Jun 25, 2019 City Council on 2019-06-25 1:00 PM
June 25, 2019 City Council
Full Transcript
All right good afternoon and welcome to this work session it is 1 0 4 and we
have a quorum we are here but for Councilmember Briggs and mayor Watts and
our first item up terminated the quorum is work session item one which would be
citizens comments on consent agenda any blue cards no blue cards and then that
will move us to request for clarification on agenda items listed on
the agenda. Councilmember Davis and councilmember Meltzer. I have some
questions on item F. Okay. I see movement.
Terry cater fleet superintendent. Thank you so my first questions are what are
the key differences as you see them between the fuel man system that we're
using now in the WEX system and what are we currently spending on the fuel man
system. The the spend on the current system it'll be about the same because
this is an auxiliary type fueling method so that we can get to some of the
outlying equipment without having to have them come all the way back to the
service center. So the spend is going to be about the same that's between three
and four thousand a month average probably between PD fire. The differences
in the two is that WEX card is through a bank and so they have much more
stringent fraud controls in place and we can limit the types of fuel that's
that's gotten the number of times they get fuel the time of day they get fuel
there's just a lot more controls on the card and also we get instant
notifications in case there were questions about a fraudulent event. So
just the card management itself though I understand that fuel purchases would be
about the same on a month over month but the management system itself would that
would be about the same as what we're paying to have fuel man manager? It's
actually we would receive a 1% discount from the fuel it's it's in arrears it's
a month later for the fuel purchase the previous month and currently we just pay
pump price there's no discount with the fuel man card. Thank you those are my
questions. Councilman Melter?
Items L and M are going to be treated as individual items for individual
consideration. Yes any other questions consent agenda? Okay seeing none then I
will conclude those questions that portion of the agenda and move to work
session reports item three and so I'll give a minute for the room to clear
and then I'll also call work session item A ID 19 1261 receive report hold
discussion and discussion regarding innovative technology currently being
applied to traffic signal and street maintenance operations within the City
of Denton. Good afternoon Mayor Pro Tem, Council Todd Estes, City Engineer. I'm going to
introduce a couple of fellows right after me to actually go through this
presentation I just want to give you a brief history of where we came from on
this item this originally started as a request from council that we look into
boring technologies it's specifically related to some of the boring
technologies that Elon Musk had introduced into the market in the Los
Angeles California area for started out as reasons of use just for their own
company it's definitely a very specific use that he puts in place it's for
transportation of people back and forth over a large diameter pipe that led to an
ISR in December where we spoke about other technologies specifically a Python
5000 pavement patching machine and then in January this became an item that
council asked as a priority for work session so this is the culmination of
those efforts bringing us back to here where we're bringing you some of the
technologies that we do work through use today we are trying to get towards some
of these technologies coming in the future technologies that we also
evaluate on an annual basis on a monthly basis we take a look at what's new we go
to trade shows yes hello yeah well they give me an indication you have to flash
something on the screen sorry go ahead okay yes okay anyway there are
technologies will present to you today that we utilize we are constantly
looking at new technologies what's new on the market what's latest and coming
in the market and then evaluating those against real-world experience are those
technologies actually viable do they seem to be maintainable usable or are
they so cutting-edge that were the question of their viability long-term as
has not been determined so what you'll see today are some of the things that we
do currently and where we're headed but we do look on these and they look at
these on an annual basis and look at those new new technologies that are up
and coming how could we use them to get a better product for our residents so
with that I'm going to introduce our new city traffic engineer Brian Yon he comes
from the city of Fort Worth his previous employment and did a wonderful job there
and we are so excited to have him here this will be his first time in front of
y'all we're good thank you
thank you Todd and I'm excited to be here as well as as Todd said we're here
to talk today about some innovative technology and I'm gonna I'm gonna be
presenting the first portion of that and that's the transportation and then Daniel
Kramer will be presenting the street operations portion I'm gonna apologize
now I don't have anything as colorful as a Python 5000 in my presentation but I
think you're gonna be gonna be impressed by what your staff has achieved so far
so I want to break this down into four areas we're gonna look at signals
traffic signals school zones signs and pavement markings and in each of those
we're going to talk about some practices that we're currently using and and where
we see our future and those technologies associated with that okay so is there a
better way
much better so technology area number one traffic signals we're gonna break
this down even further because it's got the most technology associated with it
into four areas monitoring and assessment vehicle detection emergency
response and what I'm going to call a grab bag it's just other items that are
of interest but not enough to really give a full discussion on so traffic
monitoring and assessment we've we've where we are today we have a centralized
remote system we're about 75% connected with our fiber optic very fast lots of
bandwidth we are able to do a lot of interesting things bringing back some
video that we currently or we could not have done previously with our 900 mega
Hertz system the old radio system we've updated our servers and we've updated
our software for what we call send tracks that's our centralized software
that talks to all the signals and cameras and brings that information back
to to home base and we're also involving some IT support that we didn't have
currently I could didn't have had previously where we actually get some of
the field installation within the city forces and we don't have to it's not on
our backs to have to go out and do that we've got some very smart people that
are doing the installations in the connectivity for us where we want to be
and traffic control center so this is a central location we've got a video wall
we've got additional high debt high def PTZ cameras planned we've got ability to
house staff and monitor and deploy and that's the that's one of the biggest
cost savings of having a central system is we can actually look at at
intersection if we've got something that's given us a problem we've got a
complaint called in we can go to our software look call up that camera try
and identify and deploy the right equipment might even be able to fix the
problem without going to the field so we save a service call big cost savings
there for us good news is it's on its way this new tea this traffic management
center is going to be located in the Mayhill facility and so we're moving
down that road as quickly as we can to have this centralized it's kind of like
a mini EOC if any of you deal with the emergency operations we can talk to all
of our equipment from one location and again have room for staff to constantly
monitor and assess. Sorry one question. Oh sure. Councilman Meltzer. To what extent
when you have that extensive monitoring capability is there any kind of
automated alerting as well or dependent on sort of people noticing things? Again
with the central software the Centrax it constantly modify our monitors the
indications the communications connectivity it tells us if we've lost
communication to an intersection tells us if the intersections on flash we can
tell when the last time the door of the cabinet was opened we get all of that
pushback to home base. I mean alerting about you know traffic your well okay I
guess that's what you want to be alerted on right whether the system itself is
correct now okay so if you're talking about an adaptive system where we're
monitoring the traffic and we're modifying the the timings yeah the
purpose of what you're showing us is so that we're attentive to the condition of
the equipment itself correct okay correct the timings are what we do not
have an adaptive system where it monitors and if the if something happens
and everybody shifts from one road to another the timing plans change we we
have that some of that capability programmed into our timing plans but
it's not truly an adaptive system we can see that happening and we can make some
changes on the fly if we're in the room monitoring but primarily we're monitoring
the hardware. So vehicle detection this is where the signal is told that there's
a vehicle waiting or approaching an intersection so it's going to change
from red to green at some point in time to serve another phase. Right now we're
having we're deploying two systems we're doing we have a radar which looks down
the road 150 feet to detect those vehicles that are approaching. This gives
us the opportunity to extend the green if it's about to change from green to
amber and we've got a platoon of cars coming we can extend that a little bit.
We use the radar for that long term that long-distance vision because it it's not
depending upon light it's it sees in rain fog snow sleet it's just the best
for that long-range detection the best technology that's out there. At the
intersection itself where we're looking at the stop bars and and the vehicles
that are queued and turning so we use a product called grid smart it's a video
system and it has an advantage over some of the earlier video systems in that
it's it's not looking horizontally it's looking pretty much straight down so we
don't get those horizon issues with sunrise and sunset. What was really
amazing about grid smart is it's got a fantastic array of tools that we are
able to use to collect data we can collect turning movement counts we can
detect and count pedestrians and bicycles it's just one of the most
flexible tools out there and again fantastic improvement over some of the
earlier earlier video. We're about 25% converted it's a testic technology has
been around for a long time as we're moving as fast as we can as budget
allows to convert the older detection systems the loops the older cameras to
this car and grid smart. One question for you. Sure.
Councilmember Armitage. Question about the the camera system so I know that that this is not
the purpose of these cameras but say there's an accident at an intersection
where you know where there's a camera I mean can that does it does it save them?
No it does not it does not record none of our none of our cameras they either
the PTZ the pan tilt zoom or the detection cameras are programmed or
set up or even intended to record. It's strictly a detection it's gone the
second that vehicle moves it no longer has a memory of that vehicle being there
so it's it's just a it are you there are you not? That makes perfect sense just
wondering thanks. So the good news is we are where we need to be there until
better technology for video or for a vehicle detection is available the
direction we're headed is the direction we need to go. So the third area is
emergency response and preemption. Right now we're using a system called Opticom
it's an infrared system you'll notice if you see the fire trucks and the EMS
they'll have a little emitter used to be a strobe but basically something that's
attached either to the light bar or somewhere high on the vehicle so that
as that vehicle is running down the corridor it's emitting a signal and the
same time you've looked in the bottom of the screen there's a little receiver
that's mounted on the signal mast arm and it's constantly looking for one of
those signals and when it sees it it will prioritize that approach shuts
everything else down to red gives that approach green allows the cue whatever
cars that are in front of the emergency vehicle to clear and then that
emergency vehicle can pass through or turn as needed. It's an improvement over
some of the earlier systems in that it well it's a first-come first-serve so for
some reason we've got two emergency vehicles coming from two different
directions it's only going to give them one of them to green and so the other
is going to have to yield to the vehicle that's coming through with the green it
also has the advantage of programming we can program and identify each vehicle
independently we know which vehicle went through which intersection at what time
and how long it took them to move through the corridor it helps with our
assessment of the improvement in travel times so you can we're looking at about
a 25% reduction in response times and historically 70% reduction in accidents
now these are accidents with the emergency vehicles in another vehicle so
if somebody fails to yield to the vehicle the emergency vehicle that's
going through that again I come from Fort Worth and literally six months ago
we had a fire engine take out a pickup truck because the pickup truck either
didn't see or didn't wouldn't pay attention and it was proceeding through
an intersection at the same time the fire was engine was responding to an
emergency call so those kind of you get the red indication typically drivers will
stop allows that emergency vehicle to go through where we need to be or where we
want to be is a GPS based system so we've got the ability to track emergency
vehicles 24/7 not just when they're emitting they've got a little GPS
sending unit we know where they are where they're parked we know what
direction they're traveling how fast they're going it allows the signals to
respond proactively in other words they they act before the vehicle actually
gets to in range we know we can see some progression we can change the signal
timing well ahead of the arrival of the vehicle it is an expensive system but it
also has the advantage of expansion to other city vehicles similar to like an
AVL a vehicle locator system you can track all of your city vehicles all the
time you know where your your assets are we can partner with DCTA allow their
buses again that soft extension they don't get a preemption they don't get a
priority but they'll if they're approaching a traffic signal that's about
to turn red it'll give them three to four seconds so they can clear that again
given giving traffic actually you get a little priority giving transit that a
little bit of a better curb appeal so we can get vehicles that people out of their
vehicles and into into some transit UNT and anybody who operates a transit
system or a paratransit system can partner with us and and get that soft
extension so this is an emergency emerging technology it's been used in a
couple of places but like I said it's pretty expensive we looked at it in
Fort Worth and it was a million plus and so down the road but again it's where we
think we need to be so here's a grab back yes so we have a question
councilman Olmertor yes so what about how does that work with the the argument
of increasing yellow light timings across the board you know for increased
safety for for everyone okay so the amber the clearance interval that's the
yellow is established based on the geometry of the intersection the
approach speeds and it is intended to give the driver adequate time to either
apply the brakes stop safely or to decide you know what I can't do that so
I'm gonna I'm gonna proceed through so that amber is really independent we
don't really want to extend the amber we don't want to get it too long because
drivers learn that they all got plenty of time I'm gonna keep going and so
they'll push it and push it and push it and pretty soon you've got ten seconds
of clearance interval if you this is kind of what we talked about there's an
item on the agenda later with a red flex where we pulled the cameras out and so
okay what are we gonna do now to try and make sure that people are still
providing we're providing the the greatest level safety and the interval
that you want to change is the all red and that's where nobody's moving so if
somebody determines that I'm gonna run that you know I'm gonna push the yellow
envelope as much as I can and it's gonna be pink when I go through then they've
got more time to clear that intersection with nobody else moving nobody has a
green and so the amber is not really where you want to extend for safety it's
the all red phase where you want to extend for safety and that's what we're
planning to do on those approaches and just the approaches where we're taking
the cameras out thank you sure all right the grab bag so some of this is not
really new technology but it's it's good technology LED signals we're a hundred
percent LED so LEDs have been around a while and they're fantastic cost savings
they last ten times as long as the incandescent bulbs we have almost you
know no maintenance literally we we will replace them preemptively but again
tried-and-true technology and we're a hundred percent even our L even the the
streetlights that are attached to our traffic signals are LEDs now so we've
also got an accessible pedestrian system and that's there's an audible sound you
can hear somebody who's visually impaired here's a sound across the
street instead of you know having to wait and hope they got it right we've
got countdown pedestrian heads most of you have probably seen these very very
helpful in increasing the safety and it tells the pedestrian exactly how much
time is left and lets them decide do I have enough time to safely cross the
street there is an argument that says well I'm gonna now that I know I got 10
seconds I think I can make it versus they might not have tried before but it's
just the more information we can provide motorists and pedestrians and cyclists
about the conditions that are about to change the better we are and then the
last one is the UPS the battery backup for our signals you'll see these we're
using a piggyback cabinet so it's like a little cabinet attached to the side of
the big silver cabinet with the controller in it and this allows us when
the storms come through and they take out the power the signals keep working
