Mar 19, 2024 City Council on 2024-03-19 2:00 PM

Good afternoon and welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council. Today is Tuesday, March 19th, 2024. It is 2 p.m. and we do have a quorum, so I'll call the meeting to order. The first thing on the agenda is comments from citizens. I don't think we have any, great. And then that takes us to questions or comments on consent agenda. So I open the floor for that questions, comments on the consent. Seeing none, that takes us to our first work session, and that is item AID 24258, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding the FY 2022-23 annual comprehensive financial report and annual audit. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm Vespa Pentevong, ADF Finance, and we're here to present the FY 23 act for to y'all. But before we get into the presentation, I just want to say thank you for the city, all staff. We implemented a new GASB 96 statement today, which is basically we're looking at IT related software and contract and really implementing new accounting standards. So I just want to say thank you all again for the whole staff. And we have a weaver here. Our partner is Sarah Dempsey, and she's going to be presenting the act for findings. Okay. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, and City Manager. I'm here to present the 2023 audit. There we go. All right. So my name is Sarah. I'm the audit partner on the engagement. I've got about 20 years of experience, and a lot of that is doing the municipal audit. So I'm happy to be here and go through your audit with you. The audit cycle begins with interim. So that's where we're walking through the internal control process, and we are really getting an understanding of internal controls so that we can ultimately express an opinion on the financial statements. So that is what the audit's for. Just to give an opinion that your financial statements are reasonable and materially correct. So that is the audit cycle. And then the audit process, we go in accordance with the generally accepted auditing standards as well as the generally accepted government auditing standards. And then also because you have federal and state expenditures over $750,000, we also do a single audit, which is in accordance with the uniform guidance and then the Texas state grant management standards. It's a risk-based approach, so when we're giving an opinion on the financial statements, what we do is we walk through those significant balances in your financial statements and look at those significant transaction cycles and we see where could these be misstated? Where could the financial statements be misstated? So what we're looking for are things like overstatement of revenue, understatement of liabilities and expenditures, understatement of long-term liabilities. And so that's really the process that we're going through when we begin the audit is taking that risk-based approach of where could things go wrong? So some other areas that we're testing aside from the account balances is we're looking for fraud or any sort of waste and abuse as we're going through and any material fraud we would bring to your attention well before this meeting. We're also finishing those federal and state single audit procedures, looking at information technology, doing utility billing recalculations and then like Vis mentioned, GASB 96 was implemented this year, subscription-based IT arrangements, so the city had to take an inventory of the software being used. Last year, leases were implemented and that's leases of buildings, those tangible assets. This is software, so it's a little bit harder to get your arms around, so it was a huge lift for the city and then that was a big auditing area for us as well. So for the audit results, you have an unmodified opinion on your financial statements, so that's a clean opinion. There were no material weaknesses to report to you and no significant deficiencies to report, so that is overall a clean opinion on your financial statements. We also test for non-compliance with state and federal regulations and there was no non-compliance noted during the course of the audit. For your federal and state single audit, what we had was the SAFER program, the ARPA program and then the RTR program, so those grants alone made up 81 percent of your federal and state expenditures. Because you're a high-risk auditee, we just had to get 40 percent, so we did test 81 percent and that was an unmodified opinion on those three programs as well. No material weaknesses and no significant deficiencies to report, so really a great audit from that standpoint, financial statement standpoint as well as the federal and state single audit. These are the required communications. I've already touched on the standards that we've used to implement our audit procedures. There were no unusual transactions to report to you, just that GASB 96 statement was implemented and there are note disclosures if you're looking at the prior year financial statements in current year, you will notice that. There were other new accounting standards that were implemented this year, but they did not have a financial statement impact. There were no difficulties encountered during the audit. We got full participation from all city departments. We worked really closely with the finance department. They wanted everything ready to go. We really appreciate the preparation that they took to work with us to get the audit done and to be ready when we started. No independence issues. There is information within that long report, the annual comprehensive financial report that is unaudited, so I wanted to point that out to you. The statistical section is a good example of good information, but it is unaudited. Then last, no audit adjustments and no past adjustments, so that's huge. That means that when we got the financial statements from the city and we did our audit procedures, we were not finding errors and making corrections during the course of the audit. Again, that's a really good sign of a great audit. Then there's no other material to note, so we don't have a management letter that we just issued to management that you haven't seen. You have all the written materials that we've provided the city. That's the audit presentation. I'm here to answer any questions that you might have. Okay. That's it, Council Member Meltzer. Thanks for a boring report. I mean, it should be, right? It should be. It's excellent. Yes, you never want an exciting audit. Exactly. It struck my awareness. You said that because we were a high-risk oddity that we had to sample more, or you had to sample more transactions. Is that new? Why are we considered high risk? It is a little bit new. Last year, there was a material weakness in internal controls because there was a prior period adjustment that was corrected this year. It was actually corrected during the course of the audit last year, but because it happened in the prior fiscal year, it was communicated then, but it was corrected. You just have to be considered high risk for two years once that happens. Thanks. Any other questions? Council Member Burke? I have a question on a couple of these acronyms that were used. I don't know what page it is, 14, 15. You said something in regards to ... I'm looking at the management judgments and accounting estimates. Sure. You used an acronym OPEB. OPEB, yes. What is that? That's the other post-employment benefits of the city, so the health insurance plan and then the TMRS supplemental death benefits. Oh, okay. There wasn't any significant ... Then the IBNR liabilities, what does that mean? That's the incurred but not reported. Those are both given to us actuarial reports, so those are considered estimates because we get a third party report that has assumptions that are made for workers' compensation incurred but not reported liabilities. You're using the term estimates and assumptions, and that's what causes the term for reasonable? Right. Is that where the reason is? We're evaluating it for reasonableness, and it's a little bit easier because it is provided by that third party, it's not that management is making those estimates, and we would have to dive into the assumptions they're making. These are actuaries that we're evaluating their assumptions. Okay. That's all I have. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Seeing none, then I think that's ... I was just curious when ... Are you familiar with the Gatsby program, the software, better said? They said the G-A-S-B-Y? The Gatsby, the statements and standards? Sure. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Good. Good. Did you say great when we had that great Gatsby or no? No, I did not. I was just curious. That's a joke that we do say a lot in our office. Look at that. I could be an accountant. There's fun balance. There's always fun and fun balance. Yeah. We've got that already. Oh. No, I do not. No. Anything over 10, I'm in trouble. Okay. Anything else from staff? Yeah. Okay. Sarah. First of all, see, it really spells her name. Right. That's important, Sarah. I want to say thank you to Viz and Jessica and Sarah, of course, Cassie, who's leading this. But this isn't always the case for cities to have this kind of a clean report. It's just not. And so I'm thankful to have such great people that are taking, handling our financial situation so that we are making sure we're spending the communities, the taxpayers' money wisely and making sure that we're keeping up with it and accounting for it. So a big kudos to staff. Excellent. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. That takes us to item... Excuse me, sir. I was supposed to speak on the consent agenda, but the link didn't work at all. Am I able to speak directly to the city secretary's office? I'll let somebody... Sorry. Somebody... We can't take calls after noon because of the software. Right. The link wasn't available. Well, yeah. We can have that conversation. Yes. Yeah, the link is still there. So the next thing is item B, ID 24302, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction on proposed amendments to the City of Denton Code of Ordinances, Chapter 6, animals, and receive information on House Bill 870 and Senate Bill 1989 from the 2023 Texas Legislation Session. Afternoon, Mayor, Council, Nikki Sassenes, Director of Animal Services. I want to introduce some staff that I have with me today. Mindy Henry, she's the Interim Animal Services Manager, and then Monica Benavides is our Administration Manager, and Nicole Hare is our Animal Services Supervisor. So this work session is really in two parts. In the first part, we're going to review Chapter 6, which is our local ordinance that regulates the care and control of animals within the city limits. Staff has been working on that for the last year. We brought back proposed updates in December 5th at the work session. And then the second part of that was a follow-up from an approved two-minute pitch for information on House Bill 870 and Senate Bill 1987 from 2023 Legislative Session. So just wanted to make that clear that we're doing this kind of in two parts. So our first part, Chapter 6, we are proposing updates. This is, again, the follow-up to the work session on December 5th. So Chapter 6 provides a framework for care and control of animals within the city limits. It was last updated in November 2020. And our proposed updates really bring our Chapter 6 in line with industry standards and best practices. Our goal really is to ensure community health and safety. So again, previous action, we had the work session on December 5th. At that work session, we went through each of the proposed changes. And at that time, council provided the following direction, which was to remove Section 6-33 in the commerce of live animals, the prohibition of retail pet stores from selling cats or dogs. And also to bring back the results of community input meetings to council. In other previous action, we did review the updates with the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee at the January 10th meeting and then again at the March 6th meeting. And they have been with us in this process the entire time as well. So the input from the public, we have the results here. We had three meetings, two were in person in January and February, and then one virtually that we offered, but we did not have anyone attend that meeting. The feedback that we gathered was overall support for the proposed changes. We did have some desire for some type of regulation of retail pet stores. And in the future, the community would like us to explore mandatory spay and neuter programs as well as more public outreach and education from our department. So next steps in Chapter 6, again, we're requesting feedback from council on our proposed changes and if any different directions. If not, we'll bring back our ordinance for adoption at a future council meeting. So the second part of this work session, again, this is separate from Chapter 6, this is information on House Bill 870 and Senate Bill 1989, which is from the 2003 Texas Legislative Session. So again, on the January 9th council meeting, there was a two-minute pitch for particulars and information regarding these House Bills. You can see that both of them were introduced at the last legislative session, but both stalled in chambers, so there was no support for them. We did want to provide the information on the provisions of the bill, so the definitions, prohibitions, requirements, and penalties, so that we can fulfill the two-minute pitch request. So the definitions are laid out in Section 206. All of these provisions would amend Title 6 Business and Commerce Code by adding Chapter 206. The other sections of the bill are the prohibitions. So it does regulate the sale of cats and dogs from a retail pet store unless they were obtained from an animal control agency, an animal shelter, or an animal rescue organization, so basically animal well-fares. There is a requirement for maintenance of records and making those records available for request, available for inspection upon request. There's a public posting requirement and then a penalty included in that as well. Again, these bills did stall in chamber, and so there's the information on those. Any questions? Okay. Questions for staff. Any questions? Mayor Partem. Thank you, Ms. Mayor. So one of the feedback that we got from the community after the process this week was they had some concerns about exactly when we're applying the nuisance status to cats, and some of the feedback from local welfare organizations on 625B was they were a little nervous about the statement, providing they're not creating a nuisance. Does staff have any comment on that in terms of how that would affect Chapter 6 and the operational flow of the rest of the updates? Sure. So the organization you're referring to I think is Best Friends, and they would like us to remove the, in that particular section, and I'm sorry I don't have it to bring up, but is that the, provided that the animal is not creating a nuisance, and specifically we're talking about cats, staff is recommending that we do not take that out and that is because that cat could potentially be causing an actual nuisance. Now let's say that it's ripping up the seats of your Harley, it's not just urinating on your porch or something. Some behaviors can be modified with sterilization and then returning the cat back, but what our officers are doing is actually trying to provide more proactive information and going out and say, okay, can we return this cat back, can we not? We don't want to put a cat back into a situation where it's not wanted because then it may not end up in a great situation for the cat, because if it's really causing a nuisance, that person may not want it returned back to that area. Sure, sure. No, that makes sense. Do we have, well no, I read the rest of it so I know the answer to that, I'll just leave it there. So in terms of, I will provide kudos to the staff. They did a lot of work finally tying the bow on this package after a number of years of effort of getting all the pieces together. I attended, full disclosure, I attended both of the in-person meetings to watch the feedback. There definitely was interest in the council taking some sort of regulatory steps beyond what we had. They were interested in 633A as it was before we removed it. So with regard to that, my direction would be yeah, absolutely all the updates that staff is proposing and I'd honestly like to see the 633A back in there, the retail stores, partly because as it said in staff's comments, the status of HB2127 is in question right now and even if it becomes not in question, we have a cure process that is easy and straightforward if we have to take advantage of it. And I think it sets a standard that the community really wants us to have right now for regulating those options. And then in terms of the resolution of support to support legislation similar to HB870, when I reviewed the materials at the state, stalled is true, but there was support up until it just didn't get brought to the floor. So it was one of those low priority, everything else got bumped ahead of it more than it stalled out from lack of interest. So I don't dispute that it stalled, it absolutely stalled, but I think it was positive, there was no negative feedback, at least according to the Secretary of State's website. So yeah, I would also provide direction that I support us moving forward to support legislation like HB870. And I guess I'll add to that, we have had conversations with the Chief of Staff about keeping tabs on future legislation for prohibition that potentially would go forward in the next legislative session, so we can provide that information to Council when it comes up. I appreciate that. Thank you. Okay, any other questions for staff? Yeah, Councilman Watts. I'm okay with the amendments except for the one about, in our ordinance, regulating the retail until that gets disposed, and maybe I need to ask the city attorney