thousand dollars which would be authorized staff submit a solicitation plan and a list of potential sponsors or donors and that must be approved by their next level supervisor once that's approved then staff would solicit sponsorships and donations in accordance with this policy and then finally staff would accept and report on those sponsorships and donations in accordance with the policy for the next level we have contributions between five thousand one dollars and forty nine thousand nine hundred ninety nine dollars it's very similar to the step before with the exception that once you reach above five thousand dollars we require an agreement between the city and the sponsor or donor as well as the approval level instead of being the next level supervisor it would be by city manager or designee so after that approval is met then it remains the same the staff would solicit and then the staff would accept and report and then for the final level above fifty thousand dollars we have asked that authorized staff or the director would submit the solicitation plan and the list of potential sponsors to purchasing for request for proposals so in this case the solicitation will be done through purchasing and the results are taken to City Council for approval okay thank you just want to say Councilmember Briggs is this at all for naming this is our structures or anything within the city no ma'am and this policy actually states in section 2 that it does not apply to to naming because that would go through the naming policy naming policy we have a separate one for that that's correct I'm just clarifying I had someone mention that so I just wanted to make sure and is there a reason why okay the second one would you said it has to have has a policy but up to five thousand it does not yes the second one would be an agreement we would ask for an agreement between the sponsor and donor and is it because we have so many that are under five five thousand that we wouldn't do that because it would just be more work is that I think this is there yeah and I think the intent for this policy at least for staff most of the donations and sponsorships who receive are below the five thousand dollar mark probably most of them below the one thousand dollar mark and they're just examples like I said they donate a small amount for a race around and their logos put on the back or I know like at the animal shelter they'll someone will come up and donate dog food cans of dog food so we didn't want to go through the process of an agreement when it's a small dollar amount but that's something we can based on your recommendation there may not be an agreement that there will be some sort of way to to track yes to track all of it that's correct yes we do track it okay thank you councilmember Albert so follow up about the the naming issue I appreciate your yeah I'm matching that just to see how it because there is a intersection or so say that somebody donates a park bench and they want it named the so-and-so park bench right is that so those are two different processes the donation of the bench and then the naming or it doesn't quite count as a naming because there's a would be a plaque next to it I mean tell that we're it to me that wouldn't count as a naming because you're just you're purchasing that plaque to honor someone and you're putting or the bench and then there's a small plaque saying you know donated by a person's name but if they actually wanted to name an asset in a park or name a room in a rec center and they want to call it something specific that would be a naming the naming policy does cover city facilities pretty much any city asset yeah and it covers some naming new structures and donated structures as well as existing structure any anybody anything that someone wants to put a name on excellent yes thanks okay so this next slide just has an example of what a solicitation plan looks like a good solicitation plan has clearly defined sponsorship levels as well as clearly defined benefits back to the sponsor so in this example it's for our Liberty run sponsorship opportunities as you can see we have the dollar amounts ranging from $100 to $1,000 and then with each incremental level the sponsor would receive something additional in return and throughout the process of developing this policy we have collaborated and work with other departments as I mentioned it would be a citywide policy so here are just some examples of departments and programs that would benefit from this policy so for parks and rec as I mentioned we have July 4th Liberty run and Jubilee sustainability could use this for their honey run animal services for volunteer appreciation event we have the library summer reading challenge and then police and fire has public safety day that could benefit from this policy so that pretty much summarizes the policy kind of what we're looking for for the next steps would be if recommended today by you with or without additional edits we'd like to place it a resolution on the next available council meeting for consideration and then of course we hope to utilize this policy in the future okay and I'll thank you very much in mayor mayor Watts tradition have you presented to us before this is second time okay very good good job thank you all right and so I think for me a question is what about items so for example use just a kind of something unforeseen so let's say we have the coffin races and we want to brand it with Denton let's say Denton wants to do it so Denton wants to brand the street so now when you have overview of the coffins racing down you see Denton's logo but let's let's put private company there whatever that is okay do we have in our ability when we're leasing streets parks the ability to carve that out to say the city reserves the right to or we partner with you on or they the entity has the right to police quote-unquote or brand those areas I'm not not sure I understand exactly but because this policy is with a staff what's that okay Gary's gonna help you does that make sense Gary or mine yes confusing Gary pack and director parks and recreation so I think there's a