so in summary the city of Denton is so far ahead of the city of Fort Worth where
I came from as far as traffic signal technology and safety it's I'm I'm I'm
impressed your staff has done a fantastic job in the last couple of
years getting everything up up to the cutting-edge technology so the second
area of technology is school zones three primary elements signs communications
and power where we are right now we have a kind of a hybrid combination we've got
some static school zone signs that are the 20 mile an hour with the time plaques
and we've got about 26 locations that have the beacons so we've got the
flashing LED lights that go off certain times a day we have converted all but
two of these I think to solar so we're moving forward in the right direction
getting off of an AC power system so that when the storms come through and
the power goes out the children are still protected that batteries it's a
solar power battery backup or battery power system those school beacons
continue to go where we want to be is well what we want to add to these we one
we want to go away from a static sign that's my personal preference the
visual cue that the beacons offer just can't be replaced static signs as driver
passes them 20 times 30 times they begin to tune them out they don't even see
that 20 mile an hour sign anymore so we want to get beacons on every school zone
in the city the second thing we want to do is add of what we call a driver
feedback sign and that's the little your speed sign tremendous increase in
compliance when people see how fast they're going I mean we use these all
over town there's several we've got it's an immediate reaction of oh you know
I see the 20 but I'm not really looking at my speedometer but now I don't have
to because the sign tells me I'm speeding so we get some great compliance
the third thing we want to add is some 4g connectivity so we can talk to this
thing through the cloud but we can also push all the data from the speed sign
the your driver feedback sign into the cloud and give that feed to PD so they
can watch for when they've got violations and they can send they can
deploy the the squad cars if they see a need for some additional enforcement so
it gives us good data on when we have compliance and when we don't have
compliance so we'll you'll be seeing those added to our school zones in the
very near future the third area of technology is signs and fabrication and
materials where we are we have a brand new digital printer you take a roll of
the reflective sheeting you feed it in you use some software and it prints the
sign face the way you want it in color 10-year warranty it's amazing we then
can apply a UV filter so the sign doesn't fade again amazing technology
and quite frankly that is the cutting-edge technology available until
something better comes along we are exactly where we need to be and the
last area of technology is pavement markings this is going to be so we're
talking about innovative technologies but in this particular instance we're
using an older technology in an innovative way so we're taking where we
are which is primarily thermoplastic anytime we have a construction project
or a remark on a new facility it comes out as a spray thermo it's what text dot
uses it's what NTTA uses for the majority and it's a long life very
durable material so it we like it's got five to seven years of life to it what
we do right now is hire a contractor after that material starts to break up
a little bit five years six years and it will come in and do a remark or an
overmark with paint on asphalt or a thermo on concrete what we want to do is
and this is a plug by the way this is in this is in the budget for consideration
for next year we'd like to purchase a paint truck so that we have the ability
to do long-line remarks in-house so we can also do and this is the this is the
the old technology in a new way so most of you have seen construction projects
and they put the new pavement down whether it be asphalt or concrete and
the first thing to come through to put markings down as little tabs well those
tabs are never in the right place and they never remove them and they're a
problem and then they have to come back and put the final markings in so what
we're proposing is the acquisition of a paint truck so that when that new
surface that new canvas is ready we'll go out and put the paint down with this
truck so we'll have what will appear as permanent markings but what really serves
as the surface prep and the sealer for when the contractor either the city's
contractor or the private development contractor comes through to put that
first coat of thermo so that's the the biggest cause of failure in any kind of
pavement marking is the surface prep if you don't clean it right if you don't
remove what's there what you're putting on it's not going to stick so what this
allows us to do is establish where we want the markings what we want them to
look like and we seal it immediately after construction so again old
technology paint trucks have been around for a long time using it in a new way
using it as a sealer and as the interim marking between the completion of
construction the surface and the final pavement markings which sometimes is
weeks because they're pavement marking contractors not available and so we can
schedule much more efficiently with our in-house forces this first mark this
first iteration of what those markings want to be so with that I'm going to
pass it any other questions okay yes sure
actually I had two questions about that one if you could just speak briefly so
we can think about this and preparation for when this comes for before us for
the budget if you could speak to the the cost savings obviously if you're not
having to redo it again and again that saves cost kind of when you know maybe
if you could speak to kind of it the timeline because I know I know vehicles
are expensive but but sometimes it can save you you know money to do something
in-house other times not so if you could just kind of speak to that when we
should expect to see sure so the cost of this vehicle is about a hundred and
fifty thousand dollars what this will save us in direct costs and there's two
two two savings one is direct costs when the city has a contractor that does the
interim the tabs and then has to come back and remove them and put the
permanent markings down our our payout I guess if that's kind of what you're okay
that's going to be based on how much work we've got going and we have a lot
of work going so all the paving jobs that you're seeing right now and I'm
sorry I'm not that I know Mayhill and I can even a couple of what we talk and
speak better to the volume of work that the city is undertaking all of those
projects have that interim step of putting the tabs down and then having
the contractor come back remove those tabs and put the final markings so
that's gonna run you on each project thirty to fifty thousand dollars in
savings it will not take long to pay for this truck because the city so it's
gonna be a little bit we're not gonna save all that because we're gonna have
some of materials and labor costs with city forces going out and doing this
work but the real savings is the safety because immediately once that pavement
is done we have got permanent markings that are reflective they are exactly
where they want to be they show the lane designations it's just a much safer
scenario so even if the deprive a private developer is working on they're
building a brand new subdivision and they part of their subdivision is say
they're post oak that's going through our they've got to build their portion
of that major roadway so we have the ability now coordinating with their
contractor will go out and run some the paint truck and get what will look like
permanent markings but will really serve as a sealer so we get a better product
at the end of the day and we get that enhanced level of safety because we've
got permanent looking markings and very clear lane designations because a lot of
times and we've all driven through them construction zones once they've got the
new pavement that you still can't see where you're not really sure where the
lanes are and especially at night those tabs tend to move they get caught with
tire tracks and they'll shift around and so it's this is a much much safer
solution so we've got not only the cost savings but the safety enhancements as
well and thank you so much for speaking to that my second question was also
about pavement markings and that is you know how often does the city reassess or
is it kind of a case-by-case basis responding to situations where the the
markings for parking spaces are too close to driveways I know there's an
issue with that on on Oak Street around off Carol or in the historic area it's
just wondering I can answer your question but I think Todd has a wonderful
thank you so that particular issue is one that we're working through right now
we're actually looking at all of those roadways where we have parking assessed
or put in place a lot next to driveways residential driveways especially in
determining how much of a gap really needs to be there and pavement markings
are a way of making sure that we get that spacing thank you in fact I would
say pavement markings are the way because that's what people follow so
thank you very much any other councilmember Meltzer yeah just a
appreciation for your first presentation and it was nice if Todd not to give you
the boring part I'm sorry you can all wake up now yeah
councilman Ryan and the question on the thermal versus paint is there any
temperature advantage to do it as well that the thermo needs a higher
temperature to be put down and we've had some projects in the wintertime when it
was too cold to stripe is there the ability to use their thermals got to be
50 degrees and paint you can do it 35 right so so the the solvent-based paint
which is what we'd be using we're not a latex base I've tried that before
another another life and it just is not where you want to be the latex paint
does have a much more flexible temperature application but the at the
same time the the the thermo tends to go and we have a lot of hot days as well
tends to really stand up to that heat a lot better so it's kind of a trade-off
you have some you're giving up some days in the year where you can apply it but
quite frankly the temperature is not usually as much of a concern or does not
limit our application schedule as much as the moisture does the rain that's the
biggest reason again that surface prep if you don't have a good clean dry
surface your markings are gonna fail so we there's a there are a lot of steps
that contractors skip and moisture is probably the biggest so to answer your
question yes the paint is more flexible but the thermo is again the technology
is continually tweaked and and we don't miss too many days on application of
them because of coal and Brian one last question do you know the percentage of
you said I think you said Opticom IR technology so what percentage of our
lights are equipped with that for for police fire do you know let me defer to
my expert all right about half about half okay thank you
afternoon counsel afternoon I don't have as many slides and also as much
technology coming in from the from the pothole patching area but I want to talk
a little bit about that so everybody knows about our potholes that we have
around town we have quite a few with the condition current condition of our
streets our current process that we go through is a two to three man crew
usually takes about anywhere from ten to thirty minutes to spend on the size of
the pothole and where it's at in the city and you know traffic flow and
everything and we've been averaging close about five thousand potholes a
year and the way we're doing it now some of the downsides of this are we are
looking at you know it's kind of a labor-intensive job these guys are out
there in the heat shoveling asphalt back and forth clean out the holes you know
they're also out exposed to traffic with just really you know the truck being in
front of them with the flashing lights and they're still having because they
got a shovel out the back of the truck and one of the things on our current
setup is we use what we call an injecto so it's just basically a regular dump
truck bed with the ability for a shoot to be able to pull out all of our
material out the back with a small auger so it doesn't have a heated bed on it
some of the different opportunities that we've been looking at and going through
is as you've heard the Python 5000 which is one piece of equipment that we've
done some research on we've also have a spray injector from Bergkamp they've
been we've had a another a flameless pothole patcher which means it's all
electric in the heating of the material and keeping it warm and then one of the
other options that we've we've done a little research on is the the horror
concept and I'll go into done a quick evaluation on you know high level of
where these at and we're still constantly looking into these and what
we can do in the future to better our better our processes we have so like I
said you know you kind of got our current process you know if you're
looking at it red is kind of you know kind of a high level that we don't
really you know we'd like to stay out of and all that and then you know you're
looking about an average was our yellow and our green would be our low and our
good areas kind of how we're looking and just like a stoplight so you know your
safety in our current process kind of average because the guys are exposed out
to the traffic you know they got the cones around they got a temporary work
zone set up where they're patching the paddles where they're patching the
potholes sorry you know in our average times from around 20 minutes per pothole
maintenance of the system there's not much to it it's practically a low
overhead just keeping up clean it out every once in a while no big deal and
then vehicle costs that is about about 180,000 you know then we have what we've
been looking at you know the the Python 5000 which has some good advantages you
know they drop it down to one crew member they'd be able to run inside they
actually get to stay in the cab be able to run it from in inside so they're out
of traffic they're just sitting in there so they are not exposed out there to
the dangers in that average time depend on the size of pothole you know anywhere
from three to eight minutes so you know maintenance of it you know we have
reached out to other we've reached out to the vendor itself we've reached out to
other customers that have used it and you know one of the main things that we
said is every single one of them has pushed the the maintenance cost and the
reliability of the vehicle is what they're having problems with right now
and then you look at the cost of it is about $400,000 for that vehicle then the
spray injection machine I've actually reached out to them they're supposed to
hopefully be bringing out a demo more towards the end of the year on theirs
same thing with that it's one crew member inside the cab there you know so
the safety is high also because they're not out in the traffic a little bit
higher on the patch time than the in the Python but it's also you know pretty
good longevity on those maintenance still a lot more moving parts a lot more
issues on that and vehicle costs on that is around 250 to 300,000 we had their
flameless pothole patcher which is electric heating elements everything
keep it running we actually had them come out and demo it last Friday patched
a couple potholes in the service center parking area parking lot see how that
works so it's it's similar to what we use now it's got a few advantages one is
you know we're down to about two crew members able to help their safety you're
still out in traffic so you're still exposed out there your patching time
does go down but you know we do have a little bit more of our maintenance cost
on it because it does have a few more moving parts but it does have some
different features that they actually help out and the cost is actually pretty
comparable to our current is it right about 196,000 so and then also you got
the Dhar concept which is a lot of what started some of these conversations you
probably seen them going around Facebook going around YouTube and really you know
what we can look into it is practically a few animations that come up and this is
a completely conceptual design and they just go out and just go through and say
here we can do this we're looking for investors right now and they'll build you
a machine a full concept at the start of one of those so you know until some of
these get out or somebody wants to invest in this this is just you know a
good animation that shows what could be possible in the future basically you know
we're in the evaluation process we do have two of those injector trucks right
now one's coming up for replacement in the next you know I think four to six
months so we're looking through these seeing what can come up seeing what
little issues and we're still looking at and digging deep into these and seeing
where we can go in the future it's basically all I had anybody have any
questions or anything I have one how what is the time elapsed or usage that
allows you to know if if a repair failed so is there a amount of time that has a
pass for you say okay that stuck well or is there a number of trips or how do you
measure how well these patches perform when you look at basic ones most of them
look at anywhere from you're looking at probably at least a good year to where
most of these patches are what they should be able to follow up it all
depends on the rest of the road the condition of where it's at how soon we
get out there to patch it because if there's too much moisture under the
ground we can put a nice patch on top but really you're just putting a bandaid
right over the top and then it's still going to fail from underneath so the
goal is to be out there and get them on top some of these other machines with
the different the flameless pothole patchers one of them and also the Python
and they have a they use some different systems that go in there some more
robust and some other issues that they have so that will actually help them
they're saying they can get two to three years out of some of their patches for
their consistency on those okay all right no other questions thank you very
much appreciate it thank you Brian welcome board okay so with that we will
conclude item a and then that will take us to item B 1913 79 receive report hold
discussion and give staff direction regarding policy to use city facilities
during inclement weather
afternoon Danny Shaw community development afternoon hi so we're
bringing together a draft policy for you to for your consideration through the
years the city has provided information about our nonprofit partners and other
