Mr. Chair, we are at 3 o'clock and we have a form so we can start the meeting if you're ready.
Or we can hold for a minute or two for Heather.
Do you know what time it is?
I think she'll be along shortly.
Right. She's sweet, sweet Heather. She's picking her cat up from surgery.
I would say that let's go ahead and get going and give her the time that she needs.
I'll just let her know. I'll send her a message telling her no pressure.
We have a form.
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No public comments today, Mr. Chair.
[inaudible]
We can do that at the end in concluding items. That's okay.
[inaudible]
So you made a motion, Mr. Chair?
I second it.
We do have to take a vote on this one.
[inaudible]
Mr. Chair, we do have some representatives from Solid Waste and Recycling here with us and I'll pull up their presentations.
This was a requested update that we talked about in our November meeting on our Solid Waste Service Assistance Program and some other Solid Waste items.
Make sure this works for you.
Might help if I plug it in the computer. Give me a second.
Details, details.
All the new details, right?
All the details. I'll try now.
Good afternoon, everyone.
I'm the deputy director of Solid Waste and Recycling for the great city of Denver, right?
There's no other better city in the world, right?
Let's just throw that out there.
[inaudible]
Some time ago, we came to this committee and we talked about some challenges with our then-called Porch Collection Program.
There were some challenges you shared because we had challenges on our end, right?
So we went back and took your thoughts and comments back to the organization and we strategized.
How do we reduce some of the suggested risk, right?
You know, we had yellow lids on the containers and you could have just, you know, walker buyers that are up to things they shouldn't be.
It can make the connection that hey, something's different about this household.
We came back and we looked at the program.
We did a few things.
We retired it.
We called it Service Assistance, right?
We removed all the yellow lids and we incorporated some technology to help us identify the customers receiving the service.
And Dusty McGee, he's my team member here.
His team took the program to the next level, in my opinion, to help to ensure accountability,
to do audits on the program to make sure that only people receiving it are the ones eligible for it, right?
And then from a service delivery, making sure all those customers are serviced.
So we don't just move forward.
So here's what we'll talk about today from an agenda perspective.
We want to give you the update based on everything I just mentioned, right?
We want to talk about some other operations at our facility.
And with our department, rather, we want to do an overview of landfill and talk about our newly opened public disposal facility.
And if you didn't know, we have a household chemical selection center there.
You can find the material there or you can have it picked up at your home at the curb.
And then we want to introduce and talk about our recycling, our residential recycling audience in an effort to get better and cleaner product at the curb.
At this point, not to take any thunder away from Dusty, he's worked feverishly to improve this program.
And I'm going to pass the time to him and he'll give you a full update on this program.
And I'll be back shortly, right? I can wait to show. I'll be back.
Thank you, Jean. So what is our service assist program?
It's a program that eight customers who may have challenges placing the cards at the curb were picked up on collections days for the solid waste services.
So how the program works. I think that customers apply through their customer service for program inclusion.
They'll submit their request in customer service.
Customer service will send them the form of their application to take to their physician to get that approval verification from them.
They will then return that documentation to customer service and then the customer is placed on the program.
No one, some of the stipulations, no one that resides at the house can manage the carts. So it has to be one of the stipulations for that customer to remain on the program.
Any of the applicants that are hindered from personally managing the carts on the curb are the ones that we're trying to actually help with this program.
The forms must be submitted, resubmitted every 18 months. So there is a resubmission protocol on that.
We'll do an audit based off of our smart system that we will show you here in just a few minutes.
We can export reports out of that and that will show us who is on the program.
And then we can verify that with customer services reports as well on how long that they've been on there.
So we can make sure that we keep the program as accountable as we can.
Once in the system, the way it works, the driver for each line of business, so you have trash, recycling, and yard waste for residential customers.
Each driver will pull up to the house and I can show you in a minute what that looks like.
Each driver will pull up to the house, they'll pull their cart, so if I'm running a trash route, I'll pull my trash cart down, I'll empty it, and then I'll take it straight back to where it belongs.
So this total process takes about 30 to 45 seconds depending on the length of the driveway and placement of carts.
So we're there for a very short period of time and then we move to the next customer.
And then the customers must use a standard issued city of bitten carts.
So one way that we do this is with our route account smart city software system.
The program directs drivers to the program participants as part of a standard route collection.
So like I said, they will pull up to the house, pull the cart down, take it back whenever they're done.
So the good thing about this system is it has a lot of up-to-date modern technologies that helps us to be able to streamline the process.
Notice how turn-by-turn navigation, collection verification as you can see from the image on the top left, it does show the customer's location, what size cart they have, what commodity it is, a timestamp of the date and the time,
and it will show it as completed, scheduled, or if there was an issue with the cart, say at least if the cart was damaged, then we can replace that cart using this system from the cart.
And then it also gives the route name, the truck, and the driver.
The reason why we like this is it's the accountability piece on our end, a way that if something comes up and the customer says, "Hey, you didn't dump our cart," I can go within a click of a few buttons and I can figure out exactly what might have happened so that we can address those issues right away.
And then we also have with this system is non-collection exceptions. Let's just say that the customer's container was blocked or some of our customers, they keep their containers inside of their garage.
And we can't go inside of their garage and collect them, so they have to move them outside of their garage doors.
But if a customer, let's just say they're out of town on vacation or they might not be able to get the door up, then we can actually take a picture of that and document it as not out, and that way that we can talk to those customers and educate them on making sure that we have access to their containers.
We also have the ability to do route progress in real time, and we can, with a click of a button, I can figure out exactly if our driver has made it to those customers' locations.
And if they have not, or they might, a lot of times a customer will say, "Hey, they missed me," but they don't realize that the trucks are picking up off the right-hand side, and they might live on the left-hand side, so we'll just inform those customers. They'll be back shortly to pick up your side of the street.
Location alerts. So this is where the piece of the puzzle for our assistant service customers comes into play.
So, as you can see with the image in the middle here, it actually will pop up on the driver's tablet. The tablets are like an iPad mini. They're small, they're easy to handle, they're easy to see.
So it'll actually pop up a visual alert and an audio alert. It's like a single text tone, text message tone type alert. So with this, the driver has to physically touch OK that they actually service those customers.
But we can also use this as well as for frequently missed or for those customers that might have an unknown placement of the cart. So we can actually say that, "Driver, make sure you double-check this as soon as this before you leave."
So some of the metrics. When we originally installed this system and put it into motion, there was 291 customers that were on the old Porsche collection service.
The moment that we did the audit, that immediately knocked it down to 268 that we sent the authorization forms that we received back. Once they did the secondary audit, we are now down to 203 and those have been verified that they are indeed the ones in need of the service.
So reduction of the participants was due to death of the original account owners or subsequent users or able-bodied if they had somebody that was living in their home with them that could actually help them.
The person that passes away, that person that still lives there, they are no longer in need of that service. So that's whenever that customer needs to pull off of that service. Or if there is an able-bodied person, let's just say that somebody still moves in.
If you need assisted service but your grandson moves in, at that point you would not be qualified for the service because you do have somebody that can take your parts down for you. And then the big thing on this was it eliminated the abusers of the program that really honestly did not need the service because they did not need the stipulations for what we had set.
I know that was a big concern from a lot of the customers that I talked to personally that were concerned, well what about the people that really don't need this? I said, this is the solution for that so that we can make sure that we get you your services here.
So for the rest of this, I'm going to pass it back to Eugene. And this is straight up his web house.
On slide three, it says every 18 months. How does that communicate? Through customer service. We do an internal audit. It's on a rolling 18 months, so once a month we will do an audit internally on that. And any of those customers that the dates are 18 months out, we will remove those.
A lot of times what happens is those customers have not gotten the documentation back in time. So it's just a simple, hey we'll give you another 60 days, get your documentation term back in and then we'll continue on with the service.
But the question on that, so is this just a card saying hey do you need to continue this or is this the full on form? It's the full on form.
Just wondering if that's, you need the full form every time? So in the original conversation that was a very pertinent question then and it's a very pertinent question now.
And you know one of the questions that was raised, this is my condition now, it's going to be that in 18 months. Right? So we talked about just adding another block on the original application.
And it's up to the physician to mark if this is permanent. So we're redoing some stuff now. We're talking to customer service. We're networking with them. We're looking at their pool.
We're looking at everyone who has returned the recertification or the application. And once we have it, we want to look at that and say okay, it's not out, we don't want to know the condition.
But for their physician to say will this change? And if not, that will be eliminated. There won't be a need for you to communicate that to us anymore. However, the audit process will still happen.