probably two answers to that one that's co-sponsorship that's handled differently and with a third party third party event we can have separate agreements as as written in the policy where we can outline specific things so that could be part of an annual work plan with the Parks Foundation it could be a separate agreement with that entity that's running the coffin races to mark that out and say this is something that the city wants to work with specifically or partner with them on that okay and so I would say and it kind of goes into my next thing is I would ask maybe if we have a point person because using the coffin race for example they come back and they say they need more hot funds they're gonna extend an extra day etc and so in lieu of that we could say how about we open up this branding opportunity and see what they can you know achieve there and say hey can you go to some of your normal sponsors Armadillo L who you know and say can you parse out part of this if we give you that opportunity do you think you can recoup money that type thing so just a way to free up pressure reallocates yeah yeah so you don't need as much hot funds because we're giving you more opportunity to fundraise right on your own it may be in condo nation I don't know what that that terminology is but I guess the the the short question is is there someone if I have an idea that I could say reach out to whom and they would kind of process that information and see if there's a way to get to the finish line so as as that co-sponsorship we could be the point person that I think we're you know with hot funds we'd be working with the finance department on that as well sure so between the two of us we could identify that part that point person okay great any other questions on this item then I'll look for oh that's over Davis just so we're aware and so the public knows the the funding levels like where did the numbers come from and what did we base that on why do we decide those were the levels so this is sort of based off of our purchasing standards that once we reach the $50,000 mark then we go out to RFP so we're trying to stay in line with what we already do for purchasing and then before we get a consensus question for legal if I understood the application right there's not a signature line there's not a standard language that says I believe the information on this application is true any any need for that you believe or is it okay as is so when they fill out the application it just says name who you're associated with etc etc but there's not a signature standard language at the bottom we can always add it in there it doesn't it doesn't hurt to put it in there or harm it if we don't include it in there it's just whatever the preference of this council or city management and or city management would be okay we're talking about this yes okay okay well we can leave it as is and we'll we'll get a see how that goes okay so consensus on moving forward with as presented okay very good thank you thank you very much I appreciate it and so that concludes item C that'll take us to our last item today item D which is ID 19 1206 receive report hold discussion and provide staff direction regarding House Bill 1631 and its impact on the city of Denton operations photographic signals enforcement systems which was signed what today over the weekend over the weekend yes sir mayor pro tem council thank you for the opportunity to come and talk about this issue Ryan Adams with public affairs this will be just a brief overview and update on our red light camera system so just a little bit of background didn't has utilized a photographic traffic traffic signal enforcement system or red light camera system since 2005 in that year we issued an agreement with red flex traffic systems USA it was initiated in 05 we further amended that agreement in 2009 and then extended it in 2014 currently or perhaps as of last Friday or Saturday we had 11 cameras monitoring 9s intersections across the denton and just a high-level high-level overview of how it works if we do have sergeant Briggs here who can answer more technical questions if you have those for any any suspected violation the camera will capture that violation with several photos in a video there will be a review by red flex and then a subsequent group review by the city of Denton to confirm if a violation did indeed occur the city has a 30-day window for our PD department to actually accept or reject that violation and if it is accepted a citation will go out to the registered owner of that vehicle and that is a civil penalty penalty so house bill 1631 is a bill that was passed in our most recent legislative session it prohibits red light camera systems across the state that is for the most part a blanket prohibition it was effective June 2nd that was yesterday on Sunday it does allow existing contracts to continue on two conditions that contract had to be in effect prior to May 7th 2019 and it does not have an adverse legislation termination clause if you fit those two categories you can finish off the term of your contract if you have one the city of Denton contract with red flux was active as of May 7th in fact it's set to expire on July 20th 2019 however our contract did include an adverse legislation termination clause so because of that clause and the effective date of House Bill 1631 Denton cannot legally operate a red light camera system anymore 1631 does allow that all penalties that were received prior to that effective date are still valid penalties those are valid citations anything on or after that effective date they're not enforceable so just to brief you a little bit on how we're going to approach our contract with red flex the city is prepared to deliver a termination notice to red flex upon the council adoption of an ordinance terminating that contract the contract was adopted by ordinance and we are prepared to bring forward an ordinance at your next meeting to terminate that contract the contract allows us to immediately terminate the issuance of citation so anything that was received by the system on that effective date or afterwards we can