groups that have provided services and or overnight inclement weather shelter
we're looking for expanding on that communication piece today over time that
piece has evolved so we've eventually added things like information about the
fire station being available and as of July of 2018 over the summer we put
together a press release that expanded on that further to include information
about public facilities that were available including the addresses and
hours of operation to help folks know where they could go in inclement weather
as a safe place to be in November of 2018 we took advantage of the shelter
work group to sort of workshop a larger policy that would expand on it to
actually include both warm weather and cold weather temperatures and so
considering that based on that prior planning making sure we had a
communications plan for that as well as some conversations that Council has
recently had with parks on the facilities and the use of public
facilities we've brought together proposal a policy 500 07 for
consideration that both formalizes that communication plan for use of the park
facilities public libraries and our fire stations and include some general
guidelines and then give some policy direction for other requests for after
hours use which lower Barons will talk about in a minute in more detail for
those of you that are familiar with the current communications plan we have we
are going to make a couple of recommendations going forward for that
first is to remove the police department as an inclement weather location and
second is to set hours for the inclement weather use in public areas of the fire
stations from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. generally with the exception of the central fire
station which would be 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. so with that I'll invite Laura to talk
about the more detailed policies on the after hours usage thank you
good afternoon mayor pro tem council members Laura Barons assistant director
for Parks and Recreation so again this is specifically for after hour use
requests due to inclement weather this is a continuation of the discussion that
we had just a few weeks ago with the use of the Civic Center and requests to use
that facility after hours for inclement weather reasons so the use of our
recreational centers for inclement weather during operating hours as
warming and cooling stations does not change there are some key provisions
though that are different from the regular operating hours when we talk
about after our use in terms of weather condition the temperature for cold
weather does not change from that cooling and warming station criteria but
it does change slightly for heat so the proposal that you have before you
includes a daytime heat index expected to meet or exceed 105 degrees or daytime
air temperature that exceeds 103 degrees all of these are actually based on the
National Weather Service advisories for what could be considered dangerous
conditions for for somebody's health so in this can for the heat specifically
that heat index is similar to if it's a hundred degrees outside but it feels
like a hundred and six so that point would be a hundred and five for us and
then again just a standard air temperature of a hundred and three for
storm conditions something that we talked about were a few requests that
we'd received during rain weather we would recommend that that be storm
conditions that include hail when you look at again the National Weather
Service they have a thunderstorm risk criteria and a ranking of one through
five for us that would look like a three which would put us in that moderate
condition for thunderstorms and then finally we have under the winter weather
any amount of freezing rain or when two to four inches of snow alone or in
combination with that freezing rain is present and again this is based on
National Weather Service winter weather advisories so please finish your
sentence so these would be the weather conditions that would be eligible or
considered for a request for use after hours for inclement weather so my
question was so at one of the shelter committee meetings that I attended the
only one I attended I'm not on that committee I was just sitting in and
listening the the subject was was brought up of you know the issue that
sometimes because these are based on predictions and of course we know
whether predictions are just that sometimes the the weather ends out being
hotter or colder than predicted and there's also the other issue that was
raised was that even you know I think it would previously the temperature was to
dangerous hot temperatures were exceeding a hundred degrees is that
right so previously again under for under the national weather advisory so
we're trying to use some criteria that has some you know some scientific back
you know background to it and also a widely accepted criteria so we're
looking at what that would be considered in term in terms of a heat advisory that
would be conditions that may cause adverse health yes yeah I was just trying
to remember and I had I had copied and pasted but you know I'm not sure if I
this correct that on the previous flyers and handouts that were circulated I
believe that it is I believe it's 100 degrees for operating hours so that
would be during operating hours and that would not change this would be specific
to opening up a facility after after hours okay okay thanks so anyway so the
other issue that was that was raised you know was that if it's 90 95 degrees for
instance you know it's or 98 degrees it's it's still it's very hot you know
kind of the question was raised as to which which I thought was a very
reasonable question was you know do we go by you know what is you know
considered you know by the by this measure national weather service heat
advisory to be dangerous or by what people generally consider you know when
you're talking about the weather and saying man it's a hot day it's
unbearably hot today to go by that and obviously you need some objective
measure right but do we set the objective measure for that ladder kind
of going by feel or do we set it by that and you know I believe there's a
there's a strong argument to set the temperature lower because it is because
it is dangerous for it's just a matter of how dangerous is dangerous right it
gets increasingly dangerous as you get higher and hot weather and lower and
lower weather also another issue that was raised regarding weather was the
fact that any rain you know when you're when your home is the street you know
any rain can be very dangerous you know just from being wet and not having a
place to be dry that can be very dangerous for health so you know I think
there's there's an argument to be made that any kind of rain itself is dangerous
inclement weather when you're living on the street and again I just want to be
clear this was not a there was not a vote taken or any you know consensus on
this and the committee it was just something that an issue that was raised
by someone who had been recently homeless who is on that committee and I
think it's a valid concern and just to clarify and and so I don't know the
parameters under which I don't know if that's just opening a facility in
general but again for these purposes it would be opening the request to open a
facility for an event after hours so it's not opening the facility as a
shelter location it's opening for the use by a group after hours just across
the board in parks after hours into each general yes correct correct but even if
the part even if let's say it's 95 degrees and it's normal you know Monday
through Friday during our regular operating hours anybody's welcome to come
in it's just that at 100 degrees or that 32 degrees when we begin to actually
promote and make sure that people know and are aware that these are locations
that they can come to to seek shelter got it thank you
Laura one more question Councilmember Meltzer I'm I'm frankly still a little
unclear this policy is for this is for an event or this is for emergency shelter
after hours no this would be for an event emergency sheltering it is
mentioned in the policy is a completely different yes so someone is having an
event in the park and it's raining out and we say you can't come in out of the
rain because it's not freezing rain I don't know it just seems like just not
reasonable I think we ought to respond to you know at least be willing whatever
the whatever the requirements are after that you know we can discuss we're
probably about to discuss but I draw the line at rain that doesn't have to be
freezing rain for for us to consider coming in out of the rain you can go
ahead in terms of the priority for use where our recommendation is that it be
consistent with the policy that has already been approved reviewed and
approved by Council under 500.06 use of city facilities and meeting rooms so any
request coming in would go through this criteria in terms of priority for use
overall and looking at the criteria for who would be eligible one of the
discussions that we had in in terms of moving forward and co-sponsorships and
eligibility for requests and receiving fee waivers and so forth is that the
events to be considered for this type of use are nonprofit local nonprofit
organizations under this policy all applicable fees permits and insurance
requirements would still apply originally we did discuss and what was is in the
draft right now for you is that the policy would include a provision that
would allow this the city manager to approve under unforeseen weather
circumstances with a notice to City Council the opportunity to waive fees
and then come back to council for ratification given the conversations
that we had during our original discussion and the use of the Civic
Center we incorporated some of the feedback that we received from you and
some of the direction in trying to quantify or better quantify what that
criteria would be so another option in our recommendation would be to actually
strike that particular provision and allow for an administrative and
internal administrative process that would have the provision of a 48 hour
notice so we need to know within 48 hours of this scheduled event whether or
not they are proposing to use a city facility that would be subject to the
facilities availability and staffing availability and under this
administrative process they would still again have to comply with all of the
criteria that's outlined in the policy including within a budget allocation I
believe last time I let you know that part of this budget cycle we are
requesting $30,000 specifically for this program that would allow us to again
make those administrative calls under this criteria within a $30,000 budget
for fee waivers and then we would report this back to the council on a
quarterly basis and bring it back to ratification if that's the direction
you'd like to go in can you give an example of what what
that would look like in other words you know there's somebody who wants to do X
and they you know you can yeah so we've actually been in this position a couple
of times already this spring where we've had an organization that normally comes
out on Sundays to feed individuals experiencing homelessness and we've had
a couple of inclement weather days they asked if the Civic Center could be open
for their use when those requests come in what we have to do is check for the
availability number one is it being already you know it's already rented out
for for use and then check with the availability of our staff we didn't have
staff scheduled to come into work that day is anybody available to come in to
work that day to open up the facility in some cases we would also have to
coordinate with the police department to see if security is required another
example was a community market we've opened up the facility twice for them
once it was done in in a coordinated effort after their grand opening had
been delayed for two weeks because of inclement weather a second time was an
additional request and again in in both of those cases we had to check to see
if the facility is available see if there's any conflicts start scheduling
staff those were both done without 24-hour notice which made it a
challenge the other thing that we have to do is depending on the activities
that are being proposed we need to make sure that they have insurance just like
anyone else that would be using a city facility we need to make sure that
they're also adhering to all of the other additional requirements including
permits that may be applicable to whatever activities that they would be
holding in the city facility so those are two examples that we've had thanks
so so this way so under the new recommendation instead of going up to
the having to go up to the city manager for decision it would be staff would
be able to make that decision internally we make that decision internally based
on this criteria are they a local nonprofit is it 48 hours notice do is
this is the facility available is staff available to come in and then once we
answer kind of those first preliminary questions then we would talk to them
about what are the applicable fees and permit and insurance requirements for
that event and would would counsel get and maybe this would have to be written
written in there but you know would counsel get it at least some notification
of you know here are the the groups that were granted this permission and here
are the groups that were denied and here's why so we're looking at that as a
quarterly report again we can definitely bring that to you on a monthly basis per
occurrence or whatever staff direction is in addition to where we stand if that
budget request is approved within that $30,000 who's been approved who's been
denied and where we stand in terms of the status of budget allocation yeah
thanks you know just for now to me you know quarterly sounds fine is as long as
you know I'm kind of assuming that if somebody had gotten turned down that they
would hopefully know to let counsel know if they had any questions or staff you
know and then they would get those questions answered so we wouldn't have
to wait for the quarterly report okay Councilmember Meltzer I'm fine with
quarterly fine with the general description of your nonprofit with
insurance requirements and so on I think I would put a lot of this under the
heading of kind of micromanaging for us to tinker with it I'm really perfectly
happy with city manager having the authority and for city manager of the
authority to delegate to staff as he sees fit and I would remove the
restriction so that your hands aren't tied a 48-hour notice if the American
Heart Association is having their teach-a-thon and it is suddenly pouring
and it wasn't predicted and they say can we please come out of the rain I think
we ought to be able to say yes even if it's ten minutes ago if but you also have
the authority to say no we don't have the staffing we're not you know we can't
do it sorry okay Councilmember Davis so like Councilmember Meltzer I'd rather we
don't like micromanage the process my only concern here is come to the same
concern that I had the last time we talked about this which was I'm not okay
with fee waivers coming from an administrative process I think of a fee
waiver I think an organization that makes use of a facility you someone at
the last minute because that's how implement weather works I think they
need to do so understanding the risk that this Council's hands are not tied
to grant a fee waiver just because they're a local nonprofit and some bad
weather happened I think there are we need to consider these case by case their
policy implications that we need to consider when we talk about who we grant
waivers to and I think the public deserves some transparency about where
the fee waivers are going and I think it's up to us to make those decisions I
don't think we can pass that buck to staff and then when somebody asks us
about it they don't like that somebody got a fee waiver their organization
didn't get a fee waiver that I think we have to be accountable for that and not
leave staff hanging for that so on the 48 hours I think I'm maybe a little bit
more comfortable with the 48 hours just because I see it from a standpoint of
high demand on staff when it happens you know 10 minutes beforehand if if staff
feels like you need the 48 hours for cover so that you're not getting a phone
call 10 minutes ahead of time because it'll unfortunately always be a hard no
10 minutes ahead of time or 24 hours or whatever I'm I'm more okay with that I'm
open to y'all's direction on that but and totally fine with administrative
approval of of the use but I'm personally speaking for myself much
rather have the fee waivers that we accept some accountability for each of
us okay and that that's really all I have so options would be to approve the
policy as drafted with those recommended changes specifically to that approval of
course we can go in either direction approve the policy with revisions and
not to not to approve the policy I have a question I'd ask you to speak to
regarding my concern about the Legion Hall and Senior Center understand the
rental component but the emergency use component gives me a little concern
because of who would be there I mean it's normally exclusively for 65 and up
and there's some there's just some sensitivity I have towards those two
facilities being considered on par with the Civic Center with the Recreation
Center that's made for that type wear and tear so I just want to I put that
out there not a particular ask but maybe there's a level to to kind of prioritize
those different or ask at least staff to consider those things when when saying
yes or no and the good thing about it is Civic Center is one block from the
senior center so you cover that same space M okay that much the same one
block from that other so you're not really saving much space or distress as
far as traveling distance and so I think those geographically could could be put
on a tier below words breaking case for emergency but not so much be on the
front line with with those others that are more equipped to handle the the
everyday wear and tear so and have more staff associated with it there
especially Legion Hall is one one two staff there so I'm concerned about that
so Councilor Arbiter yeah um so about the the kind of removing the police
station as a as an inclement weather for inclement weather use I want to be sure
you know that I understand exactly what I what I read and what I heard kind of
before I state my my opinion on it so if if you if you could just say kind of
exactly what this would entail with it would this mean that that if somebody
were to come in for shelter and that for the in the police station after hours
they would be told to go away or they they couldn't you know sleep there
overnight I'm trying to figure out exactly how enforcement of this would