The audit process will still happen. But from that, okay, this is my condition. You know there's 18 months, should I do this and that? We're working through those challenges now.
But great question. So let's talk about our landfill a little bit. I know one of the concerns was the landfill operations and bringing products out there.
Let me say first, the landfill is a very dangerous and unstable environment. You know, we're accepting waste. This is our commercial area. We've got big heavy trucks in this area, but we're accepting waste.
And that's these multi-purpose and multi-valuable to the organization because he lived in the landfill for a while, operated the heavy equipment and directed traffic.
So he knows firsthand that this is an unstable environment. So let me explain a little bit what that means. So we cover some trash, right?
So, well, let me go back. So we're advanced here. So there's some high tech engineering that digs a big hole, right? After we dig the hole, there's a membrane, a liner that goes in, right?
There are different apparatuses that go in. So the leach aid, or what we call it, the juice leaking out of the trucks and things like that, don't leak into the ground to contaminate the ground.
So it's a highly engineered process. So it's a big hole that we start with. So as we start depositing trash into the hole, daily it's compacted, do it every day. That's part of the process, compacted.
So you come from a hole, a sub hole, and then it can go up to 650 feet of elevation under our current pyramid now.
So what you see here is the beginning of a new cell that's not that long, right? But the instability of it is you can cover and you can take two or three steps either way and hit an area that can buckle your knees because it will fall.
Right? So our landfill equipment is equipped to do that and our operators are highly trained to work in this environment. So we try to keep, at all costs, keeping the public away from this area.
But these are some of our members. We are a high performing landfill. We, during our annual inspections, we receive high rates all the time.
We're one of the busiest because some of the other local GFW landfills are not accepting waste at the volume we are, right? They're actually, they've got a process called post closure.
That's before, post culture has to live so long after the landfill officially stops accepting waste, right? So there's a lot of things that go on.
So you have what, DFW, which is the Louisville wind camera lot, things like that, right? So that's, waste is coming to us. So here's some of the things that we're doing.
The customers at this point, from this process, are required to unload their own waste. But this is coming through hydraulic systems. This is coming through, you know, a truck that has a bed that discharges the waste and things like that.
Our annual daily tons, which is up there, is short of about a thousand tons a day. Our utilization density is 1100 pounds per cubic foot. So here's the important thing about it is.
So in a certain space, it is important that we have the optimal equipment to get as much waste into that space. That's what extends the landfill life.
So tons disposed of, I mean, you know, those numbers speak for itself. Remaining airspace, that's important, because as I mentioned, it's important to get as much waste into a small area that affects the remaining airspace.
So if we accepted any and everything and tried to put it into these areas, i.e., materials that don't have a petrisible and have a methane producing module.
So we got raw trash versus put breaking up some lumber and putting in that space, you're wasting airspace, right?
So through our diversion program, we want to keep those away from the working face and find other avenues for life.
So an example of other avenues for life, if a contractor or you do some work at your house and you bring a lot of scrap wood, it may be a market for the scrap wood for somebody doing a home project or something else.
So instead of burying it, which is wasted landfill space, airspace rather, we want to make sure we separate those things and only bring in the things that help protect that airspace.
And then that feeds right into our total remaining years. Right now we have 46.3 years, but we think we can be really about 50 with our comprehensive diversion. Again, it's almost like it's almost like we get to the fork in the road, right?
Regular trash this way. If you have a load that consists of things that we don't want here, you go this way. And this way are other opportunities to get rid of that waste.
Let's use glass as an example. Glass from a recycling point is not really the best. Some people like it for landfills because you can do a lot with rows and mix in the things.
But a glass recycler would be the perfect place to take that because that reuse life.
So this is one of our latest projects. Beautiful. It's a great aerial view of the working space that you see on top. If you can see what I was saying, it's got almost like a hole there.
We start from the ground and we go high in the air, but it's a layered process. The guys in the equipment, they go back and forth, back and forth in a strategic manner to get the best compaction ratio.
And this other area, beautiful area here, is our new public disposal facility. So we want to be able to drive the public to this area versus going into the unstable area.
But there's a lot of hazards in this area as well. As you can see, on a very, very, very light day, you have some things up here.
Very minor traffic, but it's still not the best environment for smaller cars and things like that.
It's a lot of mechanics that work into this. We want to try to keep not only our employees safe, we want to keep the public safe as well.
So we talked about home chemical collection. So picture there, just some boxes that everyone probably has around the house, some old aerosol cans, some paint, some oils and things like that.
Well, the thing to do is not to just throw them in the garbage, right? And be dumped and wasted with everything else.
There's real life, and there's a reuse for most of these products. We send oil to oil recyclers. Some of the paints, we actually have a repurposed store at our facility where we test the paint, and it's really not contaminated, and it's got good quality to it.
We put it in our store, and it's free of charge. And you might have your insecticides and all kinds of different things that, "Well, I got a half a can of this. I'm going to just throw it away."
So we offer these. We stock our internal store with these products once they go through the inspection process.
But for the home chemical collection, that process is, you know, it runs throughout the week, right? It gives our customers an opportunity to put it at incurred form that we'll pick it up, or it can be done at our site, I'm sorry, at our site, at our place.
So then there's a program that operates weekly, Monday through Thursday. Friday is more processing, getting things off to the recyclers and things like that. Basically, you call in. I don't know if you've ever had the experience of calling in for a particular service.
It works the exact same way. Driver, a dispatch, just a ticket itself. Come out to my place and pick this up, right? Our service assistant programs allows customers the option to have their materials collected at their property.
So wherever you put that container at on your property, we'll take care of the service the same way. And move if you're trying to bring it to the curb.
We want it to be fully consistent with our program. We don't want to have the cart to be left at the property, but then the other product you're trying to get rid of, you've got to come bring it to the curb.
So the risk is, whether it's a cart or a can of paint, the risk is still there trying to bring it down. So we want this to be a full service and to make it convenient for our customers as well.
And this is something new for us. It's something new, but it's been very, very, very powerful and effective. And I'll walk through this. This is our residential recycling audit, and our service assistant customers will get this full service as well.
And basically what it is, the program purpose is to reduce recycling contamination by inspecting carts at the residential level to provide education outreach for compliance.
And what that does is, we have some rangers that go out, we call them recycling rangers, they go out, they'll typically start well ahead of the residential trash route, and they'll start just if they can. They'll start before the recycling route, they'll lift those recycling cans, they'll do a visual inspection of what's going on.
If it's 15% of greater contamination, pictures are taken, and we document it into the smart routing, which Dusty mentioned Rubicon. Rubicon has a lot of technology and things built in, we use that.
You know, then we provide educational material. You know, the residents responsible for cleaning the carts, of course, clean contamination collected the following week.
So what if we go out and say this cart is just contaminated, and once we provide you with education, it's your responsibility to clean the carts so we can actually service it the week after.
If that's not so, then we just communicate that to us if there's an issue there.
Visual inspection is made of the cart to replace it, as well as repair it, right? So we come in, we're on the property, we realize your handle is broke, not the handle, the lid is broke, and we just go ahead and go in the Rubicon and make that service impression, don't have to do anything, and we'll get it done.
Because a lot of times, I've seen the true leaders of this program, really not interacting with the cart from the inspection perspective, we just try and get it out to where the proper place for it to be picked up.
So that oops tag, oops is the worst case scenario. I mean, we come in and we're finding contamination at a high degree all the time. We want to be able to do less oops, right?
And transition more to warnings. The warning is, it's good, but there's a few materials here, obviously. We can correct that against this education.
And then what all of us should strive for is a recycling star. You're a star, you're a rock star, right? We're doing everything properly, everything, and that should be recognized for doing everything properly.
With this being said, we've improved in this area so much, we're probably seeing less oops and more just warnings and stars.
Now, there was some resistance at first. They kind of looked at us like the recycling police. We got a lot of calls, but they didn't really understand.
They started that networking and communication and conversation to say, no, we just want to make sure that we're picking up the best product and we're delivering it to, because we deliver this to Pratt, who's our third party recycler.
They have a facility on a high property, and the cleanest recycling, it matters. It matters. So for an example, when it's not clean, it drives our contamination rates down.
You know, from an environmental perspective, if we have a recycling program, we should do things in a manner of which you'll have less trash, but more recycling, right?
Now, some things aren't programmatic anymore. Things have changed. You know, when I started the business 30 plus years ago, everything that had the chasing triangles, you could just throw it out as recycling.
But the market has condensed to quality product now. So there's only a handful of things. So that's what we look at now. What are those handful of things we really want that has a recycling benefit to it?