simply not take action upon it also provides for the cessation of all services and operations and it compels red flex to remove at its expense all equipment in the city right-of-way of course that won't be a quick snap of your fingers and it's gone those cameras would be there for a little bit of time until it can coordinate the safer removal of that infrastructure we do have to address post termination activities with red flex of course there are going to be a number of citations that have been issued when they were legally able to be issued that have either not been paid or still working their way through an appeals process so staff is currently coordinating with red flex on a limited agreement where they would provide some post termination activities that could be accepting payments coordinating the appeals process providing call center support they did give us a quote on these services and that quote was forty seven thousand dollars for the first 30 days and thirty five thousand two hundred and fifty for each month thereafter for a term that we would jointly agree upon so one question and then councilmember Riggs wait so can you explain what would be included what service can you repeat what services they would be providing if we agreed to that they gave us a longer list but I can give you the the brief key points the brief key points are processing payments providing call center support local office support which would help handle walk-ins and coordinating the appeals process scheduling the appeals there are a few other things on the longer list they gave us that they would provide part of that is sending delinquent notices to collections and other administrative tasks and has it for a follow-up question is is there been any looking into what the the cost would be both financially and time-wise for if the the city to take that on versus this private company we did discuss that in a meeting last week with our municipal court and some members of the police staff what we determined was we might suffer some significant customer service issues and when trying to do that chiefly because a lot of that information that is right now in the red flex system does not have a mechanism to come into our system until they provide some of these actions since the bill was signed we've not had a chance to meet back on that so that's something that we're continuing to explore and now that we know what the end date of this bill is we need to follow up and make another determination of can we provide this in house yes or no what would then be the cost and again taking into consideration any policy direction that council would want to provide yeah thank you and I'll just mention for now that I'm as somebody who's been opposed from the beginning to the the the red light cameras you know partly on the grounds that you're you know farming out a a judicial and kind of law enforcement duty to a private company far away I would love to see that I would prefer to see that done in house but I understand and would be interested to know kind of what the the barriers are and and what and maybe this would be for to decide today maybe at a later date because as you mentioned this was just over the weekend so you haven't had time to can brainstorm about this but to see you know if there's anything we could do legislatively I'll just throw us out there including saying okay you know if you've been outstanding citation maybe this is impossible to do this maybe it's just for the courts but then that's that's waived or you know something like that to to reduce the the burden on staff while still not farming out all of this to this company that I'm so glad to be getting rid of I think the oh no go ahead and then Councilmember Briggs has a question I think that our chief concern from a service vision standpoint will always be giving the best customer service we can with the last thing we wanted to have are people who are out there in the community they they have a citation that was received prior to this effective date and we want them to have a place where they can get the answers they need be able to take care of what they need to take care of and do that in an efficient way rather than have to go to three or four sources get perhaps some confusing information and I think that's a staff what we're most concerned with with trying to make sure does not happen in terms of a legislative approach if that you discuss I'll respectfully defer to our city attorney and to provide any any guidance there on on what can be done with those outstanding tickets the ability is chapter 707 that governs this process is very statutory and set forth the process of how the entire citation it goes through from beginning to ultimate resolution in the courts it's it's very similar to what we would have on in any other municipal court proceeding that for a violation of one of our code of ordinances I've never looked at the issue but I suspect that the ultimate the answer is going to be that that is part of the corporate system as as provided for in statute and it'll be resolved that way it doesn't mean that the prosecutor may not who on for all the appeals may take a make recommendations to dismiss those cases those cases that's that's within discretion of the prosecutor but it's something that we could research a little bit more fully but I think the answer is it's going to be what I just mentioned or just a short bit ago thank you councilman bricks that was one of my questions is why can't we just say tear them up you know like you know you it's done for those that were outstanding my and to follow that would be can we find out how many tickets are left that are outstanding in the city that may give us a better idea of if you know over $47,000 is is worth that amount to extend the contract I mean if it's not many you know then give me a phone like I there's so that would be the one thing I would like to see right now I'm really not in favor of extra service but I'm also really not in favor of adding the extra work to our police department customer service so I would rather just be done be done with it if we could do that I