a question. Is that law in effect or not, the 2127? Yeah, it's in effect. It's in effect? Okay. It's been challenged, but it's in effect, but it hasn't been ruled unconstitutional, is that binding? It has, but it's not binding, it's on appeal. Okay. Yeah. So I'm okay with everything but that. I understand about a resolution supporting bills that were processed in the last legislative session. We have a legislative agenda that I think that could be added to that. I think right now, if we send something or if we do something, it's going to get lost in all of the confusion of the primaries and who's getting elected, and it's just better to really present it, I think, together with all of us. I'm not opposed to it, I'm opposed to the timing of it. I think we have a normal process of the legislative agenda and priorities that we can include that on and give it a high priority and make sure that people are monitoring that on a very specific basis. So it's not opposed to it, it's just the timing of it. I think there's another process. Okay, any other questions, comments for staff? Council Member Meltzer. Yeah, I think that's a very constructive suggestion that we add that with emphasis in our legislative agenda, and I hope we're going to have a really robust session on how we communicate our legislative agenda to our delegation because we don't have a great track record of seeing our wishes reflected in their actions. Anyone else? Council Member Byrd. I wanted to go back to that public input slide and it talked about, you know, exploring the future of mandatory spay and neuter and more public education and output, but specifically looking at the mandatory spay and neuter, is that like a realistic goal? How far did you all get into that conversation, or was it just a thought, you know, at this particular point? Was that something that just needed to be just kind of put on a list of things to do? I'm sorry. It's not something that we have explored yet. It was something that we heard a few people say in the public meeting. It's something that staff has thought about previously, but not done any type of exploring yet, and we didn't want to hold up these updates to add another program in. So that is something that we can look at in the near future, but didn't want to drag out this process any longer. And will this process that we're talking about, the legislative information, would that be a part of a holdup in getting to that point, or will we be waiting on that to be resolved before we get to this particular point? I know we can do more public education and outreach right now. We can probably do something to that effect, kind of like now, but the mandatory spay and neuter, where we would have to really sit down and research and think about all of that. Would this legislative information hold that up, or can that come in front of that? Honestly, I haven't done enough research into mandatory spay and neuter to see what other cities do, or what state laws might be in play there. I don't know that there are any, but I guess no, right now, we don't have a holdup on that. But that is separate from implementing our Chapter 6 updates right now. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions, comments, or staff? Councilman McGee can now come in. Thank you, Mayor. I'm good with all that. I'm going to agree with Councilmember Watts on the timing of a resolution, and I will just say that what I would prefer in the future, I understand that we normally update our legislative agenda immediately before the next session. I actually think that should be an ongoing process. I think any time there is something important to us, we should be able to immediately update our legislative agenda so that we don't have to do it all at once. So I would like to be able to do it now, but I'm going to agree that perhaps we should wait since the practice is not normally for us to continuously update our legislative agenda, if that makes sense, and while you are here in front of us, you and your team, I just want to say what a great job y'all are doing. The feedback from the shelter as of late under your leadership, so Sarah, thank you very much for that, has been nothing but stellar. So thank you for everything you're doing. As a new dog dad since Brandon loves puppies, yeah, just want to say thank you for everything you're doing. Appreciate that. Well, thank you very much. I have a great staff. They're a great team. 'Cause Brandon loves puppies. Okay. Any other questions? Seeing none, the city manager. So a couple of things. One is, yes, the question about legislative, yes. This will be an item. I just wrote a note, but Christy's got it on her radar. You will be hearing more and more from Christy as it relates to legislative issues and items. We're actually hosting a meeting with our friends and around the area to other cities to talk about cohesive legislation. But as it regard to animal services, I do want to say thank you, Council Member McGee. As you all know, we've had a change in leadership that has certainly put a spotlight on the importance of pet care, adopt and foster and adopt. And we're lucky to have Nikki and Monica and all the other staff that are there and they're working to train them. That's why they took the Wednesdays to spend more training, thinking about critical thinking, how to solve problems across sort of the organization, proactiveness with the community. And these are things that we talk about all over the city, but it takes special leaders in animal services. And I'll tell you, it really is a tough job. And so my thanks go to the staff and Mindy and the hard work that they're doing. But also it takes a good leader and we have that in Nikki, so we're very lucky. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. Well said. Thank you. Well, if that's everything, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Uh-huh. That takes us to item C, ID 24110, Receive Report, Hold Discussion, Give Staff Direction Regarding Potential Subject Matter to be Discussed by a Future Charter Election Discussion. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, Christy Fogel, Chief of Staff. Today I will, we will review the current provisions in sections 2.01 and 2.02 of the City Charter. I'll provide some best practices, industry recommendations, and other considerations, and then turn it over to the Council to discuss and provide direction that will shape the forthcoming charter review committee charges. And questions will be notated and answered through the committee process. So just as a reminder, today's presentation will focus solely on the first two sections of Article 2, which encompasses the number, selection, and term, and Council qualifications that include stipend. I will go through section 2.01 and then go over some considerations for it, open it up to Mayor and Council for discussion, and then we'll do, go through 2.02 and do another discussion at the end. So just going through section 2.01, here is the current provision. The City Council shall have seven members, six Council persons and a Mayor. Each Council person shall be elected to a position numbered one through six. The Mayor's position on the Council shall be placed seven. Positions one through four shall be residents of and elected by Districts one, two, three, and four respectively. Two members of the Council and the Mayor shall be elected at large. One at large member, place five, shall be a resident of District one or two. And one at large member, place six, shall be a resident of District three or four. Each member of the Council, including the Mayor, shall be elected to a two-year term. No member of the Council or the Mayor who has been elected to three consecutive full terms in a place shall be eligible to file for election for that same place without having first been off the Council for at least one annual Council election cycle. Anything prohibits the Council members or the Mayor from being elected to other places on the Council or as Mayor except that no Council member or the Mayor shall be elected to serve for more than 12 consecutive years. And then a person who has become ineligible to serve under this section shall not be eligible to be elected without having first been off the Council for at least one annual Council election cycle. The Council shall create by ordinance election districts known as one, two, three, and four. The districts will be created so that each contain as nearly as possible a population equivalent to the others according to the latest available census data. Some considerations on that section. The National Civic League's model charter provides recommendation of a Council consisting of five to nine members with four-year terms and no term limits. While they acknowledge the intent of term limits, they report that the continuity and institutional knowledge and experience that comes from longer-serving members is invaluable to an organization. The Texas Municipal League does have an extensive book of recommendations for Texas General Home Rule Charters, unfortunately it has not been updated since 2010. But a couple of the provisions in that book, at the time the majority of cities called for two-year terms, but we've since seen a movement to three or four years. At the time 95% of the cities had staggered terms and 41% of the cities had term limits in place. Additionally, it's important to note that adding Council districts through this charter review process will likely require outside legal Council to ensure that we are in compliance with the Voting Rights Act. The Charter Commission will be best equipped to take that on once they begin their work. Here is how Denton's current charter provisions compare to some of the surrounding areas. A quick note that these population estimates are from the US Census American Community Survey five-year data from 2022, so it's safe to say that some of these numbers are a little bit higher now, but that is the best and most accurate data that we have available. As you can see, most of the cities are within the range of seven to nine Council members and almost split in half with at-large positions versus district positions. Charters are mostly three years staggered and term limits tend to be three consecutive, which aligns with our current provisions. So with that, I'll turn it back to Mayor and Council for discussion and direction on Section 2.01. I'll be notating any of your questions and your discussion today will form the Charter Review Committee charges. Got it. Question for staff. Councilmember Meltzer? Yeah, I'd be interested in having the Commission have a conversation about whether they feel we ought to make a change in the mix of single-member versus at-large, whether it's six in one or five in two with an elected pro tem or leave it as it is, you know, just I think it's worth discussing again. Okay, anyone else? I'm really interested in us being mindful that when we did our redistricting, we were considering the future and, of course, our future is only getting brighter. And I'm going to suggest that we do look at three-year terms for the three consecutive years, because of that and because we also know that at some point we might be looking at adding additional council members because of the significant growth that we're looking forward to. So I would even suggest that we consider adding an additional member for the future. And I don't know when that's going to be. But I think we just need to start thinking about that and seeing what that would look like if we had eight members and maybe even putting the mayor pro tem spot in its own space to be, you know, considered like a vice president of the mayor. I don't know what it would be called, mayor pro tem, but that that's what's on my mind. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Mayor pro tem. Yeah, I support looking at all the things that Council Meltzer and Council Byrd suggested. I'll just leave it at that. Just voicing my support that the Charter Review Committee look at extended terms, look at the mix, look at possibly adding council seats. Okay. Okay. Anyone else? Councilor Holland. Paragraph D within, what is the term, equivalent to equivalent of others within what what number? That I'm not sure. I'll have to 10%. Not a number. To percentage. Yes. Okay. Okay. I am in favor of an odd number of council members, whatever, whatever that be, what whether it's seven or nine or 11 or 133, but but but an odd number. Okay. Anyone else? Councilor McGee? How about 39? Okay. Just, it's odd. That's a good number. That's a good number for this week anyway. So I support yes. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Councilor Watts? So what's the process? I mean, you said that what you'll take this back and it'll form the basis of the charge for the committee. So when that charge comes back, will each each thing that's delineated in that charge, will that be voted on separately by the council? Because I don't agree with having more, more single member districts than in at large. Now I'm not going to be on council when that happens. But I'm just trying to understand and for the sake of my colleagues, how is it going to be all that's going to be presented and it's going to be voted on at once or how is that going to take place? Right. So this work session we're doing this section, we have three more work sessions scheduled where we'll go into the other sections that council provided at the last work session I think in February. And that will shape what the charges are. The charges can be as prescriptive or as broad as council wants them to be. So you can have them say something like consider, look at look at different types of terms. No, I think I might have miscommunicated. I think it's more of to get a consensus from the council on each of the dish of each of the proposed charging elements, in other words, like the example of, well, we want to look at the mix of the number of single member districts or if you don't have four council members that want to do that, does that include in the charge? If you have four that do, then it does get included in the charge. Correct. That's right. And that's exactly what we need to define here today is which ones of these are is there a the right number to move it forward. And then those items would then go forward and be a part of the direction that would be to a committee that you have each of each one of you have two members to serve on it. Right. Anything for no, no, I mean, I'm okay with looking at the things except for because that's a huge that's a huge change. And yeah, we saw what happened with redistricting last time, which was only two or three years ago, which this was going to be changed, you could have had an opportunity to do it then through a charter commission as well. But the rest of them, I'm okay with and you and I just I believe you and I discussed, I discussed with somebody that I'm not going to put forth my particular preferences just because I'm not going to be here. So I'm just going to go ahead and take what what everybody else here sort of puts out and decide if I support that or not. Okay. Then, based on the last conversation, I'm not sure about the the process going forward. But so here's I'll sum up in a minute, but just so I can have my my thoughts on the record. I absolutely do not support a mayor pro tem being an individually elected position that that is an absolute hard no, because of the it is not similar to a presidential situation where you have two people that are aligned, you can align oil and water, and that doesn't serve our community well. So I wouldn't support that. I do support a conversation on districts. But I guess my thoughts are different. And I don't know how this works and how this calculated, I'd like to look at the existing districts one to say to remove the geographic restrictions on five and six. I understand the heart of what the when that was put in place, but the city has grown to such a level that you don't need that and social media and just different levels of connectivity and just different functionalities that technologies and ways to connect with across the city. I don't think it's a good look to have geographic restrictions associated to an at large position. I just I think that's a bit antiquated. Again, made sense then doesn't make sense now in my estimation. And then I am in a line with discussing number of years for terms and number of members to go to from seven to nine at some point understanding that's a more involved process than I don't know that this that charge, if we outline that process and say that we need to bring in consultants and that sort of thing, that's not going to happen before the charter. So I think you kind of set that aside and maybe have a separate discussion about bringing in the right those early steps to then have it prepared for whenever that next charter discussion is is had. So that's my thought on those. But my question is, from a process standpoint, do we need to Oh, another thing that I some not listed that I saw another community do is with respect to term limits, you're allowed to exceed there's an exception, you're allowed to exceed the term limits. If you're a write in candidate. And so that was unique, I thought that was a creative way. So if you have enough relationships wise, and it adds an impediment, right, it discourages people from being alone makes you work harder, all those things. And the mayor I saw do it successfully elicited Taylor shrift's help. He had a commercial that said, use the use the song blank, I guess there's a song blank or sign your name or something, right, blank space. There you go, yeah, I'm not up on my Taylor shrift songs. So he leveraged that worked out and got 11,000 votes, it was impressive. But something like that, where if the community is 100% behind somebody, and they do that work, then hey, Godspeed, right. So but for I need to get before we go to the next thing, I need to hear your thoughts on. So the general topics were districts, Mayor pro tem terms, number