So that's what some of these things here, when you say no, no, no, years ago, all of this was accepted. But there's not another market. A lot of this winds up at the back door as waste.
So they just bring it right back to the landfill. So we want more of the products that are recyclable. And that's all we have. Are there any questions? Yes, sir.
Sorry, I'm going to be asking questions. So pizza boxes. A few weeks ago, I was told that we're accepting pizza boxes right now with the City of Denver because the cardboard is in high demand, right?
It is. So even though it's got a little bit on it, it's best to not have that grease or whatever. But you can't just go ahead and put it in there, right?
Try to clean up as much as you can. Dirty merve? Dirty merve? Yeah, dirty merve. We don't have a dirty merve, no.
In your opinion, do we ever see that happening? Because with dirty merve, the processing is so much more goes into it, right? The contaminants are higher. Dirty is just like it says, you bring anything in.
Can you share what a dirty merve is? Yeah, a dirty merve is where you can bring some of the products that we mentioned that shouldn't be coming in, all of that comes in. You know what I mean?
What's a merve stand for? Materials recovery facility. So thank you, Materials Recovery Facility. It's something about everything though, right? Yes.
So everything that comes through, it goes through there first. Right. And so it actually gets, and that would reduce. Right.
So those merve, Materials Recovery Facility, that were once considered dirty, they transitioned to cleaner merves by using optical sorters. So a lot of merves like we have, they are heavy manual with sorters separating.
But when you put optical processes in place, there are lasers that identify that recycling material. And it's almost like with air, it blows the good material this way and the unacceptable material this way.
So you're cleaning up the product through automation and artificial intelligence. Yeah.
Last thing is, and you did mention it on here, but I think one of the things that's really great about what the city is doing right now in recycling is actually the food. Yes. So you can put your uncooked broccoli, things like that, in with your lawn clippings. Right.
And that goes in, and then you're actually going, that's the grain containers, right? Right. That's up here that the restaurants are putting the food in it, and it's going into recycling as well. So, not recycling, excuse me.
It's not going into recycling. Well, it is being recycled, but let me just walk you through that process just quickly. So we have a program on Square for the food waste, right, which is becoming very, very popular around the country.
It does have a life at the end, when you say how, it's food going away. Well, once that's collected, there's a hopper that grinds everything up, right, and then it's deposited into a digester, an anaerobic digester.
The anaerobics help break it down even further. And then we're using it for, into our mulch system, right? Plus, there's methane gas that's developed from that. So we are, right now, we're finalizing another solicitation for our landfill gas, turning that gas, the landfill methane, into a viable gas that will feed into the atmosphere.
We're talking about, based on our last flow members that the consultant did for us, we're talking about 16 to 2,500 customers that benefit from the gas that's coming off the methane from the landfill.
So I tied that into the wastewater. That's where the food waste goes into the wastewater system, and then it digests and everything. That methane, along with the methane that's coming from the landfill, were tied in together to be processed.
So the clean methane we get, right? Only 70% of that is usable, because there's a lot of nitrogens and impurities in there. Once you remove those, 70% of that probably is pipeline, what the industry calls pipeline quality.
It's like crude oil, you got to get it ready for the pipeline. Same thing. But yeah, I'm glad you are kudos for noticing that.
No, it's great, because that keeps it out of the landfill, which we can move that 46.3 to 50 and further to keep working on that and doing another version.
And we visited some larger cities who are very successful. One is Houston. They actually have a reused store.
So, meaning when all this product come in, they solicit to the business owners, bring it to us, instead of taking it to the transfer station where it gets gobbled up and delivered to a landfill.
So they separated there and got a team that you can go and buy this stuff from them, whether it be, you know, say if you redo your roof, and you bought, you overspent, right?
And you don't feel like taking them two or three bags or boxes of shingles back to home people, and they sit in your garage and you wind up just throwing them away and they wind up in the landfill.
Well, their program, they solicit you to bring it to them. And you got a couple bags of shingles that are perfectly good.
You might want to build a dog house or something. I don't know and have them covered up, right?
But it's perfectly good because studies suggest that one single shingle takes about 30 years to break down. We don't want that in the landfill.
Yeah, I've been hearing about Davos, but they're dealing with that shingle mountain that they ravaged their dog.
And Dallas right now is trying to find someone that can recycle it. But once you've got a pile of it, it's hard to move it.
So I think we're in front of things and not accepting it and directing it somewhere else.
You know, you mentioned transfer stations, so we've got one coming in.
We do.
That shows the growth of debt.
We do, you know, as I've been speaking, which I'm going to lead project manager on that. And one of the things we looked at was typically you want to look at distance and congestion when you talk about transfer stations.
Don't really fit the bill from a distance perspective, but congestion is heavy. It's construction going on. This is a main artery going to Oklahoma and then South Texas. So we got the congestion. So it fits the bill.
But that's going to help us out tremendously instead of having each truck deliver, come back from that part of coal areas developed. And that's where, you know, our energy center is. Instead of having 20, 30 trucks, 40 trucks come per day back to the landfill.
They'll drop it at the transfer station and then haul trucks, 48 foot, 53 foot, track the trailer, walking floor trailers. So you can now eliminate all that traffic.
And then as it grows out, instead of the employees reporting in at the landfill, they'll report it at that section there. They'll do all the activities out there. Debt needs to grow.
In a few short years, we're going to have to ask the question, where's our second transfer station going? I mean, we're growing. But no, we thank you for noticing all those things. We're trying to stay on top of it.
Well, I was impressed before I heard this presentation, but I'm even more impressed now. And I mean, that chemical pickup at the curb is just huge.
You know, I lived in Austin for 25 years and their chemical pickup, you had to drive it all the way, way far south. It was open on Tuesday, like from two to six or so.
So to be able to have it picked up at your curb, that's great. And all this other stuff is really impressive.
We want to leave. So I opened the conversation. I'm saying we're the best. I really believe that I've worked in several municipalities. You know, they do this great, but everything else seems to be a burden.
I think we figured this thing out to make it most convenient for the customer. It's very impressive.
In addition to the chemicals, I've been installing like light bulbs and batteries and electronic things and large item pickups. And I've been able to schedule this through the Engage app. I know I say that every time, but it's just so convenient.
I really appreciate that. Thanks. Thank you for the great work. Yeah. Mr. Chair, may I ask a quick question?
So with the PDF, the disposal facility, and I totally see the other option is to have people go to the working face, which is a long drive out there.
And he's absolutely right. For someone who has ambulatory, visual or auditory limitations, it's not really a safe place to be.
You want to hear that big truck backing up. You want to hear the things around you and see the things around you.
So the PDF is wonderful. If someone goes out there and they need help unloading their vehicle, maybe it's just something that they got their neighbor to help them put them in the vehicle. They just need help getting it out. Is that an option for them at the PDF?
You know, so I would say no. I would say no. I wouldn't encourage that because, you know, so we don't have employees just, everyone's tasked and typically they're on a heavy piece of equipment moving things, right? That's why we press so hard on location at your property.
You know, because if you think about it, it's really minimal to the customer because instead of loading it up into your vehicle and driving it to the landfill, going through traffic, you know, it's a lot going on out there, right?
When it's as simple as wherever you put your car at, at the house, just put it next to it. That's the, you know, we found that that's the most convenient option. And it's the safest option.
Nobody wants to be in line at the landfill.
7 a.m. at the landfill is a line.
And then try on a Monday, on a Monday morning, or after a huge weather event, right? Everybody's trying to get rid of things. And the lines are, you know, we've got a process now where we can get, we can get people through, right?
But it's so much more convenient. It's going engaged and happening sitting right next to your container and come by and pick it up, you know, have a great day out of sight.
So we're really trying, again, really trying to streamline our all processes. That's why Dusty's team is, they're continuing to do audits because I think that with that 206, that number we had now, I think over time, that number can really shrink.
It's almost, it's like this, and I'll finalize and say this. It's almost like when nobody's watching, everything's going off.
But now we put these processes in, and we start auditing, and we start asking questions, and we do an application process. We got, we didn't get but a few, well, we got half the applications back in time, and then we granted some extensions.
But finally we had to say this is it. Either you qualify for the program or you don't. You know, and that, you know, that really, that really helped us out.
From the vehicle and the safety side, Dusty's guys, what they were doing was, now I think about it, every time they get out of the house that shouldn't be getting the service, they're getting it in and out of the vehicle.
That's four times, well, three times, two times. They're getting out, taking the can, bringing it, gotta go back up and get back in the truck.
We have high entry, most of our trucks are high entry. There's a slip and fall risk every time. So we're trying to minimize and eliminate those as well. So that number is impressive where we are now.