work and specifically how it would be different than the way things are now
let me let me let me get clarification first rental no no no just as far as the
the aspect of the the new policy that involves so there are two aspects of
this new the new policy there's a part that Laura talked about and then there's
this aspect about changing the policy on over on removing the police department
as inclement weather location I just wanted to before giving direction on
this policy overall to get some specifics on that okay okay so and this
is really about the communications plan and what we're communicating to the
public about what's available during inclement weather and so I'll let the
chief speak to any direct questions around why but it's also in the AIS it's
just looking at saying that that location will not be available for folks
to come into and stay in overnight just for public safety reasons and for the
ability of people to come in and out comfortably and safely and so it's just
being removed from the communication piece of as being a place to go and then
they also because what's happening is the overnight shelters are open police
have the opportunity to help and recommend or transport folks who may
need shelter to the overnight shelters as an alternative rather than having
them stay and it'd be the same for the police department they're just really I
mean the fire departments they're just really not set up to be any place where
someone could be in overnight and yes and so well I understand and I'll be
eager to hear from you know what the what chief Smith has to say about that
I read and I understand the reasons behind it I understand that that it's
not I mentioned you whoever wanted to speak to whoever wanted to speak to that
issue you know my concern is that on every night is that until men senior
King can be open seven nights a week you know both the shelters are available so
to a police department it has the ability to to go to either one of the
shelters and drop off whether or not whichever one is open and if there's
some reason why they can't be there then there's no particular enforcement
depending on where the location is but it is an option yeah okay so thank you
yeah so whoever would like to speak to that Bobby Smith assistant chief of
police yes specifically so you know if you could speak to you I understand the
reasons you know and the concerns it's a lobby you've got people coming in and
out of there for all sorts of reasons you know I'm wondering about you know
would anything change as far as enforcement or is this more you know as
Danny mentioned about a change in the communications which he emphasized yeah
I think it's a change in communication you know you know you have to look every
situation could be different for example I was thinking there's a hailstorm and
somebody's coming in we're not going to kick people out of the lobby in a
hailstorm but talking about situations where it's going to be cold at night
we're going to make arrangements to try to get those people delivered to a safe
location and you know it's a you know kind of compassionate response it's it's
not hurried it's hey how do we solve this problem one step at a time that's
that's the attitude we take okay great yeah so this would be so nobody would
be just kicked out unless there's a behavioral issue it would be about we're
going to take you you know where do you need to go hear your options that's
exactly right we're not looking to arrest people kick them out things of
that nature we're looking to help them solve a problem find finding sheltering
shelter their sheltering needs is what we're looking at so it's we've also
internally we've we have a policy where we have a supervisor come up there this
is the way we've been operating we have a supervisor come up and actually talk
to the individual to try to find other arrangements that's that's the way we've
been operating just to make sure that we've taken a measured approach to it
and just again just it's a compassionate response to try to figure out how to how
to get them to fulfill their needs okay thank you thank you so just to frame it
so the questions as I understand it or direction sought is a couple of people
have said they're okay with a quarterly update so if there's anyone that's
contrary to that and then I'd need to hear that fee waiver councilmember Davis
had mentioned he would like to see that come to council so I need to hear more
on that and then the last thing is a 48-hour notice there's there's one for
one against as far as requiring that or making that leaving that in place and
then if there's anyone that's against or con doesn't want to see the the two
senior centers put on a different level that's what I threw out there so those
three things primarily it's it's quarterly updates fee waivers and 48
hours councilmember Ryan thank you on the fee waivers I agree in principle with
with councilmember Davis what we might need to add to the policy would be a
number of times a certain now that any nonprofit could use it per year so that
we're not having somebody that's doing three three times in a month because
there was bad weather every weekend and then it comes to council so maybe a
limitation of until it's ratified by council that they can't do it again and
set some type of maximum number of times per year that they're allowed to get the
fee waiver they can still use it those other times but they wouldn't have the
fee waiver and councilmember Davis your thoughts I think that sounds reasonable
just because we could find ourselves in a situation where that I think we were
talking about budget request for 30,000 for that we could blow through that
pretty quickly in a rainy a rainy spring and it may be that we wouldn't want to I
mean that could be something that may be subject to to council ratification for
future use we could reexamine kind of if a particular organization finds
themselves in a troubled spot but for instance I can envision the scenario
where we run through the fee waiver money for one organization in one spring
and then the next time that the church that's handing out food for the homeless
would like to make use of the fee waivers well it's not there anymore sorry
we've run through that funding because another organization got there first so
however it's best to kind of parse that out and be able to watch that money in a
careful way and not just kind of carte blanche okay councilmember Meltzer yeah
I don't this is a good idea or not in response to this question about how do
you manage the fee waiver thing you know what if there's no expectation given on
the spot of a fee waiver like these are the fees city management has said you
can go we can put in a request you know for you to have a waiver let you know
it's not like payable on the spot and they go to the hot fund sponsorship
committee because it's really the same you know I don't know where we need like
a lot of different mechanisms for you know giving funds to you know specific
organizations and that way it's not a predetermined you know it's X number of
times or those things could be pretty arbitrary you know however you want to
cut up the money the sponsorship money you know let the committee kind of look
at it holistically okay just comment on two things and comment on one the the
48-hour notice you know I agree with you know councilmember Meltzer that you know
I trust staff to make a decision even a difficult no at the last minute and this
you know I feel like unless somebody can point out a reason why this is not the
case that there's enough you know requirements in there that a good reason
for no could simply be you know it is to last minute for us to have the staffing
ready so I think that would be you know if there are people there there's an
easy way to bring people out of the rain then I would support that I like the
idea and I so I respect the concerns about a fee waivers where you know
everything could be used up by one organization you know at the same time I
don't want to put additional red tape in place that you know saying you can only
use it X many times that could end out being kind of difficult and seemingly
arbitrary I like where councilmember Meltzer was was was heading as far as
kind of having a the ability to retroactively waive fees or not let just
letting people know that they might not be waived however you know my only tweak
to that would be I don't know if the sponsorship and hot funds because of
the the specific the way that well definitely not hot funds but I don't
know if you know sponsorship the way that that's set up with the timing of
that how that would work you know but I would be okay for if that would make it
easier for staff and easier for the people using these facilities to have a
way that fees could be waived retroactively I don't feel the need to
have it come back to me as long as you know there's a to council and me being on
council you know as long as there's the understanding as with any new policy
that this is a new policy and testing it out to see how it goes but I'm fine
delegating to staff and if it turns out that people are being not that I'm
anticipating this but people are being told no for arbitrary reasons we can go
back and change that say it has to come before council or if people are if if
the same organization is has used up all the money you know and it leaves others
out who who want it then that's a concern and then we could tweak it then
but I'm willing to see how this goes you know my my kind of remaining concerns
are just about the inclement weather definition wanting to add rain and
wanting to make the temperatures you know to wanting to lower that high
temperature and again I understand I respect the standard it's good to have
objective reason for the standard but to lower it somewhat to go by you know to
pick a number where we could say this is when it feels too hot to have a you know
quinceanera out outside or something yeah something like this is when it's
too cold to do whatever so I would want that and you know and as for the the
closing of the police station you know again I respect that and I'm pleased to
know that there won't be any kind of increased enforcement I'm I'm a little
nervous about you know if somebody gets there in the somebody who's an
unhoused person gets the message that they can't be there and if there's
misinterpretation the word getting out you know all these factors that we can't
exactly can control or predict I'm I'm concerned I'm concerned about that but
anyway that's kind of how I stand on those those issues okay just so do you
have an instance of your concern or is that just a of your concern of someone
being in the police station and being kicked out I don't know is that steeped
in this is what I've heard or that's just a anything's possible no absolutely
not it's a matter of fact you know in fact I know that you know and I have
great you know I I admire and you know have sympathy that you know the police
station has kind of ended up being a place where people sleep because they
can and people but people do feel safe there I've never heard that doesn't mean
hasn't happened but I've never heard of anybody personally not feeling safe I'm
just wondering because because people feel safe and comfortable there now even
though that's not the purpose of the police department lobby and I do
understand and respect that no I just wanted to be clear that they're based
on your experience there's not an instance that you're referencing no no
no I'm just because the way things are it's it's it's it is trying to think how
to put it people feel people who sleep there feel safe and I want to make sure
that that doesn't change but it seems like that that's not going to change and
and I think I like that Chief Smith can probably answer those questions but I
think the information contained in the AIS was probably the opposite is trying
to find a compromise so that anybody entering in exactly exactly and I feel
yeah I don't feel the need unless you want to you know repeat what you said
before but I understand and respect what you said that that there's not going to
be really much of a change the way the process would work out is since our
lobby if this passes you know it's not going to be used for inclement weather
correct so we're gonna ask people to leave and I mean we're gonna ask them to
when I say leave we're gonna find an alternative for them okay other than our
lobby that's that's that's the whole purpose of this so event I guess that you
could envision a circumstance where somebody absolutely refused to receive
some sort of alternative then we would have to make a decision about what to do
I mean you could have some situations where somebody was mentally ill and they
just absolutely refused to go to a shelter or find alternative means and so
we have to we'll have to make a decision right then and there and depending on
the circumstances but you know our all our options are to leave them in the
lobby and basically just to allow them basically allow this policy to be null
and void at that moment or remove them from the lobby so that's gonna be a
that's gonna have to be a command decision by the supervisor in the lobby
yeah go ahead it's and now people currently sleep there even in non
inclement weather correct right the way it's working now though is we have the
lobby itself has been shut down as an overnight facility the hours it closes
at 8 p.m. now the vestibule I don't know if you're familiar with that section it
goes between the police department and the courts that little section right
there that has been open for forever oh yeah it's been sorry that's been thank
you for making that distinction when I was saying the love when so far when the
lot the word lobby was said I was picturing the area that's open and then
with the little benches where the windows are right there with the benches
and and this you can receive service from the desk that's the lobby that's
what we refer to as the police lobby okay the vestibule is that little section
where you can get out of the weather but and then there's doors to the court and
there's doors to the police department okay got it so I was using lobby
correctly sorry I got it right okay well go ahead no I just if you if I need to
explain any further please let me know I'm good okay our goal is to never we
don't want to arrest people and we don't want to kick people out we want to help
people but eventually if our if our hand is forced then we'll have to make that
decision based on the circumstances okay yeah thank you thank you I'm just so
sorry that it's that we've got so many people on the street and that that's
that's where we are it shouldn't be it shouldn't be a police you know police
problem and I'm sorry things are the way they are thank you and and then if you
could just for those watching and for the record what is the date of that AIS
or it was a Friday report or what I forget it all runs together but do you
have the date of that that people wanted to reference or oh it's actually the AIS
the agenda information for this presentation today got it so that yeah
that is the basis for some of the the changes that are being proposed today
thank you and then so recapping just for staff's purpose and I think I need one
or two things so quarterly updates we're good there fee waiver I'm gonna fall in
line with I think you've heard John's and you can just bring that back so John's
thoughts Jesse's I think I fall kind of on the side of a modified version of
what not Councilmember Meltzer mentioned Councilmember Davis mentioned it before
a here's the fee that's due but there's an opportunity for it to be waived I
think that type approach but I think staff can reanalyze and yeah so
administratively that would that would look like they would have to pay up
front we could bring it back as a ratification and the policy as proposed
does say that you know from the beginning that all applicable fees
permits and insurance requirements still apply for use of a facility after hours
during inclement weather for inclement weather reasons so they would have to pay
we could bring that back to you in the form of a ratification if you want to
approve it for fee waiver then what we would do is then process go through the
process of of refunding that money and then provide you with those whether it's
a monthly quarterly update in terms of the status of who's who's asked for it
you know who's used it number one who's asked for any fee waivers the ones that
were approved denied and then where that balance stands on a budget should that
be approved during the budget process got it and then the 48 hours I think
there's it's a I'm gonna fall on the three side of two so there's not a true
consensus but I think the 48 hours is necessary I just think that is important
as out of respect for time for just those sort of that's just where I fall
then on the the the rain they I I don't feel so there's there's council member
Meltzer councilmember Armentar there and then in favor of adding the rain
component I don't feel that the city's responsibility should be to make sure
every event is is rain free I mean there's just there's rain to shine events
every day there's there's the Texas Motor Speedway there's I mean there's
everyone understands that is a problem I get it but that's kind of and so I need
to hear from councilmember Ryan and councilmember Davis regarding rain if
there's it were y'all following that so that we can give clear direction
councilman Ryan well I think I come down on the same side with you that I mean
you can you can look at your hourly forecast on your phone and it may say
there's a 10% chance next hour well if we're having to do these 48 hours in
advance they're gonna know if it's gonna be a major storm that potentially has
hail involved or if it's gonna be just a minor rainfall okay thank you
councilmember Davis no I agree with that I think like you said there's there's
rain and then there's rain if it's a if it's a big event you see that ahead of
time and there's also on the subject of the 48 hour notice there's there's
opportunity built into the policy in section 2.6 for case-by-case basis so if
there's something that comes up that is just completely unforeseen we've got
tornadoes on the way there's opportunity policy for staff to review
case-by-case okay thank you yep and so that's is there that clear ish I believe
so I think we can take that back yes okay very good it's is it something okay
just a question so about so was I the only one who was not comfortable with
removing the the police station as a again I understand the reasons but just
I was the only one who's not comfortable with removing the police station as a
I'm not certain it's an existing policy so I think if it am I wrong that is in
place it's a change to the current policy currently it's listed as if we're