of members, setting number of members aside, is that at a high level? I think there's support for that. Do we need to drill down deeper? Is that give you what you need? No, I think that's perfect. I want to be more clear. Okay, I want I want to go through these because I'm confused. I'm totally confused. I really would like to see if we could say who's who's in favor of extended terms, who's in favor of adding a council seat, or whatever, who's in favor of the single district versus elect elected at large, and then then the separate one is the mayor pro tem being elected at large. Correct? Am I right on those four? Yes. Well, here's here's here's the rundown for for though this is what I have. Councilman Melton touched on the mix of the members in kind of districts, then he touched on mayor pro tem, then Councilman Bird touched on the terms, number of years, and number of members. And then Mayor pro tem touched on just said the same to those things mentioned before. So just did all those. Councilman Holland talked about the number of years, pardon me, number of members, correction. Then Councilman McGee just said yes to all the above, I presume, Councilman Watts is kind of holding off, and then I touched on mine, which was the pro I'm put me down as a no for pro tem discussions to modify that selection process, then districts, a change there but a different change right from a geographic restriction, but it ties to districts as a category, and then the number of members which we've all said is is a longer process than what we have before us today. So, so your thoughts. So I just I just want to make sure when we walk away from this meeting today that we have four or more for these items. So that's why I just want to make sure because I'm totally confused about who's supporting what. And so, to take that further, we have four or more on all those topics, not all in agreement right so I want to talk about Mayor pro tem but it's not to, I'm not going to support it. But you have four, irrespective of that so just isolating Mayor pro tem you have Councilman Meltzer, Councilman Byrd, Mayor pro tem, and Councilman McGee, that that would be four that have echoed some sort of or given some indication of support for that conversation. You didn't hear what I didn't hear that any other. I didn't hear that any other council members were in agreement with the Mayor pro tem situation that I noted. Yeah, I just put it out there and I know that you didn't agree with it but I didn't hear anybody else say that they did or did not agree with it. So, right, so council, so and that's, that's, I'm just given, I'm just working with what I got right so Councilman Meltzer mentioned it specifically. Mayor pro tem said same read into that what you want but I'm assuming that means same thing that they said he spoke after you and Councilmember Meltzer, then Councilman Holland didn't speak on it, then Councilman McGee just said yes. I'm assuming he spoke after the other four people so yes would indicate yes for the first two things. Again, just reading, I'm reading tea leaves here. And then, myself said mentioned that but I'm against it right so if we're, I'm more than happy to say there's only three people and it doesn't go forward that that'd be fantastic. There you go. So good. So, districts, the same thing so Councilmember Meltzer mentioned it specifically members number of districts. Then, Councilman Byrd you talked about terms not districts. No you said the terms and number of members is what you said. Now if you want to change that, that we can come back to that but that's what you said you said terms three years, and the number of members. Look at maybe eight, looking for future is what you said. Yes. And then, again, Councilmember pardon me Mayor Pro Tem spoke after Councilmember Meltzer and said same. So if I, again, got to just deduce that he's talking about Councilmember Messer talked about districts he's talking about districts. Then, Councilman Holland did not touch on that, Councilmember McGee said yes, again deducing that means yes to all the above, which would then include the districts that's only three. I did, I do want to look at districts, because I want to remove the geographic restrictions, so districts would stay in. Then the last thing is members. So Councilmember Meltzer spoke first he did not speak on members, Councilman Byrd spoke second she did talk about number of members and terms, but we'll come back to that. The number of members, again, Mayor Pro Tem spoke third said same. So it's deducing that that means same as in everyone that spoke before him. So that would include members. Then Councilmember Holland talked about members, that's three, Councilmember McGee said yes, again, deducing that means yes to everything that we've heard from everyone else. So that would be four in support of number of members. Then the last thing is term number, number of years, Councilmember Byrd spoke on that. Mayor Pro Tem said same, assuming that means same as everyone that spoke before him. Then Councilmember Holland did not speak on that, Councilmember McGee said yes, assuming that means yes to everything above. That's one, two, three, and then there's not, I didn't speak on terms, so that one fails. Then number of, yeah, I think that's everything, right? Districts, Mayor Pro Tem, terms, members, did I miss anything? So I'm trying to capture this because when we finish here, we have to go back and try to package this. So one is I think there's consensus to review the districts, and that's just, I want to take them one by one and say, is there a vote for the districts to review the districts? I just want to do this so in my own mind, I can realize that that's where we need to work because this is, another sense is we're going to have to hire an outside attorney if we look at adding a council seat or two. You have to have an outside, because it is based on, I believe if I'm not, because did we do this in another city, it's on population, it's also based on the growth in those areas. All of those things have to play, which is going to be very, from a time perspective, it's going to be hard for us. I just want to make sure when we all walk away here, we're all on the same page. And also I'm being selfish because I want to understand it myself. Because I just need, I don't ever understand polling versus- Yeah, I followed you. Yeah, we don't vote in here. I just see right now the two, right? The mix of the districts and the number of seats. Correct. Okay. Okay, mix of districts, okay. And then the terms, which was mentioned, three-year terms- Does not support. Okay, so- Just this number of seats and the mix on the districts. Okay, number of seats, okay. Okay, number of seats. Question? Bear with me, let's get to it. And the mix on the districts, okay, those are the two. Okay, I'm educated now. Okay, and that's what you have, right? That's what you have to do, right? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Council Member McGee? Mr. Mayor, can you go over the folks for the three-year terms, please, just so I know who gave direction which way and which not, please? Council Member Byrd, Mayor Pro Tem, and yourself. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Council Member Holland? I apologize for not making myself clear. I am in favor of the current situation for single-member districts, two at large. The Mayor elected at large, I'm opposed to electing the Mayor Pro Tem, to electing the Mayor Pro Tem from the voters, and I'm in favor of a two-year term. I think that gives more control to the voters and to the candidate. Thank you. Okay. Got it. Okay. All right. Council Member Meltzer? Yeah. I absolutely didn't realize that if I didn't say something the first time around, it meant that I was against everything said afterward, so I'm more than happy to weigh in, and just to be more efficient. If there are things that are three now, but you don't know whether I'm interested in having them discuss it, if you could remind me, I'd be more than happy to tell you whether I would throw in with those. Is that a problem? No, no. It's just I- I teed up a thing I was interested in. I think, "Oh, now I hear what everyone else has to say. I mean, I'm against everything that everyone else has to have." I have to reconcile it to then remind you that you're passionate about it, seems- Not at all. Okay. Then what do you want me to add? Let's see, I'll go through everything, whether you have four or not. Everything that's been mentioned. It's not sort of on me to see if I remember everything that's been mentioned. No, no. I just want to make sure we get at the heart of what you're doing versus just- now that you know the end goal to then try to get over the finish line versus legitimate, like, "Hey, these are things that I'm passionate about." But that's- I'm just trying to get- I just read them twice, right? I'll read it again. Thank you. You're more than welcome. It is my pleasure. Things you touched on, just in case. Mix of membership districts, Mayor Pro Tem, terms, or another thing, number of members, geographic restrictions, and that's- Yeah, so I support the committee- I also support the committee talking about terms, term length. I also support the committee talking about number of members. I'm trying to think if there's something else that I didn't- Whether it's staggered or consecutive. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I don't know if that sorts anything out or changes anything, but those are things that I would also support the committee talking about. Okay, length of terms. Yeah. All right. Very good. Thank you. So we have three districts, mix of districts, number of seats, and term length. Okay, very good. Thank you. Sorry about that confusion. What? Council Member Guy. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I did hear mentioned about in terms of the seats, the geography on five and six, where do we fall on that? It's part of the mix of the districts. That's right. So it'll be coming. It'll be discussed. That thing specifically, because while I support looking at that, I don't support the districts over, I don't support that. So how do we account for that? Does that make sense? Ideally, it would be great if we could just go down a list and everybody just do it all at once. But since we're not going to do that, that's the prerogative of the chair. But I support looking at the mix of districts. I do not support any in the geographic line between five and six. Absolutely not. Yeah, we're that anything. Well, I guess I'm confused because if you're talking about the mix of districts, which means you can either go from at large to a single member or single member to at large, you're going to be changing geographical boundaries. So I think geographical boundaries applied to the districts, either how someone wants them to be or how they are. I think you can't say we're going to talk about geographical boundaries if we're changing up the mix, which you have to change the geographical boundaries. If you say we're going to have six single member districts and one at large. So then to say, well, I don't support changing geographical boundaries for five and six seems inconsistent. So that's that's my only point. It's like it's it's I know you're saying it's two different things, but it's not because the general concept is you're talking about the districts and someone to talk about the districts for changing them, which means you're changing geographically the districts. But then when it comes to five and six, as it stands, you don't want to seems inconsistent to me. If you're going to if you're going to talk about districts and changing them, you're changing geographic boundaries. So that's just my opinion. And I just needed to say that because I don't see it as inconsistent with talking about the district boundaries in general. I mean, that's really what everybody's saying. The district boundaries in general. So that's it. Mayor, I'm sorry. Yeah. Do I get to respond or no? You can. Yeah. You can have a statement with the yes, you can make your statement right ahead. You have the floor. How are we going to parse that out? I don't believe that we need to. Just like I said, I don't support the mayor pro tem thing. That's just me putting it out there that I don't support it. That doesn't mean that I need a reconciliation of everywhere where everyone falls on that. I'm just stating my opinion. So you've stated your opinion that you don't think there should be geographic restrictions on seats five and six at large seats, 100% noted. Everyone's heard you. Let's move on. Will that be something that is discussed by the committee? That's what I'm asking. It absolutely is going to be discussed because there's support for it. You can't, to council member White's point, you can't vibrate it. You can't separate it out. It's part of the discussion about districts. So if you don't want to talk about districts at all, because that's going to be discussed, that's a different thing. You can remove your support. I don't know what that does to the number, but that to me is a problem with doing this reconciliation because you get this games, gamesmanship of, hey, well, how do I move these things around to affect an outcome versus organic, hey, here's how I feel. Here's what I'm passionate about. You have the floor. Okay. One other question has member restrictions on districts in, just to be clear, this doesn't have anything to do with five and six or when you say restriction on districts, can you clarify what that means? Yes, currently there's a prohibition on someone running for an at large seat that doesn't ... There's a prohibition that says if you're going to run for seats six, you have to live in a particular set of districts. If you're going to run for seat five, you have to live in a particular set of districts. But seven, which is on the same situation, you can live anywhere. Yes. So then you are suggesting that five and six can just live anywhere. That is right. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. All right. Okay. Diving into section 2.02 qualifications. Each member of the council in addition to having other qualifications prescribed by law shall be registered to vote in the city, shall have lived within the city limits and district boundaries for at least one year, and shall not hold any other public office and shall have maintained the eligibility requirements from municipal officers set forth by the Texas election code. The qualifications set forth in the election code are that the charter may require up to 12 months residency in a city, which we do, may require an age of 21, must be a registered voter in the territory elected from by the filing deadline, and per Supreme Court precedent, any requirement that a candidate must own property is unconstitutional. If a member of the council ceases to possess any of these qualifications or eligibility requirements or enter a plea of guilty to a felony or be convicted of a felony, they shall immediately forfeit their office. And then the city council member stipend, each member of the city council shall receive compensation in the form of a monthly stipend as set forth by the section. The initial monthly stipend shall be $750 for each member of the city council and $1,000 for the mayor. City council may by a separate ordinance approve an adjustment in the stipend no more frequently than once per fiscal year, but no increase in compensation will take effect until the next regular election term, and any increase in the amount of the stipend shall not exceed 3% of the then current stipend amount unless approved by a two-thirds vote of council. The stipend shall be reported in the annual city budget as a separate line item. So some of the considerations, the National Civic League Model Charter recommends that the only qualification be a registered voter qualification. They also recommend that determining council salary by ordinance rather than in the charter allows for more flexibility and annual adjustments. By law, the charter can only be amended every two years, so that would allow you through ordinance to do it every year. They also make a case against previous residency requirements stating that in today's highly mobile society, these requirements have lost some credibility. The Texas Municipal League's recommendations from 2010 are quiet on salary, though even if they weren't, they wouldn't be very credible for today, but they do cite that the Texas Local Government Code authorizes council to establish salary by ordinance. Here is a chart that shows how Denton compares in residency requirement and compensation to other part-time councils in the area. As you can see, most of them do require a 12-month or one-year prior residence in the city or district, and comparatively, the mayor and council stipend is slightly higher than the majority of these cities with only Irving as offering a higher amount. This chart includes the major manager council home rule cities in Texas that have full-time councils. As you can see, the compensation varies pretty widely. El Paso has followed the National Civic League model by setting a base salary in the charter election of 2018 and then including provisions in the charter that require an annual ordinance that adjusts the salary to align with the annual median household income for that area. You can also see that some of the higher salaries were very recently updated. It is worth noting that Fort Worth has not revised their salary provisions since 2006. They have had multiple failed ballot measures to raise their salaries in the last few years. And Dallas and San Antonio are in the process of reviewing their charters this year as well. So we may see these numbers change. So with that, I will turn it back to council for discussion on that section and direction. >> All right, direction for staff. Councilman Watts. >> Can I just ask a simple question? >> Absolutely not. >> What does domicile mean? >> That's good. >> I think that's -- I'm going to ask the city attorney, what does the word domicile mean? >> It's not a simple question. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> All right. Could you -- and you don't have to answer now. >> I don't have a paper or just a memo on just some summaries of that. >> Sure. >> You might want to tell us your opinion too. >> Yeah. >> Go put it out there. >> Do what? >> Go put it out there. >> No. >> Okay. >> Never mind. Yeah. I just want to understand what that is. >> Yeah. No, it's been -- do your city of Denton history. It's been -- it's complicated. Mayor Patel. >> I wasn't pushing to change the residency requirements in the -- in the charter, but if that's something that the consensus of council wants the charter review committee to look at, I'm not opposed. That said, I would absolutely like us to explore the salary incomes so that you have different income level, different strata of people having an opportunity to work. And I'd love to see the -- get the pulse of the community on that. If they want to leave it as -- if they want to reduce the stipends, all right? If they want to keep it where it is, if they want to make it like half median income because we're a partial, we're a part-time council instead of a full-time council, I mean, that would be my suggestion is half AMI. But if -- I would really like to see that discussed so you had a broader mix other than, you know, than my own demographic of retired white male. So I would like to see that discussed by the charter committee. >> Okay. Anyone else? Councilmember Meltzer. >> Yeah. I support that discussion. And I don't know what the right measure would be. You know, my thought coming in was half time at the average wage because, you know, area median income has complexities due to household size and all that, but that idea I think would be a good discussion with them to have and I agree, whichever way they come out is awesome. And the answer I've heard in the past on domicile in this one to help everyone is it's where your pets live. You like that? >> That definitely does not help. >> So to avoid the last discussion, you support that being salary and not that being residency or you support that being residency and salary? >> I'm not especially interested in the residency topic. I think it's more or less, you know, more or less right. >> Okay. Anyone else? Councilman Harlan. >> I support no change at all. >> Okay. All right. Anyone else? >> Here. >> Councilman McGeehan and Councilman Byrd. >> I support a conversation about change in salary. And just so I said, I also support looking at removing this as is the standard NCI standard removing this from the charter and allowing council to do this by ordinance. >> Okay. >> I don't support any changes with -- I do not support any change with residency. I don't think we need to have that discussion there. >> Okay. Councilman Byrd. >> I believe I am going to ditto with Councilmember McGee. That's what I had in mind. He said it for me. >> Okay. All right. That salary and remove the pay provision from the charter to the ordinance. >> Ordinance, yes. >> Yeah. Got it. Okay. Councilman Watts, anything -- same approach you're going to -- >> Yeah. But I ask a simple question and everybody assumes I'm saying we should look at residency. That's not it at all. I just simply ask a question. So it's just interesting how people just assume that -- oh, yeah. So anyway. No. I'm good. I mean, I don't particularly think that -- I mean, this is a charter review committee which is made up of the citizens of our city. So I can say, yeah, I don't think we need to start talking about raising salaries. But if they want to talk about it, that's fine. But other than that, if I'm not going to be here, I'm going to -- who knows. Maybe I'll wind up on the charter review committee. >> Oh, my God. >> Maybe somebody will -- you know. But that's it. Yeah. That's all I have to say on that because I've got two weeks left or three meetings left and y'all are going to be -- this is way down the -- I mean, I don't know when the other discussions are. But yeah. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So then, yeah, I am -- I'm fine -- especially thank you for this information with the comparable cities. There's more significantly sized cities that we're right in line with. So I think we're in line where we need to be from a compensation standpoint. And I believe if we were to look at increasing it, it's only right for me to say, okay, the 3% initially is what's allowed to do now. So I don't know that I would be okay having the citizens go and look at something where we hadn't exhausted all things under our care and control to get, you know, but that's fine. So the -- and then everything else I'm fine with. So that -- I just needed to explain that I don't believe that a salary is somehow a cure-all, right? Because there's pure motives on both sides of that, right? There's people that say, hey, we don't compensate our council because we want people to be pure motive to serve. And then there's people that say, hey, compensate more because we want people to be fairly compensated to serve, right? I mean, just good people do good things, bad people do bad things. That's my experience. So there's four for -- there's four in support of having a discussion about salary. That's the only thing that I see. No. >> That one just had two. >> Yeah. All right. Very good. >> Okay. >> So just a quick reminder of our work session schedule over the next few months. A note about Councilmember Watts' name there on May 21st. >> Yeah, I don't know what that's there. >> That's what we talked about yesterday. So you'll recall whenever we had this discussion in February, council provided direction and the mayor allotted each member to priority items to be included in the direction because Councilmember Watts was absent at that meeting. Staff has been place holding that for any priorities brought forward from him. He has since indicated that he will forego submitting items for review. So that will be removed and not applicable at this time. >> He'll change his mind. I'll slide him a post -- no, just kidding. >> And then looking forward after that, in late May, council will give final direction on committee charges and June will be the committee is appointed. Each member will have two appointments to the charter review committee and the committee will meet July through October, provide their recommendations to council in November and December and then council will call the election in January. Election day will be Saturday, May 3rd, 2025. >> Mayor, one question on process. >> Certainly. Councilmember Watts. >> I don't remember the last time, but who will decide how many, if any, public input is allowed at the charter review committee meetings? In other words, are there people going to be able to come in and have a few minutes -- you wouldn't have to decide that now, but who eventually makes that decision? Is it the charter committee charge or once it gets formed, the committee can decide that? >> I believe it's decided by the committee. I can double-check how we did it in 2017, but I believe that's how they did it. >> Okay. Great. Thank you very much. Great presentation. Appreciate your help. That takes us to item D, ID 23-2349, receive report, hold discussion and give staff direction regarding public facility corporations to develop affordable housing in the city of Denton, including a comprehensive analysis of definition, creation, and administrative public facility corporations. Before you get started, Danny, I'm going to turn it over to the city manager. Can you give us some kind of your thoughts behind this and where we are? We've visited this before, so I just kind of want to set the foundation so that we're productive. >> So we brought this to you before Danny did a presentation. This is the exact same presentation, and I think it would be worth just kind of making sure that everybody is willing to listen and look at the possibles, the yeses and the opportunities here. This does provide different opportunities for us, and you'll hear Danny say that, but it is a repeat. I want you to know it's a repeat of what you saw before. You didn't see it? >> Just why? >> Okay. Why are we doing it? It was brought forth as a two-minute pitch. It was a two-minute pitch, and at the time, the council member felt like we were really missing on opportunities, so this is an opportunity, one more time for you to look at it to see if this is something we want to look at in helping us as we look at opportunities for the city and at housing and other things. So Danny has that same presentation. >> Councilman Watts. >> Sorry, Mayor, just to expand on that. We had a work session before, originally, that the direction was to move it forward to a council agenda item, and it was voted down, and now I made a two-minute pitch, and it was again approved to move forward to at least a work session. That's where we are. I just wanted to get that -- we looked at it before, and it was voted down, and now we're looking at it again. >> Okay. Danny? Thank you. >> Yes, thank you. Afternoon, Mayor and Council, Danny Shaw, Community Services. Today's presentation is in response to two-minute pitch, a work session to explore the potential of public facility corporations, or PFCs, to develop affordable housing in the City of Denton. The concept of PFCs supports our ongoing commitment to fostering economic opportunity and enhancing affordability within our community. As requested, we're going to do a work session that will focus on the definition, the creation and administration, much of what you saw in previous presentation. We'll also review, though, some of the changes to Chapter 303 that happened in the recent legislative session that became effective in June of this year. There is more detailed analysis that was asked for in this particular pitch for analysis on the local government code and the House Bill 2071 in the agenda information sheet as well that's provided as backup. So as a refresher from our previous discussions, a public facility corporation is authorized by Chapter 303 of the Texas Local Government Code, also known as the Public Facility Corporation Act. A PFC is a nonprofit that's created through the Texas Secretary of State with the authority to own and provide funding for any property that -- or interest that's a property devoted to a public use. The city as a sponsor may create one or more of these PFCs -- I'm sorry, I went too far -- city as a sponsor may create one or more of these nonprofit PFCs to develop public facility corporations such as affordable housing developments, which is specifically what we're talking about today. Once created, a PFC specific to these affordable housing projects would participate as a limited partner in a public-private partnership to develop affordable housing. A city PFC offers the city the ability to directly influence the development of an affordable housing project. The PFC also has authority to issue bonds, which is a critical tool for financing projects that might not otherwise have funding. When the bonds are funded, the money can be used in numerous ways. We'll talk a little bit more about that in some of the next slides, but we can loan the proceeds to these revenues for other specific purposes. As mentioned earlier, the acts provisions are provided in the AIS. So what is the public benefit of a PFC and why are we talking about it? In the city spearheads of PFC, we're not just talking about affordable housing, but we're actively making it happen. It's a tool for putting the city's affordable housing strategic toolkit in action, and it's also making sure that we're furthering our own fair housing goals. PFC isn't just about creating housing, the PFC structure provides an opportunity to generate revenue as well in ways that would directly impact the city. Some of the examples of that would be funds to offset the actual tax exemption that's being provided, pumping more resources into the affordable housing strategic toolkit, supporting our public assistance programs, and funding future projects that would make our city better. If created by the city, we would be in the driver's seat. We would have negotiating power over the affordability, the revenue, and the council priorities, such as pushing for those deeper affordabilities that's not already in the act, negotiating how those revenues might be utilized for the operation and sale, and enhancing protections for our renters, such as requiring income qualified units. A little bit more on the house bill that changed some of the provisions of the chapter 303 and 392, respective to specific areas of affordability, transparency, jurisdiction, antenna protections, which are improvements that were previously identified as gaps or concerns in the previous legislation. So, just a couple of highlights here, 50 percent affordable units is what is already required. The additional changes in the act require now that 10 percent of those units have to be at 60 percent, and then the remaining 40 have to be at 80 percent, where before it was 80 percent for all 50 percent of that, a lot of percentages. Acquisition deals, so before there wasn't any coverage on it, but if someone acquires a property rather than create new construction, there is a requirement that they invest back in it, so they can't just turnkey it, right? They have to put money back into it to improve the property as well. For transparency and new construction deals, the PFC does have to document that it is, that the project would not be feasible without this PFC deal. So it's making it sure that this is absolutely necessary to make it happen. And then a couple of other transparency things, so PFCs now have to be listed on any of the Affordable Housing Project websites, and the notice has to be given to all taxing entities that are impacted by it. There's also an annual compliance audit that's required now. They have to do it with a third party, and then TDHA reviews it, so TDHA isn't doing the audit, but they are at least reviewing audits now that wasn't in the previous deal. As far as jurisdiction, the PFC deals must occur in the jurisdictional boundaries. You all saw that in a previous deal where it was an entity outside of the city. Now it has to be within the jurisdiction. And tax exemptions do expire unless they're renewed. So if it's an acquisition deal, tax exemptions do expire at 30 years. If it's new construction, it's 60 years. So it eventually does go back on the tax roll. There's also some tenant protections that were added to it. Requires source of income protection, which is the state actually prohibits us from passing anything, but this would allow us to do that. So PFC developments must accept housing choice vouchers. The PFC also must affirmatively marketing, which is a part of our fair housing goals as well. And then there's some other baseline tenant protections, which means you can't be retaliated against if you do decide to organize, and the landlord can only evict tenants for very specific and fair reasons, whatever that definition is. Yeah. So same slide you saw before. Basically the steps to create a PFC would involve just preparing the bylaws and certificate of formation, then obtaining council approval, submitting that to the secretary of state for approval, then file franchise sheet, excuse me, franchise tax exemption and EIN to make it a public entity, and then hold that first organizational meeting. Part of this question, which is kind of a new slide, but the administration of the PFC, how it would be administered, well, upon getting that approval for the public benefit nonprofit by the secretary of state. We would then gather the group together for the first time and have an organizational meeting, which would finalize the board of directors, hold an orientation, approve the articles, those types of things that typically would happen in a nonprofit corporation. And then operating the PFC would mean first step, we'd be reaching out to the development community to say we have this tool, here's the process, here's the application, making them aware of it and how to get involved. Then the PFC board would receive those applications, review them to ensure that the projects would only be feasible with the tax exemption provided by the PFC. And then the PFC board would also set the terms in negotiating agreements, so you would have the control of having those tools in place to maximize public benefit. Go a little bit more, sorry, a little ahead of myself, yeah. So the heart of the city's PFC power really does lie in the negotiation. Negotiation for purpose and for public benefit is at its core. With the seat at the table, the PFC board would be able to then define our role, be able to focus on affordability that best meets the community needs, and like I mentioned in a previous slide, unlock some of those revenue streams that we don't currently have for affordable housing. Every time a deal closes, we could potentially have the acquisition money, just like any other PFC. There's potential for annual cash flow that would come into the PFC, and then there'd be long-term. If the development sold, we could negotiate terms that would allow us to receive some funds from that sale. And then it does pay for itself, too. The fees could be negotiated in that so that the PFC wouldn't be dependent on operational dollars from taxpayers. It would just come right from development services. So the next steps, should council want to move forward? There are two steps that would be necessary, much like we did in the previous process. Approve a resolution accepting the formation documents, and then approving the submission to the Secretary of State, and then approving and appointing that initial board. So with that, options are direct staff to create a development program authorizing the formation of a public facility corporation for affordable housing projects, or take no further action today. Okay. Thank you very much. Questions or direction for staff? Councilman Burke. The use of the term PFC, and it says public facility corporations, and then I read down here where that could be more than one PFC per city or county. Right. Any entity. The DHA has multiple PFCs, so each deal is its own independent LLC and then coordinates in the development process. Lewisville did approve this in September, just before we heard the first presentation on this. They have one PFC, and they'll do multiple deals with them. That's what I was trying to- Yeah. So it just depends. A lot of it's just to cover risk, right? If one development fails, you don't want to pull the whole PFC down, so you might want to form different PFCs. That's what I was trying to get to is whether or not we would be, I don't know if I'm using the word smart, enough to encourage more than one PFC, but we already have the Denton Housing Authority. The Denton Housing Authority has the same authorities that we do. Okay. They could form PFCs and do- They can form PFCs. Mm-hmm. Okay. So my direction is to create a developmental program, authorize an information of PFC corporations for future affordable housing projects. I would agree to that. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Councilman Mautzer. I watched the session, I wasn't on council the last time it came through, and I was puzzled then, and I remain puzzled now. For everything that it wants to accomplish, and I just, I feel like whenever I try to probe why are we doing this when there's already an organization that's got Denton and housing right in the name, you know, that has these powers already, whenever I try to probe it, I feel like the response I get is more heat than light, and I feel like, to mix metaphors, I feel like it's kind of the elephant in the room. If I look at it from 60,000 feet, you know, I would just say there's some dysfunction here. Why are we not working more closely with them? Why are people so eager to create an alternate structure, parallel structure? I mean, I just, it seems like there's something else that needs to get resolved. That's my main discomfort right now, otherwise, you know, yeah, we want all these things. Do you want me to address any of that first? So let's staff give a clean, unbiased response. Yeah, I think I'll just kind of go back here to a couple of different places, but ultimately I talked about it. The important part of us having the opportunity to have a PFC for me is the threefold. We would then have the ability to incentivize our own affordable housing strategic toolkit, right? But the two bigger parts of that are being able to fund those projects. So initially when we brought it forward, we had zero dollars for affordable housing. So it would have created funding to help us move some of those toolkit strategies forward that we weren't able to do because no money has been allocated towards it. Now we have the bond, so that's a different conversation. But the biggest one for me is the ability to negotiate. We don't have any control over the deals that DHA is doing, whatever they're negotiating. So when we are able to negotiate, then we have a seat at the table, we have the ability to ask for the things that are our priorities and not just DHA's. And with that, the funds that are available, we can then utilize to put back into other programs as well. So we don't have that with DHA. For a DHA deal that is tax-exempt 100% and 50% affordable, we don't know where those funds are going. Those funds don't necessarily come back to the city to continue those affordable housing efforts in the way that we could do it if we did it on our own. It's not about competition. It's just about providing a tool for us in our larger toolbox that we give options to developers who might be interested in this tool. All right. But if this were like some of the community, I don't know, apparently there's a lot of like existing players that people have thoughts about, but why would it be beyond the realm of possibility that we would be in negotiations with DHA over terms and over where things go? Like why is that? You know, like you sort of give it as a given that there's no way we would have any control like if we have to have control, why wouldn't we be able to have negotiated conversations? Yeah. I don't think there's no way that we could be a part of it. But again, it's creating funding for them, be creating funding for us and our toolkit. So it's just splitting those dollars or making deals, maybe not possible because of it. So I'll address it that way, but I'm sure there's other things I could say. Councilor Watts. I really don't understand what you're saying. What you're saying is competition, dysfunctionality and those sorts of things, which I don't really see how you see it that way. So let me ask you, did you know that the Denton Housing Authority executed a PFC for two pre-existing apartment buildings in the downtown area, that they sold them and I think they put them under PFCs? Is that correct? I don't know. For the Beverly and the Highline, I do not know what deal structures they used. Okay. But they can do that. They can buy pre-existing places. We have no say in it. You weren't on council, I don't think, when we went through all this before. We went through this extensively. I proposed what the Denton Housing Authority had suggested and that is that any affordable housing project that comes through Denton first be given to the Denton Housing Authority to see if they want to do it or not. Yes. Some years back. And so we were all for that. When we started asking, okay, if we're going to do that, we're saying we're giving up tax revenue. It's going to be tax exempt. That's fine. When we asked for how's the money going to be spent, we didn't ever get really any answers. It was just, so that's where the division started and the council at that time said if we can't get any more information than this. So it's not about DHA. It's about there's some projects that DHA has chosen not to do and that they've gone somewhere else. So this allowed, we've seen it. You and I have seen it on the Enclave Apartments. Oh, I remember that one. Yeah, the Enclave Apartments where we tried to negotiate. You tried to negotiate and put it in, but it didn't work. So it's not about an us against them. It's about how can we have options that will allow that if they don't want to do it, we can do it or if someone comes to us, we can say we don't accept that deal with that unit mix like you were trying to, or we can say we'll accept the deal with the unit mix. So I don't see it as competition at all. What I see it as is we as a municipality, we have as our goal more affordable housing. We are going to then entrust that solely 100% to an organization outside of our organization that is totally independent, that can do their own thing, and I don't see it as competition at all. I think it's good fiscal management to say, okay, if these projects are coming to Denton, why do we not at least want to have an opportunity to talk to them? Because what if the housing authority says, we'll just go with the standard minimum? I know Mayor Pro Tem in the last meeting had said that he had some reservations based upon a study performed by the University of Texas, I think it was. Well, I don't know what happened, but when you read the end of the study, it gives the very things that you can do as someone who's at the table negotiating these projects, but somebody could say, okay, we'll do the standard statutory minimum, 10% at 60% average median income and 79% or the 50%, the rest of 40% could be at 79% average median income. We have a greater need than that, and so we should have an opportunity to be able to negotiate that, and I really don't understand, unless it's just you're hearing things from people that you want to believe and all that, that they're saying, well, they all are just competing or something. I really don't understand what the real heartburn is in this. You're trying to say, can't we form a better coalition? How many people in Denton and organizations are doing the same thing we're doing? We got all kinds of people doing homelessness services for those on shelter. So, hey, I just think this is a great tool. I don't know how many of you have negotiated real estate deals and really used that power of leverage to really meet needs, but if we don't do this, then we're sort of at the mercy of everybody else. So I'm just one voice, so if we want to have the same thing next time, but the council gets to decide who the board members are, the council gets to decide what the bylaws look like. I mean, the council is in control of that whole process. So I mean, I respect your opinion. I just really disagree with it. I don't understand it, but that's okay. Well, there are more questions really than opinions, because do you mind, Mayor, if I respond to that? I'm quite open to the possibility that this is a useful tool and that it might enable things to happen that wouldn't happen otherwise. So I'm hearing that, and I'm open to it, but that's not -- this is a question to you. That's not necessarily mutually exclusive with the idea that like we don't seem to have a very close relationship with the AHA. I mean, could those things not both be true? Could both things not be true? That this is a good tool and that we have a kind of peculiarly not close relationship with the AHA? I don't know. I'm not involved in that. I know that when I was mayor, it got pretty contentious because of just, you know, we were trying to work together, and I don't know what the situation is now. I don't think we have much interaction. I don't think that means it's negative. I don't think it means it's positive. I just think it means that they're doing their thing, we're doing ours. We try to sort of collaborate on some of this affordable housing, these issues, and somehow we couldn't come together on specifics, and everybody just returned to the status quo. So this isn't a response to some animus towards another organization. This is a response to -- I've seen deals come through, and I've seen deals happen where we have no say in how those units meet the specific needs of our community, which we are elected and charged with, and affordable housing has been on the table forever. So no, I'm not saying they can't meet -- they're not meeting you exclusively, but I can't speak to the relationship. I haven't heard that there's any kind of acrimony, and it's not about acrimony. It's about, well, we have different opportunities for people. That's all. So I would like to see us as a council, and us as a body, as a city, have a kind of comprehensive view, comprehensive strategy, which is exactly what we're trying to do, toward creating affordable housing, right? That's why we've got the affordable housing strategy and the toolkit, but that would include sort of all the players. And I'm sincerely open to the idea that this is an important possible addition, but I don't need to necessarily go back on why I thought what I thought. For me, it's just seeing those two things and trying to reconcile, like we're not close with that relationship, and we're trying to create this alternative. But I guess I'm open to being supportive, and I would like to see DHA in this conversation and say, yeah, this would bring things to the community that we're not able to do. Why are we not looking at it comprehensively, I guess, is my question. Okay. So I'm just going to put you down as, I don't know. It's either yes or no, or maybe, or something, but it's not yes or no, so I'll just put it down in the middle. I've got to keep score, so I hear you noted, and you'll just know where you're slotted, because I did not hear anything definitive. Anyone else? Councilman Holland. Thank you. Would we be competitive, that's not my term, would there be an incentive for a potential developer to go with our program as opposed to DHA? Would one offer a better financing, better terms, longer term, anything like that? So all of the tools would be the same. What would be in the deal term sheet would maybe make the difference, like how much would we want on the acquisition feedback. So potentially, if we ask for less money and they ask for more, then maybe the developer would want to work with us differently, but everything else is mostly equal. So one could be competitive with the other, offer a better deal, so to speak? Yeah, if the developer made the time to go to both entities and ask for term sheets, I guess potentially that's possible. Mayor put me down as in favor. Okay, anyone else? Mayor Potem. Thank you, so the last time we investigated this, I went to talk to folks at DHA and other places and they said anybody that approached them, they hadn't turned down deals. So I'm sympathetic to where Councilman Meltzer, the point he's trying to bring up is we seem to have trying to address a problem that DHA doesn't believe exists. So I'm not seeing the exact need for it at the moment. That said, I can count to four in this room, and some of the things that I brought up last time that gave me qualms and gave me qualms then, gave me qualms still, is if we're going to have the seat at the table, it needs to be us having the seat at the table. So I'm going to strongly, if we end up moving forward, I'm going to strongly recommend that the Council is the board. And then the other thing that really disturbs me is the idea is, oh, well, okay, we can adjust the terms, DHA versus us versus DISD or any of the other entities that can form a PFC. If we adjust the terms and the hidden costs of that are coming out of essentially the general fund, because we can make it sweetheart because our HR is covering our staffing and our city funds are covering your salary and anybody else that would be involved in the negotiation whereas DHAs is rolled out standalone and they're covering their own costs. So I don't want to see, let's say it's a 2% savings going with the City of Denton. I don't want to see that coming out of the savings, that 2% coming out of our general fund and going to the profit margins of a developer. That feels like we're making a better deal on the taxpayers' back a little bit. So I would strongly discourage us from doing that unless you have a big consensus from the council's board that we are intentionally sending taxpayer revenue into this project the way we intentionally do other projects. So I would just say that that wouldn't be something we would answer now. It would be when, and if you decide to inform it, you all as the board would make those conditions, but as I put forward, the PFC and the development deals should cover the cost of anything that happens. It shouldn't be on the taxpayer, right? It should be from the development deal. They would finance whatever HR or whatever, those kinds of things. So just to throw that out there, there's two different things that you've mentioned there. So I don't, I'm a no, I'm not a heck no, but I encourage us if we do go forward, make the council the board and definitely make sure that we're not sending taxpayer dollars to the developers unless we do that boldly and intentionally. I'm compelled to directly refute that one of your statements and the statement was that you're not aware, you talked to them and they said that they've not turned down any deals. So Raymond Guerrero, R-A-M-O-N-G-U, and I may be saying this wrong, G-U-A-J-A-R-D-O-senior, is the consultant for- It's Ramon Lajardo. Yes. Thank you. And so on September 16th, 2021 at 918.05 PM central standard time, he says, Joel, and I quote, "Sherry McDade has agreed for me to present the proposal to the Denton project to the board of commissioners on Tuesday, September 21st, 2021, in executive session." Then I'll fast forward to another email from the same Raymond dated September 21, 2021, 7.51 PM, the Denton board of commissioners decided not to issue bonds for either of the Denton, either the Denton nor the Cedar Hills developments. So I will email that to the city attorney so that it's in the record, but that directly refutes what you stated and what you were told. So Councilman McGee, you want it to floor? I appreciate my friend from place six earlier reminding me to stay consistent. I'm going to be consistent. I was against this then I'm against this now, but like Dr. Beck here, I can count to four. So just so it's said, I'm going to be against it for a couple of reasons. DHA has multiple PFCs. The school district has PFCs, the county could create a PFCs. I don't think that we need to do this. I said this then and I'm going to say this now, for me, this represents an expansion of the size of government, which I don't really want to do unless it is something, unless it is honestly within the bounds of public safety. I don't think our government needs to get larger in order to do this. I think we're doing fine. I'm going to agree with Councilmember Meltzer when I say that I do believe we need to improve our relationship with DHA and we should be supporting them in doing things like this as well. Yeah, I just don't see the need for this. One of the big things that gave me cause for pause is that when we discussed this last year, we talked about having a three person board, which would be the three at large seats. I don't think that's a great idea. I'm going to say that if we're going to do it, I do believe it needs to be the entire council, but I just don't see the need for this. I appreciated the work then, I appreciate the work now. I'm just unconvinced that we need to do this given that other organizations that operate within the city have PFCs. I'm open to changing if my mind, I'd really love to hear Councilmember Watts say a little more about this since you brought this pitch back up and I'm obviously, you know the most about this. I'm just unconvinced on why we need it. Mayor, may I address a couple of things? Yeah, but I'm going to give the floor to the city manager and then I'll come back. So I will say this, we take pride in partnering with anybody that can move forward the city in the right direction, whether it be housing affordability