But can we squeeze them a little bit tighter? I think so. It's just through accountability and making sure that the customers are receiving who should.
I would guess most of the abuse just comes from people moving and then someone else moving in, oh wow, they come up and take my trash, how nice, you know.
Exactly right. A lot of that happens. Sometimes it happens because a relative will move in and, you know, we get complaints all the time.
A relative will move in and as the guys, young ladies, they go up and grab the container, somebody's waving at them, hello, how you doing, the outside playing.
Then it brings a question, wait a minute, why are we doing this when there's a really disabled person? We kind of brainstorm about this and we say, you know, I want to identify the customers who really need this.
We put more focus on that and then eliminate the ones that don't. We haven't had any complaints with somebody saying I need this and you don't provide it.
With the application process. So we are revamping that application process. We're networking with customer service and we've already started getting research in.
But to the part that Daniel, you were talking about, you know, is this necessary each year? We will have something final on that here in the coming weeks.
Because, great point, if the situation is not changing, if we're not changing, what do we expect to change where you have to go back to the doctor.
I think it puts more burden on that customer.
It's a great point and I was looking at long term and I'm glad you separated those out because somebody's got a short leg and just can't get out there at all.
Six weeks, two months, they'll be back at it. It's that long term and having that person keep coming to go back and filling out the forms and going back in, I know it's every 18 months, but even with that.
And then some people forget. And that's why I was asking how to communicate.
You know, so, you know, point taken. During the first year, you know, it was lessons learned, but we, trust me, we've continued to improve this process.
You'll see change in the next one.
I just wanted to ask when it comes to when you have someone like a grant center that moves in, how rigorous is that investigation because I mean you said like we see someone that's out in the yard, well that could just be someone visiting.
Typically, the drivers will report that and say they see it all the time. You know, people come to visit. You know, if it's the same, typically it's the same drivers for a block of time. When I say a block of time, it could be a few months. I'm noticing the same encounters here, and then we'll just, you know, and we don't directly knock on doors, who's living here?
You know, but we will have customer service through that process reach out and just send them some information and say hey, listen, can you read? But we've had zero of those since prior to this, we had a lot of them.
I believe once someone's on and they're getting a service, you just don't know we're not, we're here, we're service providers in the city, we're trying to figure this out.
But we've had zero of them. Prior to, before we had, we had the yellow lids and things like that. I mean it was a constant occurrence. I think once we provided the rules and the parameters, we haven't had a problem.
No problems.
Did you have any more questions? No.
Thank you all. Thank you so much.
[inaudible]
Yes.
Thank you so much for having me. My name is Jennifer Becker, I'm the director of libraries.
I am just going to give you a little highlight of some of the changes. I think we were here between 22 and 2020. So, if you have any questions about any library services, please don't hesitate to ask.
I'm just going to touch on a few highlights particularly about accessibility to library services and facilities. And I'm also really here for input. So, we're always, we call it the continuous cycle of improvement.
So, I'm always looking for input. Since the last time we were here, we have an update to our library strategic plan. We went through that process throughout 2022.
And we solicited feedback and focus groups, public meetings, online survey. And the feedback we got was pretty similar to the feedback we got three years prior to that when we did our previous one. So, there's not a whole lot of change with our strategic plan.
Our mission statement remains that the Denton Public Library transforms lives, strengthens community, and inspires imagination. We had a few tweaks to our strategic priorities and goals.
Our vision statement was pretty steady. And then the values that we heard back from were modified a little bit from community input also.
So, generally, what we heard back was we're doing a pretty good job. So, keep on trucking. Keep moving forward. Some of the feedback we got was, and we were not shocked at this, more programs. Everybody loves more programs and activities.
We heard a lot of feedback about we need more and better marketing. We hear regularly when we go anywhere the phrase, "I didn't know y'all did that. I didn't know you had that."
And some of the feedback we had was very specific that we need to do a better job of pushing that information out. And so, we've tried to include that with our action items.
This is our one-pager for our strategic plan. Behind this, the real meat of it is we have action items. And each year we identify 20 to 25-ish. Sometimes we have big eyes and we start our list with 35 and we have to pull it back to reasonable, what we can really accomplish.
Each year we identify some goals that we're going to complete or begin working on. Some of them are multi-year goals. And all of this information can be found on our library website.
When you go to the website, there is a link that says our mission and our strategic plan, information about the process for developing it was there, and a link to our strategic plan dashboard, which we use the same software that other departments use. And that's where we have those action items entered.
You can always go on there and check to see where is that project? What's the status? Has it started? Is it on track? Is it behind? A little bit more details about those.
So a few highlights I wanted to talk about for 2024 are we have a lot of building activity, which is nice because our buildings are a little older. Northbridge celebrated her 20-year anniversary as a library last summer. Prior to that, she was a food-buying grocery store.
So the building's been around for a little while, and she's getting a pretty big facelift this year. So throughout the year, if you come to Northbridge, be aware that there may be disruption.
We are, all sorts of things are happening, and some of it is from feedback that you provided as a committee at some of our prior visits. So next week, actually, they're going to take down, it was originally built as a moving wall by the public restrooms that doesn't move anymore.
The motor has burned out, and they're going to build that as a wall with a window so we can keep an eye on activity around the corner. And inside the building, there is a set of very heavy, giant glass doors.
And the button for the automatic opener, half the time, is not working. So one door is always propped open. It's going away. And so that will literally no longer be a barrier to entry, which we are very excited about.
So that project is going to kick off next week. It's going to take a few weeks to finalize. What we're going to have instead is when we close, we have a pull-down gate kind of like at the department store.
We're very excited that there will be, you don't have to be he-man to open our doors to get in.
Everything in that building almost is going to be touched. It's going to have all new flooring, all new lighting system, new roof.
We're going to do some rearrangement during that process also that we think is going to help in terms of improving service and accessibility of our resources. If you haven't been in North Branch for a while, we have computers throughout the building in little pockets.
So if you're over here, here's a set of four to eight computers, or there's some over here and some over here. And way in the back is the print release station, which requires a lot of back and forth if you're doing work.
And if you need assistance, especially if you're on one of those computers in the back, you're taking a lot of steps to come up to a service desk to ask for assistance and then to get back.
We're going to move all of those computers near the service desk with the printer and copier right next to it. So it's going to be easier and more convenient. It's also going to be more convenient if you need assistance, since it's by the service desk, you can call someone over.
Oh, I'm out of order. So North Branch, a lot of improvements happening there. At Emily Feller Central Library, we are getting a new conference room and three study rooms downstairs.
The study rooms are hot property in the libraries and all three branches there in perpetual use, we cannot get enough. Emily Feller currently has two study rooms upstairs, and those will be repurposed to hold the municipal archive, which is great because
the Feller Central Library was built in a floodplain, which is perfect for your irreplaceable historical documents.
So we are moving those up.
Knock on wood, fake wood. We have not had an incident that has water in the building, but we just want to take that extra precaution. Of course the municipal archive does truly have irreplaceable historical documents, and we want to make sure to take care of those.
If we lose anything, but if we have to lose anything, computers are insured and replaceable. So all the computers are downstairs, and right by where the computers are, we're going to have a new conference room, about 10 to 12 people can fit in there.
It's going to have mobile furniture, so it can be reconfigured in a variety of ways, and three study rooms. So we're increasing from two study rooms to three study rooms downstairs.
Those rooms, when we met with the designer, the architectural designers, one of the things we talked about was accessibility. Our current study rooms in all three locations are not accessible.
They are teeny tiny rooms with counters built in at north and south, or at Fowler and South. There's little room for maneuverability. At North Branch, they are teeny tiny rooms with a giant table that no one can maneuver around.
So if you are in a wheelchair, a scooter, or have a walker, it's very challenging to use those rooms.
These rooms have been designed with a variety of abilities, being able to get in. You should be able to come in in a full wheelchair, do full turnarounds, you can do spins if you like, and not be affected by the furniture that's in there.
We are very excited about that. So that is coming later this spring. We've been told it will be done by summer.
Will that go into the staff area? Where are you going to get the room?
The space has already been carved out. Currently, we just have some tables as fillers, so it doesn't look so bad. But when you go into Emily Fowler and turn right, where the computers are, along the back wall, the red wall there, that's where it's going to be.
The conference room will stick out, almost like an L, and then the study rooms will be towards the side. So we are very excited about that project. We've been waiting four years for it.
So it's coming. It's really happening. Our outreach librarian, Haley Phillips, had a fabulous idea to try to connect with community members who may not be able to visit the library.