inclement weather and so this new policy will include removing it again I'm very
sympathetic to the reasons but correct it would just be removing it from our
communications plan as an open facility okay so yeah and I'll hear from anyone
that would basically I need to hear from you if you think it should be it should
remain in the communication yes sir yes I'm not speaking to say that well then
we can just I'm just you know sort of and respond to the question I'm
comfortable with the recommendation and the explanation okay got it so yes you
so clear direction we're yes thank you thank you okay so that takes us that
concludes that item and so that's item B and we will take a at 231 we will take
a five minute and 30 second break and come back
welcome back to this work session of the City Council and welcome those here
and watching online it is 239 and we are proceeding to item C to see on our work
session reports and it's numbered 19 1396 good afternoon mayor pro tem City
Council members my name is Nick Vincent the city's budget manager we have four
departments scheduled to present their budget to you today including facilities
fleet tech services and public safety communication the library was including
your backup if you will please disregard that they are going to be presented to
you on July 16th with that I'll ask Dean to come up and present the facilities
budget good afternoon mayor pro tem Council I'm Dean Hartley facilities
manager appreciate the opportunity today to actually come and present the
highlights of the facilities 19 20 budget
all right some of our accomplishments for last year 18 19 we completed
construction of fire station for we completed the first phase of fencing at
I double o f and Oakwood Cemetery we completed the training burn tire in
classroom for the fire department and we're looking at design and then
construction at 651 mayhem and then of course finishing designs on the service
center and the new police department some of the goals for this upcoming year
we're going to continue construction of fire station 3 which we started in May
we're going to complete design begin construction of fire station 8 we
completing construction on villa and we're going to start construction on
American Legion and the tennis center we're going to bundle those projects and
hope that there's some economies to scale there to try to get those prices
in line and then of course we're doing finishing design starting construction
on the Fleet Bay expansion the emphasis on our budget this year mainly we're a
little different this year we've been moved from the general fund and we're
going to an internal service fund a better align the services that we
provide internally to our customers there's going to be three divisions its
administration maintenance and the project division basically we care for
all the buildings preventative maintenance vertical construction
renovations we do all the card access systems and we actually make every ID
for every employee comes through our department and we administer the
janitorial contract for the whole city buildings every settlement city
building we have a pretty robust capital improvement program for us it's
replacements of three of our major assets it's actually roofs flooring HVAC
we budget those out in a 10-year cycle so we can see what's come upcoming so we
know how to budget it but every year we come back and we prioritize those to say
hey you know just because it's up for replacement doesn't need it can we buy
some extra time prime example the roof on this building was due in 2012 for
replacement and because of our preventative maintenance that we do on it
we were able to buy another seven years out of that roof these next two slides
are just workload just to kind of show you what kind of workload that
facilities has this is basically going to sum up our maintenance division we
got 57 buildings approximately eight hundred and fifty seven thousand square
feet of space that we maintain this next one is our project division you can kind
of see we've got ten of these that don't have any dollars attached to them yet
and we're up around the 80 million dollar range on these projects and these
are all in some phase of our touch right now it could be bid it could be the
budgeting planning construction the design or even the programming so we're
always looking for efficiencies and how to move forward with getting these
accomplished our cost containment strategies of course we always look for
doing things in-house with staff that we're bringing on that's a new skilled
staff and has the expertise in that so the more we can bring in-house the
better we are of course we had two vacant positions for part of the year it
was unexpected but we've hung it hung on to them for some salary savings and of
course we have continued to bid out contracts and that helps us our
technician if we need a plumbing contractor for something because it's too
big that we can't handle then it's nice to not to have to go get three quotes
and all of the time it's take to expend to do that so it makes our technicians
more efficient and you can see we've got current contracts in hand and one of our
containment strategies is is to add some additional ones and we have some
targeted for this next year so hopefully next year during this budget this current
contract list will be a whole lot larger
process improvements we're always looking for process improvements we've
implemented a new work order system this year went live in May so it's still new
to us it's going to help a lot with our customer feedback and how that is is the
system actually send status to the requester every time that work order
changes state it's it's requested it'll tell them and that it's been received
it'll tell them if a technician has been assigned to it it'll tell them when the
technician opens it and I'll tell them when the technician finishes it so it's
going to help with our communication councilman Walter okay so to use as an
example of maybe a case where this new process might improve it you know I've
gotten some questions about why why aren't there yet shade structures at the
animal shelter and I see this is one of the items you know on your list to be
determined right if you could and maybe that's not a good example because it's a
unique case but you know if that's a good example you know if you could kind
of take us through how a new process might improve that improve on that
actually I think the process I don't know that the work order system would
help us improve on that process the shade structure is kind of a unique one
everybody money was donated for that which I under you know it's it's
important to us to get it done but we have to follow the end the ex internal
process just like an external citizen would so with that that requires
engineer drawings for anything that can withstand 70 80 mile an hour winds that
we're getting lately and we're have kind of pumped the brakes and now we're back
to that company getting the engineer drawings to come back and set those
structures which is going to get us through permitting and it it's just we
want I know everybody wants it done when they want it done but it's really
facilities call to ensure that we check all the boxes before we do it does that
help yeah yeah and thank you yeah just as soon people will be so happy to you
know when that is finally in place and we've got some temporary ones up I think
we've helped the animal shelter get some temporary ones in place for right now
thank you so much for your work on that thank you councilmember Ryan thank you
I'm assuming that the new work order system will also help us in determining
where we need to have contracts for outside labor and where we might need to
hire another plumber or electrician to be on city staff I mean which would be
the more efficient way to go yes I think we're gonna see that this model has a
lot new of dashboards and information that can be pulled into reports that are
going to be really important and determined in that and kind of going
back to our previous slide that was the workload of our technicians you know I
told you we had 57 buildings and we had about eight hundred and sixty thousand
square feet roughly well what happens is when we come before counseling and we're
or anybody and we're trying to say we need a technician because we're
exceeding the amount of space that that technician can do actually when we look
at all the national standards those technicians are built the standards
built on the square footage per technician being in a campus are in a
single structured like hotel or hospital and where we really get to where we can't
put it justify where ourself where we fall into that is ours is spread out
we're from one side of the town to the other you know we've got some
inefficiencies on drive times even though we try to if we've got a schedule
if we've got a technician scheduled together the north side of town then we
do try to bundle those work orders into be able to make them most efficient and
get as many on that side of town as we can you know of course now the emergency
ones are going to trump that and and we may have to drive across town if it's
something that's urgent oh sorry councilmember Melser yeah first I want to
say but when I see the list of everything that you manage and and all
the projects coming up it's you know it's it's pretty staggering so you know
don't get me wrong I'm gonna focus on one that I have a question on but 2
Juneteenths have passed since we voted on the American Legion one and I'd be
interested in your perspective on whether the issues that have gotten the
way that getting started are specific to that project or do they reflect you know
a systemic issue that you're working to change that is basically directly at
that project I'm going to put that on the architectural firm we've had some
delays with that they haven't met some deadlines that they've promised us to
meet actually they just haven't been as responsive as we would have wished they
had been and then their first estimate came back in we were over budget so we
asked them to go back and look at some preliminary designs can't you know are
there some value engineering is there something we can do different to get
this thing back within budget and so they've worked through that process and
we're actually I think going to finalize having our permit on that today for sure
this week it's pretty close that it was going to happen today so we've got the
tennis center and I think you're aware of the tennis center that's coming up
there's similar projects in size and dollar amounts and it just makes sense to
try to put those together and see if we can get some economies to scale so you
yes it is delayed that would not be our desire but here we are and we're trying
to make the best of it as we can right now and hopefully bring y'all some
projects that are at least close to being within budget I didn't know the
permit was coming today that was the planned question that was convenient to
answer thank you and then mr. city manager he had something what I had yeah
no I think he did a good job explain it I just wanted to be sure that you know
we communicated some of the budgetary issues that were saying so we have kind
of stepped on the brakes a little bit to pair that up with the tennis center
hoping we can you know get some budget I guess growth in there a little bit more
of economy of scale and get some contractors interested in that in a
little bit bigger project as we discussed with you last week so and we
know it's frustrating but the first budget proposal we saw came in and
basically almost double what we had initially thought so they've been
working through that and doing the requisite value engineering and also
evaluating by making the product during the project from a 3 million one into a
10 million dollar project for instance might we be able to make some of that
ground up one of the other processes that we have that we're trying to
improve on is we're actually doing some warehousing minor in-house and that's
the stuff that we frequently use it's your light bulbs your filters your
belts it's we're trying to cut down on the technicians having to go to the
central warehouse like daily or box stores to get parts so the items that
they are using that are frequent we're we're going to stock some of those in
the on our shelves where they can just come and get those as needed and that's
going to help them be more efficient cutting down on the trips to the
suppliers or vendors some of the budget highlights we're in the revenue section
basically you're going to see some changes here and it's it's us going from
general fund to internal services provider the 18 19 budget to our 18 19
estimate is basically about six hundred and fifty seven hundred thousand dollars
difference and where our estimate is and where our budget and that was one project
that was put in our budget that has been taken out and moved to a different cost
center and so you're going to kind of see that play through on even our
expense side of the budget there's going to be about that difference in there the
1920 proposed budget to better align our services we went back in and read it
looked at our at cost allocations to the department and we've redefined those to
exactly who and how we're doing work for those departments what you what's
probably a takeaway on this one that you would want to see is that we have
actually reduced our burden on the general fund quite a bit in this way the
expense side of that of course it's the it's it's the same thing the 18 19 budget
to estimate it's missing well actually you can see it it's down in the fixed
assets about six hundred and seventy eight thousand that's that difference
you're saying from one to the other and that's that 651 project that went to a
different cost center and then of course our 1920 proposed we've got some
progression plans that are coming forward and then we're also anticipating
that our two vacancies will be filled for the whole year next year this is our
position summary I know we talked a little about workload and how much it
looked like well this is the staff we're doing it with 17 18 we had 18 FTE's 18
19 we increased that with a another facilities project manager and so that
put us at 19 our estimate this year we hired a was able to hire a temporary
seasonal and that's a painter and the reason that became important to us is
because when we were trying to contract that painting service we have issues we
we would have to have one of our staff members with them if they're not FBI
background check like behind the police department tech services has got some
areas they can't be in of course the airport control tire all of that so this
part-time person is FBI background check we don't have to be with them and they
can go behind those areas and they really we still are going to contract
painting big ticket items what I like to call this is our onesie twosies it's
when we're moving offices and somebody just needs a ball painted or an office
painted or freshened up then this person can run in get it done he's flexible on
his eyes where we can do it when it's not interfering with staff and and if
it's out in the public area we're not interfering with our day-to-day business
so 1920 we're proposing the same thing we're 19 and a half staff members staff
members so one I am I'm FBI background check but I can't paint okay and I can't
work on Tuesday's all right question do you have runners that you utilize when
you're talking about the parts and everything that jumped out at me because
I think getting across our little town is becoming more of a challenge which is
which is interesting growth to kind of experience that but do you have runners
that you'd like for parts you say you're gonna house the parts but you have
runners that kind of can keep someone on task someone run or deliver something to
them while they're working or how do you manage that we actually don't have a
runner but what we do have which we utilize them in some of that capacity is
one of our positions we call our emergency person and what that is is
that's the person that takes the calls that hey there's a light out in the
bathroom okay well is it the only one in the bathroom well yes so that's now
become important so we use that person for that or hey we've got water running
over you know we need somebody at the library so we use that person dedicated
for that purpose to keep from pulling our technicians off of their scheduled
daily duties that they have and we do use that person for some of that to also
run that parts if it's something that they're on that side of town and can't
just get quickly yeah and so mr. manager I would solicit your your insight on
that I mean as we kind of grow as the streets are harder to get to and from if
you see a global kind of use I'd love to hear that during the buzzer
presentation if there's something we can assist you with too because I think that
is important if we have someone on task that and we're saying hey how long is
gonna take you to do this this that and the other it's a it's easier to say hey
you know you're on task versus or I had to drive and that's I think if it makes
sense I'll just whatever you think so any other questions okay thank you Dean
masterful job look at that thank you
good afternoon again my name is Terry catered fleet superintendent easy for me
to say good afternoon appreciate your time this afternoon we're gonna get
right into the budget here so a little bit about fleet really we're a small
department we have 20 technicians and two supervisors and three support staff
and myself to take care of about 1,260 assets our budget emphasis is going to
be on customer service it always has been and always will be because that's
kind of what we do the the things that we really need to concentrate on this
year I think or vehicle downtime making sure that we get our customers vehicles
back to them in a timely manner get them in the shop get them out as well as the
equipment procurement replacement schedules making sure that we get those
vehicles ordered early in the cycle whatever and and try to get them in our
customers hands in a timely manner so that they can get to the old stuff out
as well as getting rid of their older units at auction as well so some of the
resources we've looked at is all about what we could do for our customers and
helping them is we've talked about base base already and Dean's working on that
project pretty diligently for us and looking at our staffing levels we were
able to add two technicians this year which helped out a lot in terms of being
able to take care of our customers needs and that was a result of the Blue Ridge
study that was done for the solid waste department and we're going to take a
look at some technology and and some ways to better communicate with our
customers talk about a couple of accomplishments the we did we did change