don't know if that's a legal thing to do if the judge could just waive all tickets before they even get to court I don't know if that's possible or not and then if is there a a date where they have to remove the equipment I know you said it would be kind of further along and not right away but I would like to make sure that we have a date set settled on so that we don't have the same frontier charter issue where their equipment is still in our city you know five years away and we've cut down their polls you know if we could do that and then and before all of this if we could maybe talk to the traffic at those same intersections where these red lights were about extending the extending the yellow light just a little on all of these thank you I do have a little bit of information it's it's perhaps a few days old so it may not be right to the minute updated but between our the number of tickets that we have that are within zero to 90 days old that have been issued that number is roughly four thousand seven hundred forty seven hundred tickets that are that are out there of course if you go beyond that it gets much larger much of those tickets are going to be you know they'll be uncollectible there's nothing we can do there they're probably something that will end up having to ride off but you could safely say that there are forty seven hundred tickets that we have a reasonable chance of having some sort of action on and so those have been reviewed by both red flex and the Denton PD as of now those have been issued that's correct in terms of what is right now in our queue sergeant Briggs do you happen to know that number sorry thank you I know it as of this morning there were 1142 violations pending in the queue that have not been reviewed by Denton PD personnel and there's 382 awaiting dismissal that have looked at and we would not have written a ticket if we had been there in person so those are ones we would dismiss they're depending ones are dated mark I'm sorry May 10th up to May 23rd we haven't received anything since the 23rd there they're coming it's just there's a delay in the process thank you thank you so is that 1142 in addition to that forty seven hundred yes ma'am okay and then the the number that you're awaiting that's is that part of that's another man that's another from the time that a violation is detected by the system it's about a four-day period before we have access to it in our in our end of the system because of the love layers of review at red flex that's a lot that's a lot a lot of people run around lights yeah thank you and y'all might have to tag team this a little bit sure first off out of curiosity what's the fiscal impact of not having this this program for the next budget year how much money do you think we're gonna lose not having a red light ticket so it varies our revenue of course varies on the number of tickets the most recent year that we had available I believe the city received about five hundred and twenty thousand dollars from the most completed most recent completed year previous years had been a little higher a little lower so it really is dependent on that but I see David over here he might have something a little more specific for you just a just a ballpark David Gaines director of finance we receive about what we budgeted 1.8 million to receive this year in revenue traditionally has been around two million dollars but then we have our payments out for the contract and to the state so the net that we have to spend is around eight eight to nine hundred thousand dollars on and those are in our traffic safety funds so they have prescriptive uses we had a couple traffic signals and a citywide traffic study that we budgeted this year out of that fund my my other question is probably whichever the team can answer the question what what is our collection rate and what I'm getting at is you know if we have forty seven hundred new tickets can we historically say this is the number that we've actually been able to collect back the fine on I can't speak to the actual collections of revenue but just from an approval and dismissal volume I get a weekly report from red flex and of a seven-day period we dismiss about a third of the violations the system picks up but as far as the actual revenue collection I don't I can't track that don't know if red flex does for us part of the problem is because it may be months if not years down the road before we collect on a specific individual citation what I'm trying to figure out obviously we've got to decide if there's any utility to extending this contract at all or you just go with the option that councilman Briggs said he just tear him up be done with it but then still have all these people that don't know what to do with their tickets so I mean is there is there any scenario in which collection of the outstanding tickets covers the cost of engaging red flicks to do that we don't I don't think we have that if we can find out for you and see what our our collection rate has been perhaps in the last several years if there's a trend that we can we can provide for council council member Ryan thank you what is our current prior to this house bill passing what was our current monthly payments to reflex what we're paying just for them to operate the cameras do we know that I haven't known an annual number about five hundred and forty thousand for the for the year so 12th of that monthly so 40 something 40 something probably less than what we're they're asking for this forty seven thousand or right equal to there somewhere in that same range there's not an appreciable lowering of what we're paying them for the services that they would be providing post termination and 50% of whatever is collected goes back to the state is that correct it's a split between the city and the state yeah so they get they get 50% and then we pay for red flecks and we get to keep what's left so I don't see any reason for us to try and collect on those forty seven hundred tickets when half of that's going back to the state and we've still got to pay almost the same rate as when we were actively using the cameras it just I