And she has made a proposal to our friends of the library organization who accepted and agreed. We were so excited about that. But they are going to begin a project this year. It's a pilot project. They have agreements with three residential facilities.
One is the Cumberland Children's Homes, and one is Denton State School. They are working through that. And then there is another facility with people who just are unable to come, whether it's a physical barrier or a transportation barrier.
And we are going to provide materials to those places, almost like a tiny library, if you will, on site. The friends are going to help us with delivering those things, so it is updated quarterly, so they have fresh content.
So you don't have to come to the library. These are books that can be put back on their shelves or residents can keep them. They're just going to be replenished. So they don't need to be checked out. There's no time limit. But we're making sure that materials are going out to those who may have transportation or mobility issues that hinder library visits.
We are also applying for a couple grants. We actually applied for funding with the friends, and they supported a project, and we are finalizing it right now. It is through Culture City, so we will be a sensory-inclusive library system.
And what that means is there will be an app, and they're developing it right now with our photos. So you can take a virtual tour of the libraries. You can see it from the parking lot all the way through. What does the bathroom look like? Will that work for me? What does this look like? How do I get around?
So you can take a virtual tour. It also includes, we're going to have some sensory kits. So for individuals or families with individuals who maybe have sensory sensitivities or are neurodivergent, things like noise-canceling headphones, I think there's a weighted blanket, a few fidget items. So those are available for use in the library when anybody comes.
And then we are in the midst of writing a grant, so we're hopeful we will get the funding for some new furnishings, particularly for North Branch that would be more accessible. We're looking at our catalog stations where they can have height-adjustable stands.
So no matter if you are the little kid who's trying to reach up there and do it, or if you are the super tall adult, or if you are in a wheelchair, whatever your comfort level or situation is, they should be height-adjustable so anyone can access and search for materials.
We are also looking at, to go system-wide, some technology such as voice-to-text technology or text-to-speech technology. We found a product where it's a laptop that somebody can use in the building. It comes with a headset also, and they can use a study room and speak, and it's going to type or vice versa.
We've had situations where people with visual impairment have come in and they need something typed, and it's a legal document, and they need something typed, and there's no one who can help them, and they need the service.
So we're looking at those kinds of things to include in that grant that hopefully we will get. It's due later this spring, and we'll find out later this summer. The funding, if we are approved, would begin in the fall of next year.
So those are kind of the highlights, highlight updates. All of our information can be found on our website. We also do a lot of posting on social media, so if you don't follow us, please do, and I mentioned you can find our strategic plan dashboard on our website, and I encourage everyone to take a look at that and see what's going on in our updates.
But I'm really seeking input from you as a committee about accessibility considerations, suggestions for services, or suggestions for facility improvements as we do look forward.
We have coming soon, it will be here before we know it, South Branch 2.0 is our joking name for it, but the proposition to replace our current South Branch passed in November, so I believe the design for that project is scheduled for fiscal year 26-27 is what we're looking at.
If the Ryan Road project happens sooner, then it may scoot up, but that's where it is right now. So as we have a blank slate to consider with this whole new branch, which is a really great opportunity to make sure we get everything right the first time, as opposed to doing renovations.
So we are always looking for suggestions, ideas, whether it's recommendations we can take back to facilities for our existing facilities, or as we're planning ahead for South Branch.
So I'm ready for any feedback or questions.
On the chairs, last time you all came, the chairs was one of the bigger things, along with the study rooms. So you said you're going to have adjustable chairs, is that correct?
They're adjustable height catalog stands. So when you come in to use the library currently, if you're searching for a book, those are all on very high counters, or on stands that are standing height.
There is one at least one station at each location that's truly it's just a computer station for sit down. It's none of these are perfect.
And so we're looking for furniture that you could walk in and press the up or down button, it would be electronic, and you can adjust the height of that OPEC stand to where you need whatever your situation and it is and I think that's an improvement for everyone.
I've seen very tall people stooping to try to do that but also somebody who's shorter and has trouble with that and if somebody in a wheelchair or with a walker they're bumping up against things.
So height adjustable is great, and it can fit whatever the need is for chairs we are looking for a variety of chairs we've gotten some feedback from some of our regular users for computer chairs, we have somebody who uses a wheelchair but she likes to transfer to a chair to use a computer,
and she said, no wheels, but also she needs arms. So, that is a huge need. So we're, but we have other users who don't need our arms are an impediment.
So we're looking at having a variety as we look at that grant for furniture, it includes computer station furniture. So we're looking at a variety of chairs for that, some that have wheels some that don't some that have arms some some that don't.
And I think that's the key is we've always. We've traditionally thought of, I always need 100 of this one kind of chair, but maybe I need 25 of these and 25 of these and 25 of these. And what's great is manufacturers are producing here's the style.
You have all of the options. Why can't we pick our style one style, and then we just get a bunch of the options. And so, so we're looking at doing that and I know that we have those high schools by the table by the fireplace and those are nice and that was another thing somebody said is to be sure to include the high school.
So,
it has a lot of things that a lot of people don't know about.
Our library system is one of those, they have a globe forage.
branch, all that going on over there. We have our genealogy going on and Emily Fowler, which you know the floodplain really kind of like.
That's why we moved all the special collections upstairs are the municipal archive is the last lingering bit.
The, you know, I'll get South Branch in a second, but the fact that we have the transfer, because we have your slides and your movies and things like that you can go and you can take home their time, and Emily Fowler transferred in real time, I was told that several times it's in real time, yeah we want to make that clear.
We are moving South Branch though because I heard it was actually staying in the same spot which actually.
It's moving nearby but slightly better position. When you think about Denton, we have 35, and then it splits like this.
So when you look at that split South Branch is way over here in this corner it's not really serving that slice of the pie.
So, the location we're looking at is just slightly over it's a mile is the crow flies it's on Ryan Road, and so it's just slightly over. It's going to be a better location one because there's space.
It's not on Teasley anymore that's another challenge we have was Teasley is a beast. You, good luck turning left, and we also once you're in the library if you need to turn left you're really turning right and then you're going down and turning around later.
So, it's going to still be on Ryan Road is a nice strong artery, but it's more pleasant, more controllable I say that as they're about to rip it up.
It's, it's not as chaotic as Teasley. And so we think that it's going to be as easy to get much easier to get to. It's going to be visible because it's a major right still, and so we won't lose that visibility but I think we're going to gain more accessibility.
And, you know, right now, if you are a bike rider you take your life into your own hands. If you're trying to get a south branch if you are a walker. Yeah, but this new location.
It's, it's going to serve all that we're very excited we're also going to be a mix of trail connections, it's going to be beautiful. Yeah.
And it's getting in the way for that fire department so that would be great. Yes, they're doing their own thing. We love fire department Chief Hedges.
But talk about accessibility though, and accessibility to the libraries. I have two things one hotspots.
The last time I checked for hotspots they were all checked out.
I think that'd be great for, I don't know if we have it in the budget or needs to be in a budget somewhere but hotspots, more hotspots would be great to get that accessibility.
The other part of accessibility is, so we're rebuilding, you know, like you said, South Branch 2.0. When are we going to start getting other ones?
So we do have in our long long term plan, fourth branch, which would be in that coal hunter area that development land is already set aside.
We know generally it's going to be near two schools, and I do not remember, it's gone through so many variations it was either a high school and elementary or middle and high, but it's going to be near two schools so very convenient
for those students who want to come over after school.
And I believe it'll be paired also there will be a giant rec center next to it was the plan. The land is already set aside as part of that development deal.
But we're looking at that, that development needs to be built up and have some residents in there before it's started.
So the earliest we're looking to see anything like that would be somewhere in the 2030s. And so, and it would have to go to a bond election for the construction.
So nothing out by station set.
You got vintage. Yeah.
That's growing out like crazy over that area. And, and the one on Ryan. That's a trip up and then back down to get to that library.
So, it is when years ago, many years ago.
The city had a much more neighborhood vision, the city was much smaller.
So it would have these small pocket libraries, nor at that time North Branch was seen as this gigantic thing and the plan was to have these small neighborhood libraries, but as the city has grown, we've switched parts of switch to a more regional system viewpoint.
We can have a larger facility that does a lot more that offers a lot more that is much more efficient to staff can provide more efficient services.
So, instead of having those small, which at one time, there was going to be a small location over there.
We were putting it all into larger facilities. So this South Branch is going to basically double its size go from 21,000 square feet to 40,000 square feet facility.
That's how we can have things like another maker space, more community meeting rooms, which are in high demand and those kinds of things. We can continue to operate at a seven day a week.
Open hours, because we can staff that large facility like that's cheaper to staff one larger facility than two smaller ones.