our technician pay scale there is a technician shortage and nationwide and we
were certainly in the middle of that whenever we try to hire technicians by
changing the pay scale to make it more where it needs to be today to track the
top talent and we also change the benefit package a little bit we were
able to get four times the number of applicants that we normally would when
we went out and advertised protect positions so we were also able to
attract some skilled technicians from other cities we've never done that in
the past at least not since I've been here and we were also able to get a
technician a skilled technician for one of our vendors whole cat we the other
thing that we are pretty proud of is that we were able to open a satellite
shop the solid waste department had a two-bay shop that was available we
started working on that to get it ready for use in January and about mid-January
we started taking care of vehicles out of that shop so we have three dedicated
technicians working at the solid waste facility and as a result of that we have
dropped the response time across both shops by two and a half hours which
means we get those vehicles in the shop that much quicker and that's that's year
to date this year over last year same time period the other thing is that
we've done 500 work orders out of that second shop at solid waste which means
that we didn't have to transport 500 vehicles back to our main shop to get
worked on so you can do the math there there's a lot of time savings and a lot
of money and just transporting vehicles so kind of kind of a big benefit there
some of the goals that we're looking at of course is the shop expansion we'll be
bringing that back to you for approval hopefully in October if everything goes
well and the other thing is taking a look at how can we communicate with our
customers better we we do a lot of data right now we collect a lot of data but
we'd like to get that data in a usable format in our customers hands as well as
ours to make better decisions when it comes to maintaining vehicles purchasing
vehicles and utilizing vehicles we talked about the satellite repair shop
as far as efficiencies usually you lose a little bit of efficiency whenever you
are not no longer centralized and that certainly did happen a little bit in
this case but we've worked through the those issues and we are we're on track
to do a much better job for the solid waste in turn that freed up space at our
main shop so across the board all of our customers have been better off for that
move as well and we did dedicate some solid waste technicians as well as we
were able to gain two technicians during the middle of the year which helped us
so the other the other cost containment strategy is is based on the use of
extended warranties there you mentioned the pothole patcher earlier and we're
talking about those are high maintenance machines and anytime we can get an
extended warranty in a case like that we want to take full advantage of that and
we do that with some of our some of our larger equipment that does is very
maintenance intensive as well we've secured some good contracts with local
vendors and what that does for us that those contracts can also include
discounts on parts and and discounts on other work that we actually sublet out
such as body shop repairs and those type of things some of the process
improvements we've already worked on and will continue to work on is tracking
warranty and recovery of that warranty that's going to benefit our customers
the enormous amount of safety recalls we get these days on fleet wide it can be
on on-road vehicles off-road vehicles and we're working on a system where we
can manage those recalls in a timely manner and get those to the vendor make
sure they have the parts to repair them get them back in our customers hands
these it's all about safety and then we're also working on pre and post
trip and vehicle inspection process and how we can improve that making it real
time and paperless as well so the things we want to work on coming up or you know
just communications with our customers getting them more data and and more
information into their hands kind of look at the entire vehicle repair
experience if you will from the customer standpoint and we know that there's
areas in our operation that can be streamlined that can be improved from the
customer aspect and get their vehicles turned around much quicker so we're
going to be taking a look at that that's actually going to happen through an
operational review this year that will take place in this will be funded this
current fiscal year and we're going to weigh down the results of that and see
what areas we need to focus on put our efforts towards first that they'll give
us a better idea of where we need to focus to make to make improvements so on
our revenue budget highlight our our budget this year is at ten point five
million dollars and all of these revenue streams if you will there are pass-through
costs except for vehicle labor so the only thing that we charge is vehicle
labor the rest are passed through want to draw your attention to sublet repairs
those are the repairs that we send outside that we do not do in-house and
some of that's based on do we have technician availability we always look
at what's the most effective way to get that machine back in our customers hands
so sometimes the most effective way is to send it out and that can vary too
because we send out all of our body shop repairs we don't do any internal body
work and it really is a matter of how many accidents we have during the years
that can really affect that that number one way or another up or down the other
thing you'll see is the administrative fees we we stop charging administrative
fees in 2018-19 this year and we'll continue that our our revenues are
recovered through labor on the expense side carry one question
councilman Armitage yes a question about the previous slide if you just explain
interest income is that on interest we collect interest income was on a fund
balance basically is where that came from you'll see that's kind of dropped
over the years because our fund balance is depleted it will be depleted we're
gonna cat we're not gonna be in the process of cash funding like we had
typically done in a few years past so that's got it got it thanks for
explaining oh yes that's a melter yeah I hadn't noticed sublet repairs can you
just explain what that is and and how we expect to increase our revenue in that
area the sublet repairs are it's basically a spending authority for us to
send work outside of what we normally would do so glass replacement body shop
repair some hydraulic work we send out we typically don't do things in-house
that we're not set up to do efficiently and so we do sublet a lot of that and
some of the heavy equipment that's out at the landfill we rely on outside
vendors to to work on that for us how is that a source of revenue it's simply a
transfer in from the fund that's receiving the service so it should zero
out if the that'll be split up between all the utilities general fund and then
there should be not a corresponding expense on the other side
so here you see that and in the operation side of the equation on this
slide we have a balanced budget at 10-5 and again you'll see a little bit of
increase in personal services and that was due to the addition of the two
technicians that we currently have everything else is pretty pretty
straightforward fuel is is fuel we base our fuel rates on the EIA projections
they've they typically come pretty close year to year and we just follow their
guidelines on what the fuel costs are going to do for the following year so
this year we took a look at in the current fiscal year before we replaced
all of the equipment this year we got started on we always start with the
long-term the extended times for receiving equipment such as refuse trucks
and heavy equipment that have long lead times on them but partway through the
partway through the purchasing cycle we kind of stopped and said let's take a
look at what we have left to purchase and where can we make cuts to that where
can we do it does everything we have on the list to be purchased is it
necessary and can we put some of those off or can we do some trade-outs with
different departments and so we started looking at utilization across the board
on our light duty fleet and we were able to defer or save eight hundred ninety
thousand dollars from this current year's purchasing by moving vehicles
around that were under utilized instead of replacing them and then others will
be set aside to be to use up their useful life and not be replaced in the
future so we did make some changes there and then this current slide you could
see the 1920 replacements originally we had planned on replacing 93 units after
the utilization study we trim 20 vehicles off from that 20 pieces of
equipment when I say vehicle it could be it could be any piece any asset that the
city uses and the savings of about four hundred and seventy thousand dollars to
the general fund and you can see it's nearly two million dollars overall so we
adjusted the replacement cycle from 93 to 73 on that well the utilization
studies ongoing we're always looking at right sizing vehicles and making sure
that the vehicles that we are purchasing are going to be used some of the
departments are changing the way they operate so the vehicles that we might
be replacing are not necessarily like for like like we need to change and make
sure that we're getting them what they need to do their jobs now not what they
needed ten years ago so
councilmember Meltzer any expectation of increasing our electric fleet I don't
mean electric department I mean electric vehicles we do we would love to do that
we did purchase two all-electric bolts last year and they've done a pretty
fantastic job for us I wish we could utilize them in more places in the
fleet we're always looking for where we can put those in the fleet we bought
those last June they went into service and we haven't the shop hasn't seen
them there they're basically maintenance free other than inspecting and making
sure tires and stuff are good so could push out of work no we have plenty of
work yes sir we are looking at what's coming out in the electrification field
and there are a lot of platforms that are moving that way at some point we'll
have some heavier sedans and some light pickup trucks I believe it may not be
this current year but we're always looking to see what's proven technology
so we can get that in the fleet councilmember Ryan thank you earlier on
one of your earlier slides the highlighted goals for 1920 you begin
fleet wide GPS installation and on a presentation we had earlier on traffic
signals are these of the same type I just it's the same technology we haven't
chosen a platform and I'm not sure that they've chosen a platform but it
certainly could be one in the same and that's what I would encourage us to do
is make sure that we're working on the same platform so that if we do institute
another technology we're not having to replace an entire GPS system just to get
caught back up again and then I recently attended a meeting where it was
Lewisville ISD was doing a presentation on some of their training programs and
they are working with a dealership and they train students that are and I don't
know that this would work with the ISD because we have big vehicles but it
might be something for you know some of our smaller fleet or our car fleet that
they're able to spend a half a day they work with NCTC to cover the insurance
aspect of it because of them being under 18 and so I just encourage us to look at
the ISD and their auto program potentially I mean these kids are coming
out of high school making 45 to 60,000 yes sir and the technician shortage is
gonna be a problem for the foreseeable future I like that idea can we see a
staff report on on that we can certainly put in the queue all the ways that we've
changed our recruiting processes in the last year or so to to deal with this
issue and including working with the educational system so we'll we'll get
something put together when Terry's gonna get a chance to do that some
thanks okay no other question thank you very much thank you
good afternoon council city manager Melissa craft from the chief technology
officer and today we'll be discussing the technology services budget and also
the public safety communications budget our accomplishments for fiscal year 18
19 overall we completed 74 projects and fulfilled over 6,000 service and
incidents requests we also held our uptime of 99.5 we completed several
projects as far as our ERP system upgrade and also a lot of network
replacement in over 50 facilities our goals for 1920 is implementation of the
Motorola radio p25 system and also implementation of our new public safety
cat RMS system in addition to laptop refresh and equipment refresh some of
our budget emphasis this year is really around our lifecycle replacement of
equipment most of our equipment's over five years old we just finished our
network infrastructure upgrade our server upgrade which replaces equipment
at our primary data center backup data center and the connectivity in between
we're also looking at consolidation of the DME infrastructure this would help
provide utilization of shared resources and also savings of over 800k as a
result there's a lot of public safety needs specifically around some of the
technology they're using so for instance one of the things we're looking at
implementing this budget year is the first net cell phone so they can carry
cell phones instead of using their personal cell phones and also various
application upgrades and also getting them to more of an automated electronic
process as well a result of all the public safety projects are over 1
million dollars additionally we're looking at some IT security enhancements
which include a new and a rare solution in various security components we need
to replace some of our cost containment strategies again by us consolidating the
infrastructure between DME and the gen gov equipment this did result in a
800k reduction of additional infrastructure cost and also a 400k
reduction in their cost of service we saved over 100k in network design and
different design services we opted to do in-house versus outsourcing we also
additionally looked at some of our software contracts and resulted in 20k
savings additionally as we're looking at our centralization consolidation over
the last two budget cycles we retired two applications as well some of our
process improvements include a partnership with our finance and HR
department with automation of some of their processes and also consolidation
of five different cloud softwares into one cloud platform and also development
of a new public safety data warehouse that takes data for both fire police and
dispatch some of our future process improvements also include a data
warehouse for DME our budget report replacement and procurement
consolidation here's our overall five-year forecast our goals to really
draw down and fund balance and leave that at zero this enables us to use some
of that funding towards our capital infrastructure program as well some of
our key users that really make up of who consumes technology around 50% is
really primarily DME and public safety water wastewater and solid waste they
consume about 10% of our budget a lot of the increase on the gen fund is really
due to a lot of public safety upgrades and replacement so here's some of our
budget highlights it's a little explained on the next slide as far as
common gen fund and some of those increases a lot of this stuff is really
some of the net new stuff we added recently that was not in our previous
fiscal year budget such as our radio upgrade the payment for that's around
400k our server refresh of equipment that's over seven years old that's
around 500k consolidation of the human capital management of the five cloud
software into one that was not in our budget previously that's around a hundred
your 50k and various new technologies that we're using as far as automation
you can kind of see here our cost of service decreased for electric around
400k as a result
they'd want to spend a little time here to kind of highlight why some of those
increases are taking place specifically on the gen fund so if you look at the
police and fire differences again that's a little over 800k such as e ticketing
licensing AT&T first net they implemented a new public safety policy
software police and fire you know that alone makes 40k so when you look at some
of these net new technologies net new services that weren't there previously
you can see the increase overall under maintenance and also overall in
operations this also includes in operations are really our radio system
payment of around 450k and also our infrastructure replacement for our data
center right here of around 500k
some are position summaries you can see here really we did increase between
fiscal year 18 19 19 20 and 17 18 and 18 19 budget does include kind of the
transfer of those 11 of te's from DME as a centralization consolidation
strategy we also repurpose some of our position to really put our services
where they're needed the most so we saw the need to add some administrative
services and also GIS services yes sir councilmember Melzer on the previous
slide what is the meaning of the two of the million and a half reduction in
fixed assets I just don't know you know what that refers to and why it's so much
less if you can hold on to that can get kind of go over our capital improvement
plan really that's kind of the cyclical process of how we do our capital plan we
try to replace our equipment within a five to seven year lifecycle so you'll
see it kind of go up steady steady steady go down for a year or two then
it'll go back up we try to really plan it out five years out as best as we can
so to not have a lot of fluctuation in our cost of service now I can show you
that here in a couple slides okay thank you also just to highlight here we did
see an increase in our GIS services I really want to give a lot of credit to
some of parks as far as how they're using technology to really kind of make
decisions on their master plan and some of the services they're utilizing and
also fire that really increased a lot of the services in that area so here you
can see kind of our five-year lifecycle so you can see 1920 it's gonna kind of
drop because we did replace here recently the past two fiscal years then
it'll kind of increase and some of this includes application upgrades so for
instance this includes camera storage replacements we try to do that every five
to seven years so you can see kind of our fixed asset plan go up and drop down
and then 2324 we start all over again so does that answer your question sir so
here's our supplemental package summary really the primary focus is around