think this this issue has made the paper several times most people are going to be questioning why there's why they even have the ticket should they even have to pay it there's not really much because it's a civil violation there's not really much we've got in recourse since our county tax collector also does not believe in collecting them as some counties do at the registration process so I'm in favor of just letting it go okay yeah so I want to add to that well obviously I agree you know and also just to add to point out that it's my belief anyway that that we shouldn't be seeing that any money we get from from any violation of any kind as as revenue but it's just a way to the idea is as I understand a way to hold people accountable and and in this case for safety so I would like to see echoing what councilmember Briggs mentioned before about you know extended yellow light light timing so I would love to see discussion I guess this would be for for traffic engineering I say discussion but I like them discuss amongst themselves you know staff reports on you know maybe to come back to us at a future date maybe not I'm not sure they're probably doing it already but to look at what are good ways to prevent you know kind of with starting with a blank slate it really doing a lot of research on what are good ways to safely prevent people from running red lights because you know I've seen the the data on on the the debatable effectiveness of these cameras so kind of we're still stuck with traffic safety issues that that that we need to address so I think this is a good opportunity to address that and you know not to worry so much about this the revenue issue okay and councilmember Briggs so I I'm in favor of determination I'm just looking up there in the ordinance yes but to councilmember Davis's question on council for the past few years in the budget we have not gone into that because of the fact if council did want to cancel the contract there was a termination percentage and so they were trying to hold in at least a certain amount to cover that so we haven't been spending out of that traffic safety Commission or not Commission but budget fund fund for a few years a little at a time but not near as much as we didn't want to eat up all the balance in case this didn't pass and we decided to get rid of it so I think there's probably still quite a bit of money in there right and we can still use that it's about 2.8 million dollars in the fund balance we've been holding at least over a million in it for since I've been on council so that can still be spent but my question is because I I'm in the same boat as not wanting to collect it it's gonna be difficult to get our residents to pay the bill knowing that there is this legislation that says you we're not going to have them anymore but is there what is our what is our recourse if they don't and does it affect their credit history I mean if we continue to do it and they don't I'm just I don't want it to negatively impact anyone so we did discuss this internally and it will not impact their credit history in addition to that if the the offender lives in Denton County the tax assessor collector has not adopted the practice of withholding vehicle registration so what we determined was the the the impact of not paying on a on a citation would that it would go to collections and it would kind of run its collections course from there you'd have a collections company calling you to try to seek what is owed and there would not be much more than that that we were aware of as a team and so for me we pay those collections to try to collect that collection and I think that's kind of a waste of money in this in this instant on these extra outstanding tickets I don't believe that we pay the collection companies I believe we just we just pay red flex and they contract with the collection company themselves so it's not with our regular collection companies because I know we send out RFPs for collections of past due accounts and things like so this is separate this is separate this is we only have our contract with red flex any collections that that they hire as a third party that is strictly through them and that's not not part of the city okay so so the direction you were seeking for tomorrow is to frame it for me again sure well first we just want to notify the council that would be bringing forward an ordinance on the 11th for the termination and then any direction that council would like to give staff with regard to proceeding for those post termination activities within what we are able to do from a legal standpoint if there's a desire from council to try to sink any and all avenues to disregard as many of those currently outstanding tickets as possible or to have a hard stop right without that effective date and treat everything that occurred before as a legal and valid ticket which we can do under House Bill 1631 okay and so what I'm hearing is a couple of things and then I got to clarify one other thing and we'll be we'll be done so hard deadline on the equipment I know councilmember Briggs had mentioned that so I'd ask staff to give us their feedback on that I'd like to a component that it's a signage right so I'm assuming that's ours to take down the signage no right turn or cameras etc so if it's strictly to generic traffic law those are more than likely our signs but if it's specific to the the camera themselves those are belong to Red Flex okay so as part of this it wasn't part of the presentation but once we have a firm direction going forward we would make a very strong concerted effort to communicate that out to the community a simple component being these cameras may continue to flash for a little bit nothing's gonna land in your mailbox but that's another piece of information that we can send out sure yeah so I think primarily the signage is if I mean assuming they have to schedule time to get in the lane to take the you know the pole out whatever they have to do there and so I think but the signage I think if we could make that a priority maybe and then come back and then if they overnight so how do they do that I