So that's the change there. There's that one and then there's the one that's on there's the loop, and that's growing out a lot more on that side of town as well.
Anybody who wants to go, they're going to have to make that trek down McKinney to try to get over to the library.
Yeah, we anticipate we'll probably end up doing another long range master plan sometime towards the end of the 2020s or early 2030s, which will lead us out and kind of what we're seeing right now without an official study is any fifth location would probably be more towards the Northeast East area.
I just had a couple of little things and they're more nifty than anything.
Consideration of like your foreign and carpeting, it's not too busy.
I mean, obviously you have to be able to step things up.
There's a wall coming forward to have that a little bit more common.
Yeah, yeah, or just things that are just okay like maybe not the 90s bus print right like we've seen the bussy print right like maybe something that's just a little bit more less overwhelming.
Yeah.
And then just like just one.
Well, and then that's a question. Is that is that being considered when we're building 2.0 and the upgrades that are happening in the North Branch. Is that going into those considerations going into.
So, the carpet, I believe, for the replacement, it's kind of that you always want something that's dark and has a little grainy to it. I hide the dirt. It's a public building. And so it's a pretty generic kind of similar to what is there this kind of blue it kind of has some gradient to it, but there's no big pattern.
Yeah, the big stripe that are alternating. Yeah.
Yeah.
And so it's a little bit more like that and then some of the rooms at North are going to have luxury vinyl flooring.
Because like the maker space. And when you're dealing with the cricket machine there's these teeny tiny little pieces of gluey paper that vacuuming does not suck up. So, but a sweeper or a backwood shot back with on a hard floor.
Same thing in the children's story time room things that glitter happens. And it's easier to sweep it up and vacuum it up for six months. Yes. And we're looking at that also for that public meeting room to we have some interesting stains on this floor.
So if we can wipe them up that would be much better. And so I'll double check with what the North branch team of facilities are looking at. And because everything's still up in the air that hardcore say hardcore for us it's going to be insane.
The flooring, the big stuff that's anticipated to occur sometime in early May, because it is going to result in us having to close that branch for about a week or so, and to move that shelving has to be moved and there's so many details with that.
So, for safety, we're going to end up closing it. So it's a while out so there's still plenty of time to design so I will make sure that we're double checking on that.
I have comments and a question. One comment is just about the ebooks. I feel like, anytime I try to go and look for ebooks regularly, one of my daughters listens to the audio book sorry not ebooks, audio books.
She just can't really ever find what we're looking for. So I don't know. I think we just recently switched services again to a different audio book provider. We have two products.
They're both great but they both have, well, I'd say one has a child. So we have, gosh, several years ago, seven years ago or so, we switched from Overdrive to CloudLibrary. And CloudLibrary we switched because Overdrive was charging us $12,000 a year for the pleasure of doing business with Overdrive.
And I'd rather put that money into content. And that's the number one feedback we heard, you need more stuff, more stuff, more stuff. So, we switched to CloudLibrary and the other benefit with CloudLibrary is we're part of a cloud link consortium with this, all CloudLibrary libraries in Texas.
So our 18,000 item collection suddenly is 250,000 items. CloudLibrary, you can make a suggestion on there and 99% of the time we add it. If it's available, we're going to purchase it.
That's the majority of our digital selection is done through recommendations. So when you go on the app and there's a little part, I think it has a link for, make a suggestion, suggest it. And we'll try to get it.
And when we get it, I think there's an option to notify me when it's available and you'll get an email so you don't even have to keep checking.
Hoopla is our other product, and it's the gift that keeps giving. It's so good, but it's too good.
So that one is a little different. CloudLibrary is just like a physical book. When I check it out, you place it on hold.
We have to purchase X number of copies. And also digital material is about double or triple the price of physical material. So it's just publishers. They have great deals.
So Hoopla is different in that they have agreements with publishers, movie studios, TV studios, music studios, or music companies, and just the entire catalog is available.
We have a finite budget. We have about $100,000 a year that we put into Hoopla. And that $100,000 divided by 365 days a year is the daily allotment.
The cost per checkout with Hoopla ranges from $0.49 to $2.99. So once that daily money is used up, you have to wait till midnight. So we're getting a lot of turnaways right now.
The usage of Hoopla has exponentially increased. One of our concerns is it's not a matter of just adding budget to it. Over the summer, because we had issues with our print vendors, we had some extra money to play with in the summer, we put that into Hoopla.
So for three months during the summer, we increased our Hoopla allotment by $5,000 a month. And we still had turnaways. So I think that's the one that we've been trying to use.
So try the club library. And if you don't see the title that you want in there, just suggest it and we'll see if we can purchase it.
Yeah, or if you're a very early bird. But we're seeing, at this moment in time, we're seeing turnaways as early as 630 a.m. And what we think is it's also, it's like when we had the runs during COVID on materials, people were, I think what we're seeing is that, uh-oh, I don't know if I can get in later, so I'm going to check out my whole month's worth of five items now.
So now you've used that daily allotment so much. But chances are, because it's in a month, in a four-week period, are you going to listen to five e-books? They only run at a certain, you can, you can change the speed, yes, changes the experience, but still, probably you run through two, but because you're worried, or maybe you want options, you've checked out all five, but that's filled up the day.
So we're worried that that's happening too. We just switched earlier today. We are allot, our range that was available for purchase was that lowest up to 399 today. We switched it to 299. Nobody's going to see a difference. You're still going to see whatever you see, so it's not pulling a service away.
So we're hoping that might make a tiny difference. If not, the monthly checkouts, they have to go from five to three. We're hoping not to reduce that visible part of the service, but right now, yeah, it's, like I said, it's the gift that keeps giving. It's so popular, which is great, but yeah, we do not advertise it anymore.
So we just, I recommend cloud library.
Question really quick. If we had, I work at UNT and we have a large number of books that have been gifted to us that we sort of don't know what to do with, and I hate the idea of throwing books away. It just makes me like, ill.
So I didn't know if you had any ideas about what people do with.
It's probably like 2000 books, some of them are children's books like, I don't want to. And they're in good condition. Many of them are in good condition and some of them are older but still in good condition. If they were like falling apart or, you know, no dude or something like that we would throw them away but they're, they're fine they're just not something that we have the room to key.
Let me get your contact info and I'll reach out to the friends of the library. They have a book sale coming up in February, so they might be interested in a little bit more stock, and I was thinking like if you're doing something with the Presbyterian Children's Home or something like, maybe they could use some of these children's books, or possibly for that moving stories project or something.
So let me get your contact info, and then I'll get you connected with Haley on the library side and the friends on their side and we'll see if we can take a few off.
And what about qualifications for volunteer opportunities? Anyone can volunteer, well, anyone, teens and adults, so we don't have children's but teens and adults, and volunteering is pretty simple. We have orientations once a month. They're in our list of programs and events, and we rotate them between the locations.
I can tell you, this is our year one of our strategic action items is to completely revamp how we're doing our volunteer orientations, communications and things, because we're so excited we're about to move into the 21st century and use a software.
I know, as opposed to the old paper. But right now, the process is you would attend one of the orientations, they hand out the paperwork, you fill out the old physical form, and then we coordinate with you about what your interest is and we try to customize every volunteer experience.
And what branch you want to work at, if you're flexible, don't care. So, we have volunteer opportunities for, like I said, 11 through adult, 11 through 17 goes through the teen volunteer program and 18 and up goes through the adult.
We do a lot of teen volunteers in the summer, and parents like to keep them busy, and we like their help. They often help at our summer reading club register. Well, we do online registration but information table and prize table.
So they distribute the prizes, they may help prep materials for story times, cut things out, prep the felt boards. Sometimes, you know, we're just looking for somebody who'd be willing to greet people, or, you know, hey, can I help you release your punch job, you know, hanging out here, can I help you with that.
Or, you know, like I said, that one on one relationship where if somebody comes in, and maybe you see them at the puzzle table somebody could come up to them and say, Hey, did you know the library also has these programs, he's a program player.
So we're always looking for a variety of ways.
Yes, we always have shelving.
It never goes away.
But that's not for everyone. My older daughter is autistic, and she volunteered at the North British Library as a teen and a young adult and they were, they were so lovely with her and there's a really nice like pre-employment opportunity for her to like go somewhere every week and have a thing that she was responsible for.
So we have a lot of wonderful volunteers. We have a lot of seniors who are really into genealogy and I tell you, they drive a lot of that genealogy documentation work that happens in the background.
When you go to the genealogy part of our website, there's things like the very ancient cemetery records. Somebody had to key that info in and it's time consuming and those volunteers are a constant, just so helpful to be able to put that information together so now it's available for everyone, for whoever needs it.