public safety one of the key things we're trying to implement in next year
is we're implementing the new CAD is to provide them a sense of redundancy while
we do have fail-back services to county for voice services we do not have
redundant systems for their cat RMS and their critical system so this will
enable a primary site and a backup site for them that's really where that
request is coming from they also have some additional equipment upgrades such
as I done X in the jail for a new fingerprint and their systems over seven
years old it's hard to read sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't you can see
really the focus on four five and six around security keeping the lifecycle of
antivirus our firewalls or six years old just trying to keep it on a refresh
process as well and additional services to include laser fish scanning getting
them to a more automated solution versus paper sitting in a file cabinet so you
really see a lot of that really gearing towards kind of more smart cities and
also includes a supplemental package for 85 K to have a neutral vendor come in to
really kind of assess our smart city strategy and try to help develop a
roadmap based on the public needs and our internal services needs okay thank
you any any questions I have one thing I wanted you to touch on or help me
understand the am I right you have a satellite office now in the fire
station all right all right one employee there that's housed there now and so
could you say how that's going benefits so that that employee is no longer with
the city so we're actually in the recruitment process of replacing that
position and hopefully she'll start here in the next week or two but really our
goal is to have a hybrid approach you know like we have dedicated staff on
site with DME when you're working with a real-time operation that immediate
responsive need we want to make sure we stay close to the business okay but but
just general that was you saw a net positive results having someone there
no real loss of productivity etc absolutely you start to learn the
acronyms they use and kind of what their goals and long-term objectives are we can
kind of marry that together to provide really good technology solutions got
great any other any questions okay thank you very much
here's the public safety communications presentation some of our accomplishments
we develop monthly activity reports to track performance measures consistent
with industry standards such as Nina and APCO we also report monthly to our
governance board which includes the police chief the fire chief myself and
a representative from the city manager's office again we provided reporting
dashboards for both police fire and public safety this was something that was
never they didn't have that opportunity before we also identified a new CAD
vendor we're in a process of replacement and also working with vendors to update
the mapping software as well one question councilman armored a question
about the the current CAD vendor and the old CAD vendor is there do you know kind
of a guide to if somebody requests a CAD report that or something that they were
involved in it's pretty hard for a layperson to understand because there's
all these acronyms is do you know to the vendors supply is sort of a guide for a
layperson I know the people who use it day to day you know know what these
acronyms mean so I think with the new vendor there's out-of-the-box reports so
we can get with you know both police and fire to see if we can create our own
internal reports through technology we use in-house to automate some of that so
I think that could definitely be potential as we're looking at
implementation of a new cabinet they're going to defer to Suzanne if there's
anything out of the box there Suzanne our public safety communications manager
as well thank you sorry Suzanne Coletta public safety communications there is a
the new vendor does have out-of-the-box canned reports if you'd say they're a
little bit they're much easier to read they know what our current vendor is
they are going to be easier to read I may not answer all their questions as
far as the acronyms and again we can design a report if it is still comes out
a little too complicated it does have the ability to do until a query and do
our own reporting from that software cool okay that's that's good to know
thanks especially if you want to track you know key initiatives throughout that
process to you we can give different views and different access so much much
different than a 20-year-old system yeah thank you so here's our 911 call
answering with the 22nd Nina standard you can kind of see a trend over time
the standard is right here you can see we exceed that standard close to 99% of
the time here's a snapshot of how it looks like within our 10 seconds so you
can see kind of the goal and then the standard which we exceed close to 92 94
percent of the time here's our call volume from a snapshot in time from July
2018 to February 2019 43% of what we do are 911 calls 27% outgoing calls where
they work we're calling for additional services we're calling County we're
calling for a record that's about where we spend our time and administrative
calls whether that's calling for services or confirms or working with
detectives and so forth so you can see here a total of 52,000 calls for 911
36,000 and then 32,000 for outgoing calls this is a really important slide
and you know we really appreciate the support as we're trying to get to kind
of what the staffing standard should look like for an operations our size you
can kind of see the number of calls during the busiest day in the busiest
hour so for instance on February 2019 at 1600 we receive 45 calls at a time
previously before we were adding additional staffing it would be three
people on the call at once so you can imagine 45 calls coming in at the same
time trying to listen to the radio you're trying to type at a computer and
you're trying to multitask that could definitely be a challenge so we really
appreciate the support and we do include that as a supplemental package to get us
to the standard where we should be so hopefully if we have five left
positions remaining left if all goes well and they all pass background we
should be fully staffed I'm gonna knock I don't think we've ever been fully
staffed at least for my knowledge calls for service by agency you can see here
85% of what we do is police 12% is fire and 3% scene will control some of our
public state public safety communication goals implementation of the radio
system the new CAD so and also complete update an overhaul of our policy and
procedure manual we were about 70% complete with that and also making sure
it integrates with both police and fire protocol as well and also continue
improvement of compliance score on quality assurance and medical priority
on calls some of our budget emphasis in our goal is to raise shift minimums to
five personnel right now we're ranging anywhere from four to three to five it
really depends on on the shift also have the radio operators just focus on radio
this will enable us to have you know better customer service due to data
dedicated call taker position some of our improved improvements in dispatcher
training one of the things that we really emphasize was ensuring that
supervisors and trainers are certified according to best practices and
standards which is the certified training officer training course and all
of them attended that and continue emphasis on continuing education to meet
licensing requirements some of our cost containment strategies really the
refinement of our hiring and training of new personnel in order to increase
minimum staffing and decrease required over time we were able to take a 60-day
process down to three weeks with our recent streamlining of processes also
utilizing dunco which is a free discount at local and online training
opportunity as well one of the things you know as we were going towards more
automated electronic solution is really re-entering class C warrants it's a
regional database this was something that's never been done not only does it
clear space but it also gets everything up to date with the courts some of our
process improvements completed I think we talked a little bit about that too we
did have a external vendor consultant firm come in and really look at our
processes look at our strengths and weaknesses so we can try to prioritize
which would give a better emphasis and impact to the operations and we've
implemented 95% of that plan also we dedicated a cat administrator who's
working on various public safety projects as well too in addition to
regular communication meetings with our stakeholders which includes our
governance board operations committee that's includes our field staff and
field sergeants and also a public safety technology work group so we can
prioritize kind of our projects make sure it brings the biggest impact to
improve customer service additional future process improvements include a
review of processes they're in cat implementation ensure efficiency and
compliance with all regulations and standards and also continue improvements
to our training programs increase job knowledge and job performance our goal
is to have master certifications throughout our entire staff some more
revenues and the expenditures it was a challenge to try to figure out what the
overtime looks like previously in the budget prior to this year the budget
overtime budget was in one big bucket so we really only have about six months
worth of overtime history in our budget we'll continue to track and monitor that
as well we also found approximate 6,000 active Denton classy warrants this
equates to around 2.4 million revenue not being collected through war in
entries that's one of the things not only does it enable us to get rid of
some of the paper-based processes we have but we can also potentially collect
funding as well some of our budget highlights again at previous years this
was all under one general bucket so it was hard to distinguish what the true
cost of service was for public safety communications but you can see here not
too much has changed really that the cost of service from other entities as
we consume that service position summary so you can see over past fiscal year we
did add a couple of positions we also enabled opportunity for us to get more
supervisory on staff you know I know at one point there was a month where we had
limited supervision with us being able to shift some of those resources to
include my supervisory we can ensure that we have supervisory on every shift
we also included a management analyst who's consistently looking at public
safety initiatives and help with refinance of processes and ensure the
integration between police fire and technology is working seamlessly some of
our supplemental packages can we are requesting three FTEs and also based on
our six-month historical usage we are requesting an increase in overtime of
around 105 K questions okay I have one ask I assume you in preparation and in
consideration for the bond potential you're looking at satellite office needs
communications across and then and then also projecting that forward to say hey
if we're gonna remodel the police station currently that's gonna shift the
heavier load there so just kind of I want to make sure we're planning in
advance for kind of some of those shifts of needs okay yes sir that's part of
kind of our discussions you know during a government's board and we're also kind
of partnered with them on that project as well great all right thank you very
much
okay no other presentations any questions budget-wise before we move on
okay very good well conclude item C and note that for those watching following
along the library budget presentation will come back to us and that will take
us to our we have one closer no no closer okay very good I do need to make
a change okay yes we did not have a signed executed agreement yet with red
flex so we're gonna be asking that item H also be pulled and moved back to July
16th the advice of our attorneys we want to make sure that they sign off on any
indemnification clauses before we present it to you okay so so item H will
be continued to the 28th to July 16th and then we've got L&M I think
presentations have been requested on those okay got it thank you so those
following along at home don't hurry up here for red flex consent agenda item H
you won't be won't take that up so that'll take us to I'll take a motion
on the consent agenda but for L&M two minute break okay let's take a two
minute and 45 second break it is 340
welcome back it is 347 on June 25th back in the work session we are proceeding to
our consent agenda we have two items pulled L&M H will be rescheduled and so
I'm looking for a motion Councilman Meltzer so I move for approval of the
consent agenda excluding items H L&M okay Councilman Ryan second great all of
all in favor do so by raising your right hand okay that passes how many of us are
there there's five of us five zero and that'll take us to item L yes and that's
so that's nineteen four eighty three consider adoption of ordinance of the
city of Denton and tech a Texas homeroom municipal corporation rejecting any and
all competitive proposals under RFP six eight nine one good afternoon mayor pro
time council city manager Terry Nolte assistant general manager at DME wanted
to just give you a high-level overview and we've combined both L&M in this
discussion so that we only have to go over at one time so we are proposing to
reject these give me just one second let me call him as well so I'm gonna call
item M 1914 86 consider adoption and ordinance of the city of Denton Texas
homeroom municipal corporation rejecting any and all competitive proposals under
RFP six nine seven eight okay thank you sorry sorry so these items were request
for proposals that were issued by DME late last year and in support of the
renewable Denton plan to achieve the hundred percent renewable energy supply
under contract by the end of 2020 we've done analysis on the proposals and we're
recommending the rejection of two of the three types of proposals that we went
out for the two that are in question here first one was for wind energy from
the coastal area of Texas which is down and along the Gulf the second one which
is was a 5 megawatt solar project with 1 megawatt of battery storage so our goal
in this procurement was to procure a hundred megawatts of supply split
between wind and solar we are keeping open the wind proposal the wind RFP that
was not on the agenda so we are still pursuing that particular one both of
these RFPs were for 20-year contracts the wind farms proposal that we're
asking for you to approve rejection of we had 11 wind farms that responded and
47 options from those 11 wind farms the sister RFP which is not part of this
ordinance was for solar energy and it was 25 solar farms with 104 responses
the 5 megawatt project was a 5 megawatt solar project with 1 megawatt of battery
so storage and the objective there was to test the market we only received 10
options from four respondents on that request for proposal this map is
intended to just demonstrate the the scope of responses that we received for
each little son here you that was a response we received we did receive some
wind responses the one that we're asking you to reject was the coastal wind the
blue area here is what ERCOT considers the coastal area of Texas we received
one our one response that was in this circle right here which is the one we're
asking you to reject that was the one that we shortlisted as the lowest cost
option as you can see I've listed the existing renewables that we have in the
portfolio when they start and then these these this wind was going to be a 50
megawatt wind supply for 20 years beginning in 2021 so the offers that we
received were not true coastal wind offers they were inland wind the profile
was different than the coastal wind and the delivery dates that we anticipated
we're not going to be met by the proposer they've informed us in the last
couple months that they will not be able to bring the units online until in 2022
late in the year our analysis has showed us that for the remaining portion of the
portfolio that we need to meet the 100% objective that solar energy is more
cost-effective than the wind will be it better fits our specific hours of the
day that we need additional renewable energy the solar with battery storage
proposals were significantly higher than anything that we had expected thank you
so to question about that the solar energy more cost-effective than any wind
options so correct me if I'm wrong but you're not saying that these that the
solar and the wind contracts are they're not competing with each other they're
separate right it's just the solar is more affordable than the then the coastal
wind then real coastal wind yeah the answer your question is that solar
because of the wind solar actually gets delivered when the Sun is up when our
on our load is the highest it is more cost-effective than the wind now wind
will be available during the day but not not on a real dependable basis so when
we look at trying to find the most cost-effective components for the
portfolio the analysis shows that solar resources are going to be more
cost-effective and less expensive for customers than if we were contract with
wind due to the variability of the wind we already have a very large portion of
wind in our portfolio we have a hundred and fifty megawatts under contract so
that's a very significant portion of the portfolio yeah so just to ask a
follow-up excuse me follow-up question on that just to make sure I understand so
as far as like so I understand again that solar is cheaper than wind and we
have we have wind already as far as the the duck curve that showing the coverage
right whereby as you said the Sun is during the day and and the coastal wind
which is more expensive has a has a unique kind of value right that it
provides something a kind of balance to a portfolio that the solar can't provide
so it's which is why we're reissuing a call for the yeah for more coastal wind
correct correct we are going to yeah reissue a RFP for true coastal wind yeah
and to your question I want to make it clear when we evaluate these different
sources of renewable energy what we're looking for is what's going to be the
energy that fills our needs best and so while we could see for instance a pan
handle wind come in at very very low prices and solar being at a higher price
than that because of the congestion cost between the delivery points the
evaluated price of the solar is lower for customers so we may be paying a
little bit more per megawatt hour but because how it fits in our portfolio it
becomes more cost-effective thank you thank you so much so when we do go out