personally I would like to hear from staff on what infrastructure will be left and what is there a use for that so let's just a general analysis of there was a street pole here with the camera on it when it's gone there'll be a cap and it'll be flat or there'll be a pole that we can use for or we can mount a camera ourselves just kind of what a staff want to do with infrastructure that's there and then yeah I think that is the just of it I think there's Councilmember Davis do you have a leaning yeah no I definitely lean towards just tear them all up option I mean if there's no effective way for us to make collection after terminating agreement with red flex because one we're not taking that on to we don't have the data to do it my only real concern is if we're doing that that means that we are making no further collections on any tickets whether you got six months or two years ago because red flags correct if I'm wrong but they were doing all of the collections for this correct that's correct so so we just need to be real clear with ourselves and with the public that we're not just tearing up the last 90 days of tickets we're tearing up any ticket that has not yet been collected to this point if we terminate our relationship with red flex so we just need to be prepared for questions about fundamental fairness of well I got my ticket two years ago and paid it my neighbor who got a ticket two years ago didn't pay it and went to collections well you know we're now you know I'm the fool that paid my ticket the other thing is I'm concerned a little bit about data if before we terminate our relationship with red flex and send them off with no further of our money that we collect as much data from them as we can I know that's useful if nothing else there's traffic counts there we know we already have identified which intersections need some kind of red light intervention and now we can maybe get some numbers behind that and prioritize making traffic changes in the future yes sir I hate to just terminate that relationship without getting the data the other thing too is from a public I guess a public relations standpoint to the earlier point that if we know that these are no longer enforceable and now we're here you know streaming this on the web saying the City Council would rather not enforce any of them at all going forward can we just send somebody out the trash bag to cover the thing up so it doesn't flash on anybody and nobody thinks that they're they're getting a ticket in the mail and the City Council said they're not getting a ticket in the mail I mean is there anything our contract with red flex that says we can't just obstruct it somehow or put up our own sign next to it that says a temporary sign that says this is an unenforceable thing don't worry about it don't call Keely at midnight because you're not going to get a ticket in the mail they will I think we can we can certainly discuss with the red flex it is their their property so we would have to do that in partnership with them but there may be some options there we can make it very clear that the cameras are no longer they're no longer operational yeah not not defacing the thing not destroying any of their property but somehow notifying the public that it's it's a don't worry about the flash we could to your point put a sign up right in front of their existing sign we can't touch their equipment in any way that's according to the contract even if our contracts going away in a minute yes but they are contract also says that that's their termination provisions that they'll come get it and so forth and I'm sorry I'm Katherine Clifton I'm from the legal department okay and okay Councilman Ron just to follow up on that same item who does the actual final connection in our traffic control box is that something our traffic control hooks up that lets them know when it goes red because if that's the case we may be able to just disconnect the signal going to the camera letting them know that it's gone red in which case it won't flash sorry I don't know for sure but we can find out and get that back to you guys okay okay so that's a non engineer in this meeting well yeah I was just gonna say we have the wonderful didn't record Chronicle here in in our audience I mean they could write you know something and we have press releases we have all sorts of things that say you know this isn't I have actually gotten a message from somebody recently my dad got a ticket yesterday do I need to pay it you know so those questions are out there people are still you know they're they don't want to and they're probably not going to but they're still curious but I liked your idea I was thinking more of like a cardboard though cut out and then we could draw a face on it it says you know but I thought that would be way fancier than I was it's more environmentally friendly too because it's recyclable a question because I'm okay go ahead yeah yeah just along those lines whatever communication you know we have with the public about what the policy is going to be moving forward about the legislation because not everybody knows and there there are people who don't even know that there was so legislative you know session happening so that we have that in Spanish as well as English you know I think that's key to all communications especially something like this I'd hate for you know people to be paying just because they didn't get the the English language communication okay yes sir mr. attorney I just wanted to add for the council that we will take a look at some of the legal issues that have been brought up here today and included in a confidential attorney-client privilege legal stash report for this Friday so that to help you with your decision on Tuesday in addition we'll also schedule a closed session just in case you all need to do need to go into into closed session on this item okay right and that gives you it's pretty pretty succinct yes I have our direction all right thank you very much I appreciate it and I will in that item at 2105 pardon me and then in this lunch session for today at the same time 205 will be adjourned till tomorrow