And so we try to customize our interest, whatever it is you're interested in doing, or if people aren't sure what we do that they, that might be an option we kind of walk them through here some common things any of this hitting, hitting what you want.
We are looking like I said at modifying that with the software that should make things much easier so you can do the registration online and just fill out the form. We're looking at possibly doing some of the orientation processes of video that you can watch and it would let us know when you completed that.
So maybe you wouldn't have to come into the library to listen to our spiel. But, so over then, over 2024 you'll see some changes. That'd be great because it was a little complicated sometimes to get her to the training opportunity or the volunteer orientation.
Yeah, because that way they know who's coming and they can sometimes they send the paperwork out beforehand for those who want to start working on it.
And you'll do a criminal background check to city requires him.
Public community library meeting or this meeting, but it seems like I remember people talking about concern about kids are living like just outside the dead in city limits and I know that we're a city event, of course, but just providing like this new outreach person,
are they doing anything to incorporate kids especially that are in just outside the city limits. So, we have a couple of options available for families with kids who live outside the city limits.
So if you live inside the city limits, from birth through the end, you get a free full service library card, check out 75 items access all this stuff, we're good to go. If you're outside the city limits, because we are funded so for many grants solely from municipal property taxes.
There's a non resident fee for adults, kids don't choose where they live, mom or dad does. So we want to make sure kids always have access to materials. So ages zero through 17 can always get something called a youth courtesy card.
And we've had that since 2004 when the non resident fee was instituted.
One of the things we talked about several years ago was, that's great. What about the kids who are in Denton ISD maybe in the special needs program, who are older, they may be 18 to 22.
They're in the limbo period. And so several years ago, 2020 actually, we instituted the Denton ISD student card. So any student who is with Denton ISD when their parents are guarding is enrolling them, the parent can opt in, that they would get a library card, it's the same as the youth courtesy card so you can check out three items at a time, access all the digital stuff.
And once a parent opts in, the school, once they verify their enrollment stuff sends us the information and the parent or guardian can activate that account.
And we've been doing that since 2020. And this year I'm about to take to council an expansion for Denton ISD employees, because we also hear from teachers or teacher aides, I need materials for my students.
So we're taking that to council, it's already been approved by the school board, they would get the same thing, check out three items, access the digital materials.
So, those are always available to make sure everybody has access, anybody can walk into our building, anybody can use a computer, we offer technology cards for free, we don't care, you can live in California, Oklahoma, whatever, but to check items out, you would need a card.
So we offer those options. For outreach, our outreach is mainly within the city limits. We have a couple schools that are kind of on the border, that we do some outreach with the schools and clinic with them, but generally we're within the city limits.
I think there was somebody maybe suggested like a library bus that could go out to some of the areas, like what you're talking about in schools, right? I don't know if that was anything that was ever discussed or not, but it just seemed like I remembered that.
Yeah, this time, because we are the library, but to bring books out. To bring books out. Yeah, so that would be an additional service and right now our outreach is in such demand within our service area, and we have Haley.
She's fabulous, but she is one person.
So at this time, we're keeping it just what we're able to sustain within the city limits. There are a couple of the mobile home parks that are, you would swear are within the city, but there's a pocket where they are.
And so we do try to coordinate with them a couple, a few times we've done some outreach at those, because they're in the window, they're really outside but technically they are in the pocket.
So we try to do that. But our main focus is within the city limits and the school district.
Thank you. If you have any other feedback to Carlotta and Ryan, and they can pass it on to XT.
Thanks to chair so this is just a quick, bring them back your list of issue priorities for 2024. We had this discussion in November.
I want to apologize, I wanted to post this as an action item for votes.
I did not post it that way I posted as a discussion item so you can still give us your direction we'll bring it back next time for a vote action item that we often actually set it in stone.
These are our issues for this year. I was just a goof on my part.
So, kind of the same stuff I told you before background. This committee advises the council going to get out of the way of this TV on disability concerns accessibility accommodations and generally that applies to city projects and activities
but not necessarily the specific areas that are in that ordinance that established the committee that are part of this committee's charge are all right here and it's pretty broad.
So, anything that relates to city services, and where those services or operations intersect with issues concerning persons with disabilities.
Fair game. That's pretty broad and the one thing that I do want to share is that we can also look at the operations of other entities.
You know we can, a staff we can invite them to come we can work on the schedule and bring them in. We have a lot less ability to impact what they take away or how they use your input, but we can absolutely request that they come in, explain their services, talk about what they do, and we've done that and we'll continue to do that.
So, this is just the 2023 issue priorities brought back last time. This is what the committee recommended about a year ago that we look at in 2023. This is what staff added around the right and anything that's bolded is what we actually got to and had discussions on there were a few things we didn't get to we didn't have a number of meetings last year due to forum issues that we normally would have, but we wanted to make sure that we got to everything at least the committee wanted and made sure we covered that.
Now this is what we heard from our last meeting what the committee wanted to discuss and what staff is designed to add to that in terms of our 2024 priorities. A follow up from GoZone, and I didn't get every bit of detail that you guys mentioned but bringing them in for some questions about the app, drop offs, library accommodations which we just heard about today, library volunteer opportunities which you did get an update and we will bring parks in to do the same thing.
And possibly talk about some of the new facilities they have coming online as part of that 2023 bond program. So part of that is the senior center. They do have some other parks projects planned. Solid waste services assistance program, we gave that to you today as well.
Signaling, particularly intersection signaling, and we will likely tie this together with maybe one of our pedestrian updates, sidewalk pedestrian updates, and I think the main thrust of that was when do we decide an intersection needs a signal, what type of signal goes in, you know, and kind of tying into what we did downtown, you know, are we able to have an all stop or an all way crossing at a signal beyond downtown.
And I'll just share that initially there were discussions about doing that, particularly over in the highly pedestrian areas on Hickory Street, you know, where the bars are, but there are probably lots of other opportunities around town where that might make sense, particularly in some of our more commercial corridors, University Drive being a big one.
Emergency management, always a hot topic, particularly in the wintertime. But I think what we talked about doing is our emergency manager is out on a deployment. He's in the Navy, he's reserves, and he will get back in March.
And so I think bringing him when kind of his planning period gears up, and once we're kind of through the storm season, maybe a summer discussion is more appropriate for that. But we'll try to get him in as soon as we can, as soon as he comes back.
We do have a very capable backup, but she's doing the job to people right now. So, plus he is our key person, I want to make sure he's here for it.
MHMR services, kind of an update on what they provide and what they offer the community. And then another follow up from community shelter. When you first heard from them, I think they've been only open, maybe a month.
It might have been less than that.
Everything was a very new, and so just an update on kind of what their operations have been like, you know, anything that they do to make accommodations for persons with disabilities, what folks who are experiencing homelessness, again, where homelessness and disabilities, where those things intersect, what space do they fill there?
And the staff has added kind of our usual slate of updates on the ADA transition plan, construction design input when we have big projects coming through that impact particularly sidewalk and pedestrian users. And if it's all right, Jennifer, when we have that design project for the library, maybe we're at 30% design or something around there, do we have you back?
Yeah, that would be great.
And do the same thing for parks and maybe some of those bond projects as well, when we start getting into the design phase of those. The adaptive right program, we've gotten the habit of doing two updates a year on that, and then our sidewalk and pedestrian updates.
Again, we're on with our sidewalk program and kind of what is on the slate to do next as we kind of come up on the construction year. So particularly with that one, talking about in the spring, hey, this is what we plan to do, then coming back in the fall, once the big construction season is over, hey, this is what we did.
In the summertime, you know, once it stops raining, that's when we really get going with a lot of sidewalk work.
So this is our current issue priorities. If I had not messed up, we would take a vote on this and lock it in. But since I did mess up, I can take any additional direction from the committee.
But I will actually, Carlotta would bring this back in our next meeting for a vote. It can be that that vote can be changed at any point in time. But I do like having this committee give us kind of that strong direction. This is where we want you as staff. These are the issues we want to talk about. So I'll go back to this one and happy to take any, any direction from the committee. This looks good. Great. We'll roll with it. But if we have anything else, we can change it.
>> Is the city advertising currently for our new wheel person, the bicycle disability specialist position?
>> Yeah, the bike, ped coordinator/ADA coordinator, yes. It still is on the street. If you recall the first time when we hired that, it did take a pretty aggressive and quite frankly long recruitment period because it's such a very specialized position.
And then when we had him, he was great. He knew way more than I did. And he was very knowledgeable in that space. When he left, we reposted the position, we're still recruiting for it. But we are still actively trying to hire that person.