to try to find true coastal in the future can you give just a general idea
of what the what the profile is for true coastal in in terms of you know when it
delivers yeah make it I've got one slide here so this is a slide that that shows
the various profiles and so the red line represents the load of Denton we see the
load growing through the morning and peaking sometime around five o'clock six
o'clock in the evening this is a shape that takes place most days especially in
the summer the green represents what we would term Western Urquhart or Western
Texas wind it is highest in the morning tails off in the heat of the day and it
comes back up at night the coastal wind would look not like the green line it
would be a line that would be it would come up in the morning and then trail
off down like this and then come back up so we don't see quite the dip that we see
with the traditional Western Urquhart or Western Texas wind would it also be fair
to say that when we're talking about matching our our load or our demand
we're not really talking about these electrons having luggage tags you know
that come to our homes right it's more of like almost like a like a financial
operation where we want to be not having to go to the market at those times
because we have contracts that delivered those times that more or less that's a
decent analogy I think one that works pretty well for people to understand is
it's kind of like a pool with a bunch of pipes going into the pool and we're
pulling out water out of the pool in one specific location so we're we're
injecting electrons into the pool at our various contract points and we're pulling
them out at a different point and the fact that we are putting them in at
given times enables us to not have to buy at market rate that is correct yes
thank you so on on the battery storage the battery storage proposals that we
receive are very high priced we are going to reissue the request for
proposal to clarify what we would like on the battery storage with solar and
that would be a facility cited here close proximity to Denton where we can
get the benefits of the peak shaving that would we'd see from a one megawatt
battery located behind our load with that I'll answer any other questions that
you might have councilor Davis so on on the battery correct if I'm wrong by
understand from your last presentation that what you're just saying about the
peak shaving that RFP needs to be issued to require a battery located here
closer to our facilities that our original RFP said you know build your
battery wherever you like it's a solar facility with battery backup or battery
storage but the RFP that's going to be issued is going to require that it's
closer because otherwise we don't get that benefit it's all well and good to
have batteries on the system but unless we have it co-located with our our system
would you say backing up our load that we don't utilize those benefits there's
no purpose in paying money for a battery unless it's here yeah batteries
typically are used for either voltage support where you have a voltage sag in
the grid and you can more cost-effectively address that voltage sag
by putting a battery in place that's typically on a distribution system not
on the transmission system there's two reasons why the battery needs to be
located with the solar facility closer to Denton the first reason is that in
order for the solar developer to achieve the investment tax credit the
facilities must be co-located so the battery has to be integral to the solar
facility and secondly to the extent that we can operate the battery to reduce
our peak demand against our needs from ERCOT at the peak hour of each of the
four months that would contribute to stop establishing our peak demand with
ERCOT that one megawatt reduction is a significant savings to customers and
that's why I would put it what we call behind the load so behind our meters
with ERCOT so they wouldn't see that load ever materialized because we'd
operate the battery instead okay any other questions all right thank you Terry
so I will close items I think I think you need a vote yeah yeah we'll close the
the the conversation if you will but yes I'll take a motion on L first we're
gonna take him separate move approval for item L second okay thank you so all in
favor of item L do so by raising your right hand all opposed okay so that
passes 5-0 and then item M of approval of Adam M okay
Councilman Matzl second second okay all in favor of item M raise your right hand
post same sign that passes 5-0 and that takes us to item is it - yeah - - a items
for individual consideration 19 - 1 4 4 6 consider approval of a resolution of
the city of Denton Texas expressing support for resolution number 54 title
comprehensive national response to climate change good afternoon mayor
pretend City Council Sarah Keickler director of public affairs the item
before you this afternoon is this council wishes to express a position on
the US Conference of Mayors resolution number 54 which is titled the
comprehensive national response to climate change and this would be for
mayor Watts's consideration as he is a member of the US Conference of Mayors so
just by way of quick background the US Conference of Mayors is a nonpartisan
organization of cities with a population that is greater than 30,000 each city is
represented by its chief elected official so mayor Chris Watts is a
member of the US Conference of Mayors and he also serves on the Energy
Committee this week is the annual meeting for the US Conference of Mayors
and the Energy Committee will be considering a number of resolutions
including resolution number 54 if it is passed out of the Energy Committee at
the end of this week it will be considered by the entire membership of
the US Conference of Mayors and this item is coming before you as a council
member requested City Council discussion on it for mayor Watts's
consideration so this is the text of the resolution number 54 in summary it
basically calls upon the federal government to take a number of actions
to meet the goal of not exceeding one and a half degrees Celsius rise in the
earth's temperature as called for in the intergovernmental panel on climate
changes report and the Paris climate agreement so there is a number of
resolutions here that are outlined including establishing a comprehensive
national program to decarbonize the US economy and reduce greenhouse gas
emissions calling on our federal government to work with other nations to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions fully funding the energy efficiency
conservation block grant and so forth and so we did prepare a resolution if
council wishes to express a position of support on this resolution again for
Mayor Watts's consideration happy to answer any questions and Catherine
Burnett our sustainability manager is here as well
so I'm strongly in support of this and you know I can imagine people who are
wondering might be wondering well you know this looks good but kind of what
might the cost be can you you know you explained is there any cost for the city
in in agreeing to this resolution or in any of the items in it that's very
difficult for me said to answer we certainly did not do full summary or
analysis it's more representative of calling for the federal government to
take action actions that were outlined in the Paris climate agreement which
was the ongoing international agreement so it's kind of to mirror that and put
that put that on the federal government yeah thank you okay any other questions
Councilman run well I guess I'm going to explain my views on this yeah there are
some items on here that I would support but this is Pat this is an all or
nothing type situation and just looking what I'm going to pull out of here is
number 15 the decarbonate carbon is carbonized heating and cooling systems
we talked a lot about affordable housing we talked about living wage those types
of things and this means that you would not allow for natural gas heat to be
used anymore the same this is a homeguides.com says that if you have an
electric heater BTU to BTU the electric is going to cost you on average $34 and
32 cents versus natural gas is going to cost you $14 and 2 cents yeah this you
know this isn't a responsible plan this is shifting a cost burden onto those
with of all incomes really and so I cannot support this this item so I will
make a motion to deny okay any well first we have a second to that motion
going once okay so and I don't know help me understand do we need is there
action to be taken here that's that's what's I don't I don't see that it's
it's it's a comment to Mayor Watts but I don't know that I see action for us to
take we prepared as a resolution it's your council's choice how they'd maybe
want to communicate that feedback to Mayor Watts in terms of his his vote on
the item right we've had a policy that any anyone that attends these
conferences gets asked what the city's position is needs the permission of the
City Council to take a position either for it or against it so that's why it's
here is do would you like to direct him to do this okay got it
councilman warm so I move to approve this resolution okay do you have a second
for that I'll second it but I'll just like to speak about it by all means first
of all in general I have to say I kind of hate these things where city
governments are you know are put in a position to opine on national issues and
international issues I don't really think it's our purpose I think you know
we can sort of agree on a list of actions to take probably more readily
without the implicit criticism of you know national policy whether I agree or
not with that view so you know that having been said what do I think the
real impact is of this on us I think there are many actions that we probably
would agree with I think this is not a it's not a thought-through plan even
though might look like it on the surface it's a resolution but I think that the
overall impact of it would be a tendency to direct the federal government toward
supporting things that that we want to do so you know I think it could lead to
resources being made available for actions that we'd probably like to take
we just spent a whole you know fair amount of time talking about our efforts
to move into renewable you know move further into renewable energy you know
we've we have benefited as a city from tax benefits associated with that you
know we're we have as a council shown an interest in reducing our waste streams
you have many things that kind of tend to tend to align with it so I think on
the whole you know I vote for it and I and if the mayor wants to vote for it
I'd be happy with him doing that because I think in general it'll tend to bring
resources that align with things we support okay the other councilman Davis
so I've received another a number of emails and I know social media traffic
has been heavy on this one some in favor some against and I agree with
councilmember Meltzer I don't I don't appreciate being put in this position by
the National Conference of Mayors because essentially what the resolution
does and let me back up for a second a number of the emails that I've gotten
refer to a resolution in support of a national price on carbon emissions that
is not this resolution so whoever emailed us telling us that we ought to
support a national price on carbon emissions that is not what we're voting
on today it is also not a resolution I suppose the resolution presupposes the
recognition of climate change and our involvement in climate change but then
kind of like councilmember Ryan set out and in fact I think councilmember Meltzer
also said as well this is not a comprehensive plan this is a kind of a
series of it starts off by the document starts off by calling upon the federal
government to do certain things but then at some point it shifts right after the
first resolution be it resolved after actually the second the be it further
resolved that the conference calls on the administration after that the first
couple of those it shifts right into be it resolved that the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission be given the mandate and all of a sudden taking on
responsibility for all of these things as if the this group of mayors is the
policy-setting body instead of the Congress or instead of the regulatory
body so I got to tell you I started the day in a position very similar to
councilmember Meltzer where I think the general sense is good we're recognizing
there's a problem we're recognizing that cities have a role in combating climate
change and it's important that we do that but the further you get into this
document the more you realize that the mayors are out of their lane it's not
it's not a it tries to be a policy document and it's not it should be a
resolution in favor of calling upon the government to do certain things but
instead it's injecting the US Conference of Mayors into the role of these other
bodies so I'm going to vote not to support the resolution not because I
don't recognize our role in combating climate change but because I don't think
this this approach is what does it okay and so councilmember Oh yeah just wanted
to respond to just a couple points that had been made but mayor Pro Tem were you
going to yes I was going to vote we're gonna get the concluding item so but go
ahead yeah yeah so no just to speak to just what had been said so far just
briefly as far as you know the issue of the cost of you know the comparative
costs of gas heating versus electric heating you know what I like about a
call like this is that it's it's what it's asking for which is it's a it's a
big ask but you know if this were to happen at the federal level it would it
would it would change the market it would change supply and demand it would
change so the costs that we're relying on now are based on you know what's
currently available it's currently being made the way things currently are it's a
big ask but again if it if it happens then the cost would would would really
shift and number two I just wanted to speak to you and I realize it's a you
know subjective opinion I respect the opinions that have been given but as far
as you know what you know right or you know authority does this nationwide you
know mayoral group have to recommend policy you know obviously they can't
make federal policy and I don't think that this is that this document that
we're voting on is you know pretending to make federal policy it's just
recommending it you know we as a body we have lobbyists in Austin who make
recommendations on state policy because state policy affects us and federal
policy affects us and of course each of us as individuals is affected by
decisions made at the local state in federal governmental levels so I just
just see this this nationwide mayoral group as just trying to make
recommendations to the federal government not to make laws you know but
to use the power that we all have as individuals which is a greater power you
know when we come together in groups in a coalition to make those policy
suggestions and that's what this is a coalition that's why I don't have any
problem with you know coalitions of this nature in general all right so we have a
motion to express support for this made by councilmember Armitage seconded by
councilmember Meltzer any other comments then I I will just say for me briefly
because I I just I have a problem with a lot but where I hang up is when you're
talking about 1.5 degrees Celsius is so this is number I lost a number I had it
highlighted but when it talks about 1.5 degrees Celsius of the earth I think
that's a little out of our lane as far as here from the city of Denton Texas
signing on to say that anywhere is going to be in charge of the earth and its
temperature I understand we can do be good citizens absolutely but I just
happen to believe that that's a bridge too far amongst other things but that
kind of is the key to me I mean you're you it's a targeted goal of managing the
temperature of the earth and or a suggestion and so that to me is a
bridge too far so with that motion seconded any other comments were good
great so all in favor of supporting this resolution indicate so by raising your
right hand those opposed that we don't have a majority we have a 3-2 vote
against that we can pass on to mayor Watts safe travels and I'll conclude that
item that is item 2a concluded that takes us to item 2 3 concluding items
councilmember Davis so we have kind of on the matrix of upcoming conversations
and potential work sessions a conversation about both tiny homes in
general and then also the specific specifically the request from the Basic
Services Center when we come around to a work session on that item I'd like to
invite either staff to research and present to us or for the organization to
present whatever staff feels best other tiny home initiatives that could be
potentially co-located if there's a large enough piece of property if that's a
road the city for at whatever point goes down I don't want to specifically I'm
thinking of some of the veterans organizations and I don't want to if we
make that move and we have a piece of property that's well suited for I would
hate to leave another organization out in the cold if there's room for both if
if there's one that's ready available to the general population and one that's
specifically for veterans and we can co-locate them that makes a lot of sense
to me I also just want to note kind of like I said on the last item that that
vote was very specific I think everyone here the day is or here at the table
recognize that was a very specific vote in a very specific situation so I hope
everyone playing along at home and listening to our comments understands
and we'll go back and read the text of the document that we just voted on thank
you any other okay I have a couple things so fourth of July coming up the
city in the Parks Department has a great event coming up so I'd ask everyone to
kind of look that up and and and plan to attend that on the fourth that Thursday
will be and there'll be a parade we have two parades that's awesome for our town
one at Robeson Ranch and one here and on the square so wherever you want to
celebrate that that's a lot of fun and then there's a hot dog contest eating
contest at 1130 for those of my peers that want to join that please I'd love
to get a pictures of that in video and then I think this is really neat the
mail couriers are in town this later this week and I think maybe tomorrow it
kicks off and I just think that's fantastic that was an event that was
targeted maybe a few years back and it's come to reality and so they'll be do
believe the embassy suites that that function and so that that's really a
good good exposure for our our town I believe so with that I will close our
meeting at 419 and we have two weeks right we'll be back on the Monday the
15th for those following along at home so thanks