>> I mean, I fit it, but I really don't know. It's such a tough fit. I mean, those two things together. And like I would tell the guys that had the position, I'd be like, you know, don't be so hard on yourself that you don't have the ADA part of it down because that's what the committee does.
You know, we just need somebody to guide us and to kind of lead us and to follow up, follow up down recommendations that we make, but don't feel like, you know, so I just wish that there was, you know, some way we could get that across because it's a tough fit.
>> And it may be good to maybe in our next meeting to invite R.N., he's our new transportation planner. So this position would report to him. If anything, to introduce him to the committee, of course, he oversees that, you know, and with this position not being filled, he's taking that on.
But you can kind of be a little bit more familiar how we are handling our transportation planning, which includes a lot of our bike pedestrian planning as well, sidewalk pedestrian planning as well. If that's cool with you, Carlotta.
>> Carlotta, the new Ryan.
>> As of 5 o'clock today, Carlotta will be the new Ryan.
>> Thank you.
>> Ryan's going to be around for a little while.
>> Ryan will be lurking in the shadows always.
Just when you're not looking, I'll just come around.
Any other thoughts on what we have slated up yet?
>> Can we get, so, you know, I keep asking about this sidewalk. It's west of, it never happens. It's west of Albertsons on universities outside of university.
I keep asking, I keep following it up. Last time I said, what can I do? And he said, I don't know.
So can we get someone from TechStop to come in? Because it's a TechStop project.
I'm just tired of spinning my wheels, you know, on this thing literally.
They have a ramp going up from each side of it, but then there's nothing.
>> We can absolutely request that they come in. Yeah, absolutely.
>> Well, I mean, there's that right there, but there is nothing, if I recall it, on that street coming from those apartments, going toward the university.
There's nothing there. There's a side piece to that either.
>> You're right. We did. Good point.
>> I think, I suspect, I don't want to speak blue, TechStop's plan may have been to wait for that site to develop.
And perhaps that was, they thought it would come a little sooner than it has.
But that is certainly a significant gap in a highly, highly traveled vehicular street.
There's probably more technical work for it. But it's busy.
And you don't want someone's option to try to hug the curb on the road.
>> Yes, we can absolutely send that request out there.
Because the back back there is growing out like crazy.
You've got a target coming in, all that is coming in back there.
But that little spot right there, you know what you're saying, right there.
>> Maybe it's cursed.
>> And I'd like to see like one of those, like we have down on McKinney here where you push the button to cross.
I'd like to see one of those at Emory and Bonnie Bray.
>> McKinney and which intersection?
>> City Hall.
>> Yeah, yeah, City Hall coming like over to Oak Street.
>> Oh, a pedestrian gap.
>> Yeah, that's what I'd like to see.
>> You had me at Oak Street.
No, I know exactly what you're talking about.
Just where it's just a pedestrian crossing, mid-street pedestrian crossing.
>> Yeah, because it's really, I mean you have a bus stop right on this side of the street.
And then you have shopping on the other side of the street.
>> You wanted to see it on which, where did you want to see it?
>> At Emory and Bonnie Bray.
>> Emory and Bonnie Bray, okay.
>> That's where you live over that way?
>> Yeah.
>> And we can, we can, we might be able to bring that signaling one here in our next meeting.
>> Okay.
>> And we can, we can say, hey, be prepared to explain why or why not or what it would take or if it's in the plan or whatever it might be.
>> I think it would be tremendous.
That old Bonnie Bray right there, you know, of course they're expanding it.
There's more building going on in there.
And I've seen it right there across from Academy where people are coming in and they get dropped off on the east side and they're trying to get over and they're having to dodge through all that traffic.
That would be another.
>> Yeah.
>> When my daughters were taking GoZone and they would get dropped off on the west side, I don't know, the side of campus that has the laundromat, there's just like not a safe way to cross the street.
And because GoZone can't go on campus, I don't know what the alternative is.
It's, we need more of those kinds of, we need more signaling, signaling, pedestrian, safe pedestrian crossings around town.
>> So y'all are, y'all are staying somewhere in, just at this intersection right here.
>> That's right.
>> That's right there.
And we're already in Bonnie Bray.
>> And we're already in my house.
>> Yeah.
>> Right in front of Joe's house.
>> Now we're all coming over traffic.
>> We'll break a bottle of champagne when that comes.
>> So that's one.
Now go north on Bonnie Bray.
>> North of 380.
So right there, right in that section.
So where you're not supposed to turn, but everybody turns right there to go into Torchies.
>> This one right here?
>> Yeah, right in there.
Because that's a drop off right there.
You can see the little bus symbol.
That's the drop off right in there.
And everybody tries to go across right there.
And there is no crosswalk right there.
>> Pedestrians try to go across what you're saying?
>> Yeah.
>> I gotcha.
And there's no, you know, there's part of a sidewalk.
>> Yeah.
I believe when this gets, you know, this road is slated for reconstruction, I believe.
And so that might be something that gets considered when this road is reconstructed.
Because it's coming up soon.
I can't remember what phase of Bonnie Bray this is.
But it is coming up soon.
>> Here's a weird question.
>> Yeah.
>> Is that where HEV is supposed to be getting built?
>> I've not heard of an HEV company yet.
>> Okay.
Fine.
>> At some point between now and forever, there's supposed to be an HEV right in that spot.
>> I'll be the first one to know already.
>> Because that was difficult to put that section out.
>> Yeah.
I'm going to do a lot of my drugs and dreams.
>> Yeah.
We'll take it all to us.
I don't think there's a project listed for that.
>> Okay.
>> I hadn't heard that.
I hadn't heard that particular report.
>> I heard that on the bus.
>> Well, now that I've started it.
You know, so I hear every time there's a big plot of land and the second a bulldozer hits
it, everyone's looking at your East Coast.
>> Yeah.
That's right.
>> So it happens around where I live too.
And I'm like, dude, don't hold your breath.
There's a new one being built on a 380 out.
So there's actually a closer one.
They're getting closer.
>> Going east.
>> Yeah.
>> Going east on 380.
There's actually one that's just off the --
>> Yeah.
They're creeping in.
>> Yeah.
>> So let me pull up another slide.
Well, if the committee is comfortable with this, knowing that anything can always be
changed, we can bring this list of items back for a vote at our next meeting.
At our next meeting, these will be your issue priorities for 2024.
If for any reason, of course, things always come up that we just don't expect.
And so we'll try to get any time sensitive or any pertinent items in front of you.
And then if some issue within the community just becomes a hot topic, you know, just we
know -- I'll knock off the fake wood.
But, you know, just, you know, one yuri event away from us shifting gears and, you know,
focusing on something that we never thought we needed to focus on, you know, we would
definitely seek the committee's input.
Is this something that you want to have brought to you as quickly as possible?
>> I don't know.
>> Yeah.
That's all I got.
>> This gets me.
[ Inaudible ]
>> So general update is somewhere.
There it is.
Not much in this update.
Of course, we did have the holiday season.
And so it was pretty, I'd say, not slow on the city side, but generally a little slower
than normal.
So we did give you guys our committee schedule that was adopted at the last meeting.
We made sure to remind everybody of our ongoing continuing chair and new vice chair.
And then, you know, we'll try to give as many pertinent updates as we can as the meeting
is going on.
>> All right.
>> Yeah.
And if there are any questions, I'm happy to answer them.
All right.
[ Inaudible ]
>> Yes.
Thank you so much, Joe.
Oh, wow.
Whoa.
Did you do this?
>> Yeah.
>> Oh, man.
>> How cool was that?
>> Yeah, come on.
>> That was great.
>> So it says honoring Ryan Adams for serving his staff liaison on the Tenant Committee on
Persons with Disabilities, five years of service.
>> Wow.
>> How'd you get that logo on there?
>> Copy on the -- copy.
>> Really?
>> That is so cool, Joe.
Wow.
>> It's really beautiful, Joe.
>> Yeah.
>> It's really nice.
>> Can I get a picture with you and me in this?
>> Yeah.
>> That'd be all right?
>> Let me take it.
>> Would you do that for me?
>> Thank you.
>> That's very, very kind of you, Joe.
>> Okay.
One, two, three.
Wow.
That is so cool.
>> That's great.
>> Man.
>> I know.
I love that.
>> Yeah.
>> I'll hang it in my office in the airport.
>> Yeah.
>> Thank you, Joe.
>> I figured out this game where I put two -- like two -- I put four together, and then
I put three together, and then I put four together, and then I put four together, and then I put
four together, and then I put four together, and then I put four together, and then I put