or more attainment now, affordable daycare, you name it because this is the important part of a city is we can't do it alone anymore, never. Cities across the country cannot do it alone when it comes to these key issues. We have on many occasions, our staff who do a tremendous job have reached out and reached out and reached out to try to work with the housing authority and I will leave it at that. Yes, I just wanted to actually extend on that conversation because I don't want to leave it with the fact that staff isn't working hard to try to coordinate and collaborate with the housing authority and we do. In fact, there are two strategies in the affordable housing strategic toolkit specifically where we're trying to use our homebuyer assistance funds to help their voucher holders become homebuyers. That's something that we have talked to them about and we continue to talk about and trying to build that out with the team right now. Mr. Wilharto actually contacted us recently because we have bond funds and they want to come to the table now for sure so I think that there's opportunity for us to collaborate and we are trying and I just don't want to leave it that we're not, I felt like the conversation was leading to the fact that we're not working hard to work with them and we are. Okay, so and I'll just say this, the younger generation says, say less, right, that they reach out when they see the bond pass, say less. I've got to be directly on point and say I disagree that this is expanding our reach at all. I think this is simply picking up where Danny left off. The citizens of Denton voted in that bond referendum and approved $15 million, is that right? Yes. We talk about the work and the diligence that the city staff and all the accounting that goes into the website that talks about bond dollars, how those are spent, how those are allocated and return on investment, et cetera, very detailed document and so my analysis for my decision, for my contribution to this is to say, am I willing to trust that responsibility to report to the citizens of Denton and accounting for $15 million to another government organization that has no responsibility to report to us, no responsibility to provide data, no ability for people to reach out and talk to them. Their doors are locked 24/7, locked. You cannot get in that building, you cannot go talk to anyone. If I wanted to go over there tomorrow, it's locked. So just the physical just kind of presence, just the, I understand it's difficult times. We have a metal detector out there, I get it, but you cannot, just we have a different level of the way we carry ourselves, the way we report, the way we respond to our citizens and I am not willing to take that $15 million and say, we'll just see how it goes or we'll experiment and see if they report back or see if something changed, I just can't get comfortable with deferring my responsibility to account for every dollar and update the website and have people have visibility in how we're spending, what the return on that is for them to be able to come to a meeting and say, hey, here's what I want, open session, open meetings, all those things are critical for me and then I'll just say, I'll quote from the website, it says throughout Denton County, that's DHA's website on there and somehow Louisville saw forward even understanding they're in Denton County and there's an organization that serves Denton County to say, hey, to better serve our citizens, we're gonna set up a PFC and we're gonna take care of these deals. So for me, absolutely on board and absolutely have, I've sent that email to the city manager's office, that main email that goes to legal as well that documents their email saying they turned down a deal. So that's undisputed in my estimation and if there's bad information out there, there's bad information out there and I find it interesting that this same deal came back and the Southeast Denton neighborhood meeting, they were called to task, the developer because they went outside of the city of Denton, I don't see how you can have it both ways, that's for another discussion another day, but I'm telling you, I sat in on that meeting and those meetings are archived as well, so if I have to go get that time stamp, I'll do it. But there's clear documentation of the email, it's supported, et cetera. So for that reason, and for the accountability to the citizens to make sure we have first hand accountability to them, I'm supportive, that's my thoughts. So thank you very much, appreciate it. So you have everything you need? - Yes, we have. - Council Member McGee. - Just one question. - Yes, sir. - Just one question for staff if that's okay. And I don't know if you know the answer to this, but with respect to DHA, how's their board chosen? - So the mayor selects the commissioners and at that point, our relationship with DHA stops. - Okay, the mayor selects the commissioners, okay, thank you. - Okay, thank you very much. That takes us to our next session, so our last work session before I closed, and it's item EID24080, receive port, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding pending council request. - Good afternoon, mayor and council, Jesse Kent, assistant to the city manager. Thank you for bearing with my lost voice while I present the council pending request for information. As a reminder, I'll be presenting two different requests today. The requesting council member will have up to two minutes to describe and justify the request. Remaining council members will then have a maximum of one minute each to provide feedback and indicate their support for the use of city staff time to respond to the request. Staff will respond to all requests where a consensus of at least four elected officials is established, and a consensus of six council members is required for resolution or ordinance to be placed on a future city council agenda prior to a work session on the request. Once we're done, the agenda committee will assist in scheduling items, receiving consensus based upon priority offered by council members, work session availability, and readiness of the item. As guidelines for you all, please note and offer your priority when noting your support for an item. The following general categorization can be used to indicate any council member support to assist staff and the agenda committee. They range from high, being time sensitive and urgent, critical to the community, and it should take precedence over other items, to low where the item is not time sensitive, it has an impact, but it's limited, but the item should not affect or delay other scheduled work. The first request is from Mayor Pro Tembeck, the request reads, I am proposing we restore the practice of collecting and disseminating council voting records on our webpage. This issue gets at the heart of our commitment to organizational excellence, community engagement, and transparency. As you are aware, this practice is not merely a matter of record keeping, it reflects our dedication to one of the city's key priorities, to strengthen our community and surrounding region by engaging with stakeholders on critical issues. The initiation of this effort years ago and the subsequent enhancement in 2021 to include more user-friendly data formats like Microsoft Excel, demonstrated our staff's alignment with these priorities. Our community who are professional, engaged, and attentive relies on this access to participate meaningfully in tracking our democratic processes. The discontinuation of this practice is a departure from our prior actions aimed at enhancing transparency and accessibility. Members of our community have noticed this absence and have voiced their concerns. They depend on these records, not for daily perusal, but for informed engagement during pivotal times such as election cycles and political reviews, much like how campaign finance disclosures are used. Furthermore, a city secretary consultant's report underscores that the decision to maintain or cease this practice falls squarely within our council jurisdiction, emphasizing its nature as a political policy decision. It is also important to note that while our city charter only mandates vote tabulation be recorded in the minutes, these documents do not offer the clarity or ease of access that our constituents deserve, as well as being written before the modern information age. The extraction of meaningful data from the minutes requires specialized skills beyond the reach of the average citizen. This is a matter of course of the future. So before I'll turn over the time, but we have to clarify an issue now and full disclosure, I tried not to do this live. I'm trying to be better about that. I had asked the city attorney to contact Mayor Pro Tem Beck. He was not receptive to the idea. The fact of the matter is per our ordinance, this is not Gerard's preference, this is the ordinance section B of the ordinance about two minute pitches. Item A says request type. Mayor Pro Tem has listed two requests. One medium priority work session, two immediate action. That's not allowed. So before we get started, I need you to declare which one you're trying to seek. And that's just, that is again the ordinance, I am the lucky person that gets in enforce our ordinances, but more than happy to do it, it's a job I have to do. So I need to get a definitive answer on which one you're seeking so that everyone that then has their minute to speak can then speak to that item. So which is your preference? As I said in there, a medium priority work session. I did speak with the city attorney about that and that's what I say there and that's what I'm still requesting. Okay, so disregard the immediate action request. You have the floor. I'm not going to continue on, we'll count Jesse's minute or whatever he spoke against my two minutes. I will say this, I will simply say this, this goes sort of specifically to, you know, one of our key priorities in the city, you know, pursue organizational excellence, strengthen community and surrounding regions, engage with stakeholder and critical issues. It's something that predates my time, not even on council, but on P and Z, it was and the bringing these electronic records forward into the modern area is something that occurs, you know, periodically and intermittently. So I'll leave, I think this is this goes to the heart of the community we have, I understand we have staffing issues and I think we can certainly build in some lag time into that. But I asked that we have a honestly, a super brief work session on this to restore this action to council and I hope you'll support that. Okay, I'll just say this, it's repetitive, it's redundant and I know this body has gone to people and said why can't you fill out the engaged dent nap, why can't you do these things, don't rely on your council to do all these things. That's exactly what's at the heart here. Staff has been and made the tough decision to say hey, we don't have capacity to do this. It's already recorded in the minutes, it's recorded in the video, it's and matter of fact nothing prohibits Mayor Pro Tem from documenting it himself and sharing it. But for he doesn't want to spend the time to do it, I guess, I don't know. But either way, that's not fair to say it's available in all these different ways, I don't want to spend my time to do it, but I'd be happy to take staff's time to do it. It's not right, staff has said hey, we do it three different ways, people can open records requesters four, there's three or four different ways they can avail themselves of this information or he can take it and look at it and document it himself and share it on his website. Anyone else? Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah, it's 2024, people need, this is about accountability to the community in a usable form, if we can find more efficient ways to put it together into a more usable form, I think we should do that, but the, I'd actually give this high priority only in the sense that we have people from the community who are trying to run for office against incumbents, they need, you know, it's, they need the ability to see people's voting records in a convenient format, not be able to dig it out of every single set of minutes. So I support it with high urgency. Okay, anyone else? Councilmember Watts. I guess I have a question which can't be answered, but do we know what kind of views this has received over a certain amount of time, I mean I hear all the philosophical arguments, I get it, don't know if I disagree with them, but from a practical perspective and I don't think it can be answered now, as far as that goes because I don't think questions, can questions be answered in one, two minute pitches, no? No, it can be a point of order, something like that, but no, not normally, a point of inquiry, better said. How much time do I have left, 30 seconds? I mean, I don't even, I think I've looked at this one time and I think it's a little disingenuous to talk about elections in the same process of talking about this, people can find out what they need to find out, but I mean, this is what we had before, if we can find a more efficient way to do it, or maybe just post it once a month. I don't really have heartburn with this, but I think we need to tone down the rhetoric above that. That's your time. Thank you. Yeah. Anyone else? Councilman Harlan. I believe the information is already available, I find it redundant, I'd rather see staff time repaving and repairing streets, I give it a low priority. Okay, well, I don't know. Okay. Anyone else? I'm opposed. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Anyone else? Councilman McGee. Everyone can find this information, it is readily available, I too believe everybody can find this information, but if we can do anything to make it easy and more accessible, we need to absolutely do it, I'm a absolute yes. Okay. Anyone else? Councilman Burke. I am going to, I'm going to agree to this, but I want us to take care of those other 129 things that we got on the list to do, so I'm going to go ahead and put this at a low priority, but I do think that, you know, this will be helpful. Our citizens just kind of, you know what, I'm not going to say anything negative about our citizens because we are adults that can read, so I'm just going to leave that right there. Yes, low priority. Thank you. Okay. All right, that's, no, it's, so foreign support, some version of low support, Meltzer, Mayor Pro Tem, McGee, Bird, so, all right, next. Yeah, yeah, so go right ahead. I guess I heard you say you felt like it could be found other places, but if we could find another option. And then, and then he, go ahead. Thank you. I said if we can do anything to make this more accessible, we should, and he asked for medium, so I said yes. So now what is it? Is it yes? It's four, it's, yeah, it's a tough gig. But yes, it's four people in support, some varying degree, two lows, and a medium. So just so to be clear, we won't be coming back probably until June. Okay, next. Sir, the next item is a request for legal staff to research the best resolutions to the original IAOF cemetery deed and contact IAOF representatives for them to participate in the process. I will not read the request. That's good. Thank you. And so this is, I've been, as we, I was hesitant to bring this forward. It is an issue. But I've just been frustrated with the amount of stuff that we take on that's not, I think, as important as this. And so I've just gotten to a point where, hey, I'm going to bring it because I'm just, so it's a high priority for me, and I'm asking you for it to be a high priority for you to address the fact that, and maybe it takes away some time away from all this other stuff that we've been focused on. But my goal is to have, and it's, my goal is if there's six people in support, to have it go directly to it, come back to us in the ordinance, I don't need a work session to talk about it. I know what it is. The current deed says you can't bury black people in IAOF cemetery. I think that if we, it's worthy to explore options to address that. I am a member of IAOF group. They're fantastic. They serve our community well, they serve our law enforcement well, Connie Baker's doing an amazing job, and all those other people, Steve from UNT, and so really good people doing really great things. So I want to authorize, I just need the authorization from a time standpoint to be fair so that legal can reach out to them, so that city staff can work on something to get, once legal kind of does what they need to do, they hand it off to the city manager. City manager brings it back as a vote. I don't need work sessions, I don't want to use a whole bunch of time on this, and that's the just of it. So that's my pitch. Discussion? Anyone? Councilman Meltzer? So we've already established that those elements aren't in force. That having been said, I know that if there was... If I was told that my ethnic group was excluded, but we don't actually go by that, but it stands as part of an agreement, I would still find it offensive. So I do think it's worthy to iron it out. I think because it's longstanding and not in force, I can't support the idea that it's high urgency, so I would say medium urgency. Okay. Anyone else? Councilman Byrd? I'm gonna put this at a low priority, I'm gonna put this at the 132 level, but I do definitely want us to take a look at it, but I just think that we have some other high issues there. I'm not real sure. Is there a whole lot of black people that wanna be buried over there anyway? What's going on over there where this is now an issue in terms of where you wanna be buried? So that's a question, you don't have to answer that, but I just wanted to put that out there. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? If I could ask a question, please. Are there in fact no black people buried in IOOF cemetery? They'll follow back up. Just the rules say- I see that, but is that in fact what is the case? Does anybody know that? Go ahead and complete your statement and then we'll take it off. Yes, I am in favor of this, and I guess I'm in favor of this at a high priority. I think, and if somebody could tell me who owns I, the International Organization of Odd Fellows Cemetery, I thought it was the city park. The city owns it. Okay. Well, then I think I'm in favor of it at a high priority. Okay. Does anyone know the answer to this question? I don't know. Okay. We'll get back to you. Before I answer, can I ask a point or a process? Sure. I'm not sure, and I'm really not being petty here. I'm not sure what you've asked for, and I tried to raise my hand at the beginning to come in before this. Are you asking for this to go straight to a resolution so you need six? Yes, I'm asking it to come- I don't want a work session over it. I don't need to talk about it. The staff's going to come back with a recommendation, and so by the nature of the beast, because I'm not asking for a work session, yes, I need six, legal interpretation. I don't want to have a work session about it. It's a known commodity. There's a resolution on the books. It's been around forever. There's just no need to have a work session. To you, maybe, but to me, yes. I appreciate. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for that clarification. Now, start charging me my minute. It's my understanding from all the ... I agree this is an egregious historical practice. It should never take place when it was a private cemetery. It shouldn't be carried forward as a public park, cemetery, whatever our designation is for that park. That said, my understanding from one ... I think it's up to four different LSRs now is that it's null and void and non-functional, so I don't know ... I mean, I'm super sympathetic. You shouldn't have this, but I don't know what we're accomplishing with this, so I'm going to sound like a jerk, but I'm going to say, no, I'm not for this because I don't think it's doing anything. Okay. Anyone else? Councilman McGee. To my knowledge, I believe that there are four black folks buried at IAOF. I believe that there are four. Yes. Several people of color have been buried there. Okay. Sure. Okay. I am ... Sure, why not? But I must say, the mayor stated that he's a member of IAOF. He should handle up on this in an IAOF meeting. We should not be spending our time to do this, but because perhaps him or somebody else dropped the ball, didn't get this done, I guess we have to do this, so yeah. Sure. Okay. I haven't spoken. Yes. Councilman Watts. I'm about to bust out laughing when I hear people talk about why are we wasting our time on this when we've wasted our time so much time on things we can do nothing about. Nothing about. And we just sat in a meeting with Planning and Zoning where a facilitator, a consultant sat up there and said, "This is why we need to take responsibility for the things that we've done in the past that this city has done with Quaker Town." That's what he said. And so this is a no-brainer. This isn't, high priority doesn't mean all of a sudden Mac's going to spend 50 hours on it. It doesn't mean that staff's going to, so it's almost comical to hear some of the rationalizations that we're doing something that really doesn't need to be done when we do that all the time. So I'm for this. I'm for it as a high priority, but I don't even know if you need a high priority on it. If you're saying it goes straight to the agenda, then those are my thoughts, Mayor. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. So, yeah. Okay. Very good. Well, thank you very much. And that takes us to, we'll set the room for our legal, for our closed session item and sorry I didn't look that up early. No, no. It's all good. All right, so we'll set the room, but the city council will now at 410 PM convening closed meeting to deliberate the closed meeting item set forth on the agenda, which includes the following item A, ID 24634, consultation with attorneys under Texas government code section 551.071. And how long should we dive right in? Good evening and welcome to this meeting of the Denton City Council. It is Tuesday, March 19th at 630. We do have a quorum, so I'll call the meeting to order the first thing on our agenda, pledges to the United States and Texas flag. Please stand with me if you're able. To the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. To the Texas flag, I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God, one indivisible. And then we have a proclamation. We have one that we'll present today, so if you're here with the American Red Cross month, you can meet me down there at the podium, right there. Okay, oh, you're getting the picture afterwards. You can come on down in the meantime, yeah, okay. So just introduce yourselves and then whosoever the designated speaker for the group, let us know what we're recognizing, please. Okay. Hello, my name's David Burke and I'm a volunteer and yes, I'll be the one drafted to speak. I'm Adolph Aguirre, the executive director for the American Red Cross, DFW Metro West Chapter. I'm Twana Conk. I'm disaster program manager in the Fort Worth territory, which includes Denton County. Hi, Grace Ramazzani. I'm also the disaster program manager for Denton County. Hi, I'm Doyle Rader and I'm a regional communications manager for the Red Cross. Okay, no, let us know what we're recognizing. Okay. Good evening, mayor, council, citizens and guests. On behalf of the American Red Cross, we just want to say thank you for this proclamation. It is through your support and that of community groups and individuals with their donations of time and monetary values that we're able to extend our mission into this community. Recently we have installed smoke detectors for people that didn't have them through our sound the alarm program. We've collected blood and delivered blood for those in need and that is a secondary plug. Please donate blood. We are in dire need for blood. We've also been fortunate to be able to conduct education on fire safety as well as disaster preparedness and we look forward to this partnership and we really hope to get active in this community and do even more. Okay. And so what is someone, when they're going to give, how much time do they need, where do they go? Generally if there's not a drive somewhere and just on a whim on a Tuesday, I want to go donate, where do I go? How does that work? Is that an option? Absolutely. And so in this world of technology, download the app. Okay. The American Red Cross has a blood donation app that will track your donations. It will let you look and tell you by your location what is the closest and the soonest opportunity for you to donate and then also it will track some medical information for you, your blood pressure, things like that, to help you on the personal side as well. And so those reminders to make sure so we can hit that every 52 day cycle is very important so we can keep that supply up. Got it. Okay. Thank you. And then lastly, because this, giving credit where credit's due again, when there's unfortunately a fire emergency, right, oftentimes I'll ask, hey, what can we do and the first answer is always call the Red Cross and so can you, how does, what do you do there in those instances just generally and then how can people be supportive of that effort as well? Thank you for that question and it's interesting because that's how I happened upon serving with the Red Cross, seeing their response teams come out to fires. As a retired firefighter, many, many times I would see the DAT group or the disaster assistance team respond to that fire. So the first thing that they do is they make sure that the family is okay. What do they need? It could be anything from household items like a toothbrush or soap or something like that. It could be a place to stay for the night. It's just something to help stabilize the chaos, right? So as an individual, there are several ways you can contribute. There's monetary donations, which is one. There are many people in this audience that could come and be a volunteer with the Red Cross and perhaps even work on that unit to come out and provide assistance after a fire. And then lastly, there are ways to coordinate whether even though they're not directly connected, a blood drive, things like that. Anything that helps the organization move helps in all the areas at once. Got it. Okay. Well, thank you for that. All right. So I have a proclamation for you and it reads a proclamation by the mayor of the city of Denton, Texas, to all whom these presence shall come greetings. Whereas every March since 1943, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued the first Red Cross proclamation, the American Red Cross recognizes the compassion of people across the nation and celebrates their commitment to care for one another in times of crisis. Kindhearted volunteers in Denton County and throughout the Red Cross DFW Metro West chapter assisted 666 families while responding to more than 425 disasters here in North Texas. And whereas 504 blood drives were held by Red Cross blood host in 2023, collecting more than 11,000 units of blood across multiple counties to provide lifesaving blood. And whereas in 2023, the Red Cross proudly supported more than 2,300 North Texas military members, veterans, their families, and caregivers to cope with challenges of service. And whereas 1,472 North Texas Red Cross volunteers, the lifeblood of the Red Cross responded to the call to provide relief to families whose experienced the worst days of their lives. Whereas 18,703 people were enrolled in Red Cross First Aid CPR and AED training courses helping to make DFW Metro West chapter more resilient in the event of a disaster. Now therefore, I, Gerard Hutsworth, Mayor of the City of Denton, Texas, do hereby declare and proclaim March 2024 is American Red Cross Month. If we give them a hand. Okay, very good. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Yeah, for sure. Appreciate y'all being here. Great information. Thank you for your service. Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, if we could play the video for addressing the Council. The Denton City Council has adopted rules of procedure, including a code of conduct that applies to the public as well as council members. These rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decorum. Speakers will have four minutes to give a scheduled report and four minutes to give an open mic report. A bell will ring when time has expired. If the remarks are not concluded by that time, the speaker will be asked to stop speaking. If the speaker does not cease and a second request is made, the mayor may request to have the speaker removed from the chamber. Speakers should not approach the dais. If a speaker has materials for the council, please notify the city secretary in advance. For scheduled reports, the council may initiate discussion or ask questions. For non-scheduled open mic reports, the council may listen. However, because no notice of the subject of the open mic report has been provided to the public in advance, the Texas Open Meetings Act prohibits discussion or decision by the council on non-scheduled items. As a result, the council may only proceed as follows on non-scheduled items - propose to place the item on a future agenda, make a statement of factual policy, or a recitation of existing policy. Speakers are asked to direct all remarks and questions to the council as a whole and not to any individual member. Please refrain from making abusive, personal, impertinent, profane, or slanderous remarks. Anyone who violates the council rules of procedure may be immediately removed from the chamber. Thank you in advance. Copies of the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary. Great. Thank you. The first speaker registered is Tanner Small. Great. If you can come down and give your name and you'll have four minutes. Thank you. Oh yeah, if you have something you want them to show on the screen. Okay yeah, you can use that microphone right in front of you there. You can yeah, yeah there you go, and adjust it however you need so you can lift it up if you need to. There you go. Good evening everyone. My name is Tanner Small and I am a student at Geyer High School. Throughout the past few months, our high school's AP Environmental Science class has been working together with Mike Weaver of the Pilot Knob Rotary Club and the company Redwood Materials to promote the collection and recycling of e-waste materials and we're looking for your support. The issue at hand is such, lithium ion batteries and the components required to make them have been surging in demand year after year. These batteries are essential components in almost all rechargeable electronic devices from handheld smartphones to backup generators and even mobility scooters. These raw materials that make up these batteries, lithium, graphite, cobalt, and manganese are typically mined and shipped to us from countries like Chile, Australia, and China thousands of miles away. The mining industries of these countries that exist around the extraction of these materials are often located in areas of great biodiversity and a wealth of endangered species. The byproducts and runoff produced by these operations, such as sulfuric acid, pollute waterways to an alarming degree. This supply chain is both costly and largely unsustainable. Thankfully, these batteries are long lasting and can be continuously recycled for other purposes. Unfortunately, however, said perfectly reusable batteries often go to waste. Only 5% of recyclable e-waste is actually recycled. According to United Electronic Recycling, every year US residents and businesses discard approximately 100 million cell phones, over 41 million computers, and over 20 million TV sets by throwing them into landfills when they become broken or outdated. And it's believed that although taking up just 2% of our landfill space and properly disposed of e-waste makes up 70% of our nation's toxic waste production. We are here to alert people to this issue and to garner support for our effort to promote the proper recycling of e-waste materials or e-waste products here in the city of Denton. Our partners at the Pilot Knot Rotary Club have, since 2021, worked to educate local communities about the issue of e-waste. Other partners at Redwood Materials have offered the facilities needed to make the recycling of e-waste possible. Recyclable lithium ion batteries are everywhere. You all likely have some unused lithium ion batteries lying in old and unused devices in your own homes. Old iPhones, tablets, and other rechargeable electronic devices all likely have perfectly usable lithium ion batteries lying in them that can be recycled by our program and sent for reuse. Unused devices can be turned in for this purpose on April 13th at the Gaia High School B parking lot from 10 o'clock to 3. At Gaia High School, we have been doing our part by contacting businesses and local news stations as well as posting flyers and promotional materials promoting this cause. I am here to request that you help us by sharing information about our program with your constituents. You can do this through Instagram, Axe, Facebook, or any other social media service in which you have a presence. We hope that through your support we will be able to make an impact locally and encourage the disposal of e-waste in appropriate facilities. Thank you for your time. So thank you very much. That's outstanding. And so my question is, what social media is, if we were looking for one to share right from the, is it the pilot knob, rotary, do they have a social media or? I believe they do. Okay. Yeah. I couldn't tell you where it would be though. Sure. No problem. Can somebody will give you a business card. They'll just pop out of nowhere. Don't worry about it. And give you a business card. If you can email us that, then staff will get it to everyone and we'll share it out. That'll be fantastic. All right. Thank you so much. See, here you go. Look at that. So I told you. Magically, mystically. Yeah. Thank you very much. Great cause. Yeah. Now what? Are you a senior this year or what? Yes, I am. Man, you did a great job. Yeah. Well done. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, no clapping. No, just kidding. Okay. Max Fulmer. Max Fulmer. Okay. Okay. If you can, you can adjust that down to my, yeah, there we go. Okay. Yes. My name is Max Fulmer. I live in 1412 Fox Hollow here in Denton. What I'm about to describe is something that needs to be addressed, I think. About a month ago, the doctor told me I need to get a lung scan. Well, I don't drive anymore. I can't see with the flip. So I took access. Well, the lady started before I could get my billfold back in my pocket, so I put it in the seat beside me. Went out to the doctor's office, reached for my billfold. I'd forgotten it. It was still in the van. So I called them up, and they called me back about an hour later. They said, "We found your billfold, but we don't have anyone that can bring it to you. We're short-handed." Well, I was assured at least they found it. Okay, the driver came and picked me up. He knew my name, took me home. But two hours later, access called me and said, "We gave you billfold to the driver. He says he gave it to you." He did not. He lied, and he still has the billfold. Well, I was just going to shut it off, but a friend of mine told me, "Don't do that." So she called the access and talked to the supervisor. The supervisor says, "I will get with you tomorrow." She never called her back. So I went to -- what's it called? Anyway, I went to file a complaint against something in the courts. Well, I found out that access is exempt from a small claims court. So I would have to go to an attorney. Well, that's an expensive procedure. So what I'm asking is, can someone in this organization straighten this out? That's it. Okay, so you said access. Is it span or the go zone? Access. I think it's DCTA. Okay, got it. Yes, so -- I'll follow up with you. Yeah. Let me get his information. Someone will get your information, and then we will try to help you out. Sorry that that happened. All right, thank you. Yes, thank you. Good to see you. And then -- I'm going to mess this up. I always mess it up. I'll just spell it. A-M-I-R-A-R-A-S-O-U-L. Sorry, I had notes, but I don't have them in front of me. It's okay the first three times. It's Amira. Amira. Can you repeat it? I can. Amira. The problem is -- I'm going to keep coming, so it's Amira. Yes. I expect next Tuesday -- Well, it'll be two weeks, and that's the challenge. -- genetically A-M-E-E-R-A. Yes. Okay. Got it. Cool. Thank you. Somebody help me out next time. Got it. Okay. So my name is Amira Rasool, and I am a proud Palestinian American. Tonight, I return as promised to urge the council to adopt a ceasefire resolution. I must confess to the council, I've explored other city councils in North Texas to witness how the activists there are petitioning for similar resolutions, including South Lake City Council. For those of you who are unaware, South Lake is a wealthy and predominantly conservative city just 35 minutes away. However, despite its proximity, the culture and values of South Lake are very different to that of Denton's. Having grown up in South Lake before moving to Denton over a decade ago, I intimately understand its politics, and tonight I wish to share my experience and insight on attending South Lake City Council meeting, which in some ways was very different, and in others remarkably similar to my experience here. I'd like to begin with the differences. One striking observation was the opulent appearance of South Lake City Council's building. It resembled a castle more than a government building. It definitely makes our Denton City Council building look incredibly humble in comparison. However, I believe that speaks to their prioritization of opulence and appearance over justice and service, values I would like to believe but have yet to see our council prioritize. Upon entering the chambers there, I couldn't help but notice the lack of diversity in South Lake's council members. A big difference to Denton. You see, here in Denton, we at least have the decency to pretend we care about marginalized individuals through our aesthetics. Another big difference between their council and you all is that South Lake City Council actively engaged with their constituents who were speaking. I saw today that you are capable of this, but I guess only if it's with batteries or I'm not sure what he was speaking about. So after two months of coming here and trying to persuade you all to stand up for peace and dignity for Palestinians, you stay silent. At least the mayor of South Lake gave an indication that his constituents' message was received. Not exactly in a positive way as I witnessed Mayor Huffman bully a 16-year-old Palestinian American who came to speak to him, but at least he acknowledged her, a claim I cannot make for this council. Despite all these differences, one commonality was the heartfelt pleas from constituents to their representatives to listen and take immediate action to call for an end to the tragedies unfolding in Palestine, including the 31,819 civilian deaths, ethnic cleansing, and mass displacement. Another similarity is that the South Lake council members, like you all, have yet to place the resolution on the agenda, a truly disappointing reality for me. I had hoped and expected more from Denton, believing to have progressive and compassionate leaders, but so far I have been shown otherwise. Through your inaction and empty promises, you prove to be no better than our right-wing neighbors when it comes down to standing up for what is right. So I ask you, if there is no difference in action between you and far-right representatives, why would we vote for you? Better yet, why would Americans who stand against a genocide funded with our tax dollars vote at all? Why would we vote? I implore you, council members, to be more than the sum of your rhetoric. Let us not only speak of change, but actually enact it. As our petition for a ceasefire resolution exceeds 1,000 signatures, it is your obligation to listen to your constituents and take action. Thank you. Thank you. Erin Taylor. All right. Thank you. Okay. My name is Erin Taylor. When you watched "Star Wars," you sided with the Resistance. When you watched "Braveheart," you sided with the Resistance. When you watched "Amistad," you sided with the Resistance. When you watched "The Hunger Games," "The Matrix," "Harry Potter," "Schindler's List," "V for Vendetta," "Gladiator," "Harriet," "Avatar," even "A Bug's Life," you sided with the Resistance. When we are spoon-fed the stories, we meet the characters and we see their struggles and we understand and we feel the empathy. But when the story is unfolding in real time, do we grasp the situation? We've been coming here for weeks sharing stories of Resistance, stories that Western corporate media doesn't want to share, showing you the hearts and souls of the suffering people under the unjust and brutal occupation of Palestine. When the U.S. finally got involved in World War II, at least we were liberating concentration camps. Right now, we are funding and supporting the maintenance and ethnic cleansing of a concentration camp, Gaza. I would like to share with you a few stories from this concentration camp. Can you guys see that? No, they'll -- can we get the document camera, please? Give them just a moment. Okay? This is -- I'll do this. This is Shem. She looks to be about my son's age. She's holding a pink bag and crying, searching for her mother. This isn't a movie. It is real. The I.O.F.'s supposedly safe humanitarian corridors are actually corridors of snipers and bullets and death. And the people who somehow get to where they're told to go are still in danger. They have to relocate again and again and again. This doctor is a father. And you see him stagger out of a tent where he just performed an amputation on his own son without anesthetic. And can you imagine the pain of that father and the child? And then the child died anyway. And this is not a movie. This is real life. The I.O.F. is not allowing simple medicines in -- antibiotics, oxygen, pain medicine. This mother refused to leave behind the body of her child. She's carrying it with her. A soldier had a child in the sights of their gun and they shot anyway. This is not a movie. It's real. The I.O.F. are intentionally targeting hospitals like the one where this mother and child were staying. This sweet boy is so traumatized. He can barely speak. He can't talk about his family, who he lost his entire family while they were sleeping in their houses. This is not a movie. This is real life. This is really happening. The I.O.F. are indiscriminately bombing. This is what a surgical strike looks like. But this is what most of Gaza looks like right now. These children are screaming and crying with hunger. This is not a movie. This is real life. Our money is paying for the starvation of these people. This is Anhar and it is too late for him. We didn't speak up in time. Our money is blood money. It is being used to starve and kill these people. This is a manmade famine. It isn't a movie and it is not a war. It is something far worse. Our money is paying for this. Your money is paying for this. Denton money is paying for this. I don't pretend to understand the mental calculations you have to do to keep your seat up there and not piss everybody off. But please, please call for a ceasefire. Thank you. [Applause] I said it the first time and it was just they were clapping. Sorry. Dear members of the city council, I'm Gael Antoine. I'm here to carry the voice of more than a thousand of Denton residents to ask you to adopt a permanent ceasefire resolution in support of Palestine. I had no idea that asking for peace could be so controversial, but here we are again. Up to now, 70 cities, including major cities like San Francisco and Chicago, have already passed ceasefire resolutions. Denton should be the next one and here is why. It has now been six months that Israel is perpetuating a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. At least 35,000 Palestinians have been murdered, including Palestinian Americans and family members of Denton residents. The UN warns that 1.1 million Palestinians are at imminent risk of death due to the deliberate, precise, and calculated lack of food and medical care organized by Israel as part of a siege of the Gaza Strip. Those devastating numbers should convince you to adopt a permanent ceasefire resolution. But as you seem to not care about human life, I will give you more arguments. Between 2017 and 2021, 92% of the weapons purchased by Israel were supplied by the U.S. 92%. Our tax dollars directly form this violence, with $3.3 billion in military aid allocated to Israel each year. The U.S. is directly complicit of this genocide. Not only the Biden administration, but also you, yes, all of you here, along with all the other elected representatives, pretend it is not their problem. Who dare you say that this issue is beyond the scope of your city's concerns when we, Denton residents, come here every other week to ask you to place this item on the agenda and adopt it? Just a reminder that 67% of the U.S. population across all political spectrum want the U.S. to call for a permanent ceasefire. More than 1,000 people signed our petition in Denton, and hundreds gather every month for protests in support of this resolution. Who exactly do you think you are by deciding to ignore the demands of the majority of your constituents? Your very purpose, your very right of sitting on this chair here to represent us, is to represent us. As elected officials of our city, it is your responsibility to convey our voice, as mandated by the democratic principles of this country. Refuses fire resolution as valued majority of Denton residents is an affront to democracy. I also want to add that the ambassador, Nina Ashigian, the first U.S. special representative for city and state diplomacy said, "U.S. cities remain a voice for the country's values as federal leadership's waivers." And Denton City Council has adopted symbolic resolutions going against federal and state policy and other subjects, proving that you do believe Denton can influence the wider political picture. Therefore, refusing to adopt this ceasefire resolution is a political statement, showing that you all actively support the genocide Israelis committed. Your silence is complicity. You have the opportunity to change this statement and to be on the right side of history. By adopting a permanent ceasefire resolution, you will not only affirm your commitment to the principles of humanity and dignity, but also signal to our states and federal leaders that we demand a change in policy. Thank you for your attention, and I hope I won't have to come here again. Thank you. Dana Zoltner. Dana Zoltner. Oh, I'm sorry, you're right. I didn't get that. Malak is first. Malak. Malak. M-a-l-a-k-a-b-a-u-a-b-u-e-s-h-e-a. One more time. Okay. Then that takes us to Dana Zoltner. Thank you for that. My name is Dana Zoltner. And for starters, I'm going to assure you that I have no affiliation with the group that's been campaigning for the city to draft a ceasefire resolution. What drives me is watching the city council's response during the agenda approved meeting. I've always assumed that this part of the meeting is for our representatives to hear what concerns us so that we can gather information in the hopes that something can be worked out. So far, that does not happen. And it frustrates me that the people you are supposed to represent are treated as a bother to your important business of running the city. It's your responsibility to listen and care about them. With that said, before I spoke March 5th, recognizing that this situation was slightly different than my other appearances, I contacted my representative with some questions and a desire to alert someone on the council of my intentions. He responded quickly and was very helpful. What I appreciated most, though, was that shortly after the meeting, he contacted me to share his Facebook post stating his position on this group's request. Since I'm not on Facebook, this is the first time I know for sure that any of you have publicly posted any position after a controversial subject that has been brought to you. It's your responsibility not only to put citizens' concerns on your agenda, but to follow up with, if not with a solution or a compromise, but a public explanation. We had no choice is not an explanation, especially when it comes to just city business. After all, you people come up with the planning and zoning of the city. It's not the city's business. It's not an explanation when other cities have become involved in this particular situation. You have a responsibility to us. We're the reason you're sitting up there. With that said, I'm sure that you or your attorney would know a legal way to meet with this group. My hopes are that you will meet with these citizens and figure out a way to publicly convey Denton's deep concerns for the innocent citizens of Palestine. It's obvious that neither Hamas or Israel care about them. Perhaps it's just a petition that you would be willing to sign as an ordinary citizen. I have no idea, but you need to figure out a public way to convey Denton's deep concerns. I just know that there would be fewer speakers up here if you'd start working with the people rather than dismissing them. Now, I've worked to have a little extra time. I don't want any noise other than one of you letting me know what you plan to do to meet these people's needs. Okay, if that concludes your comments. I have 40 more seconds. Okay, I'll let that go. You've proven that you'll address people. Are you going to figure out a way to meet with them, to figure out a compromise? Because you're going to be listening to this every other week. They need answers. They need action. Okay, we have a question for you, council member or mayor for Timbuktu. Yeah, I'm going to make it clear to Dana and everyone else that there have been council members like myself that have been talking to the public. And the council member that she referenced was me. I'm happy to talk with all of you. I'm happy to meet. I'm happy to engage in cultural exchange. I'm happy to engage in awareness. I'm happy to do all those things. So if you want to contact me, I won't inflict this on any of the rest of my council. If you want to contact me, that's great. Any of the other councilors, I'm happy to engage in that exchange and dialogue. And to her point, yeah, you can see my Facebook post. You may or may not agree to it, but I think I will be and this is a scheduled item, so we can have dialogue on it. I'm happy to engage in that like I have with Mrs. Oldner. I'm happy to engage on that with anyone. I think you will be surprised at the number of councilors who will engage with you on this topic. So I encourage you to do so and reach out. Okay, thank you. So then Stephen Dillenburg. Stephen Dillenburg. Jason Thorne. All right. That will be -- if you can give your name, you'll have four minutes. Hi. My name is Jason Thorne. I'm here to talk about a free Palestine. I will not be thanking you for the privilege to speak today as it is not a privilege to come here every other week to watch you deny the existence of suffering in our community. For months now, you've heard the stories, you've seen the news, you've seen the photos and the videos. I'll not go on about those because if those have not already swayed you, then there's nothing that I can show you that will appeal to your hollow heart. I'm fortunate that I do not personally know anyone in Palestine who has been killed, who has suffered, who is suffering every day at this moment from starvation, from malnutrition, from gunshots and bombs. But I do personally know people whose families suffer at this very moment, who have been suffering for the last 75 years in 164 days. I want you to remember the faces of those that have walked through these chambers in the last two months, those that are sitting behind me right now. I want you to look at the hurt and the suffering in their eyes, and I want you to tell them directly to their faces that their suffering and their hurt is not a local issue. I've always said blood is family, but family is not always blood. While I have no blood relation to these people, they are my family. They are my brothers, my sisters, my siblings. They are my mothers, my fathers, my parents. For months now, you have told my family, our family, that their suffering does not matter, that their suffering is not a local issue. This goes to show your fundamental misunderstanding of community, and it places your lack of humanity in full display. I wish this upon nobody, but put yourself in their shoes. Imagine it was your parents, your siblings, your children, who are dying, starving, suffering every day. Now I want you to come back to me and show me which of you will look me in the eyes and tell me to my face that your suffering is not a local issue, and I will show you an empty husk and a liar. History will remember those that stood by and did nothing, those like you who call us those river to the sea people, those like you who refuse to meet with your constituents because you do not want to see their suffering up close, those like you who refuse to do even the bare minimum as to acknowledge the atrocities, the genocide, and condemn them, who refuse to acknowledge that this is more than an issue within Palestine, who refuse to acknowledge that this is a global, a national, a local, and an individual issue. We will remember, as long as we draw breath, we will never stop demanding a free Palestine, and we will never let you forget it. Thank you. That is, that is our, that's our seventh speaker, moves us to the consent agenda. I'll take a motion, nothing was pulled. Is there a motion? Mayor Pro Tem. I move approval, the consent is listed. Council Member Byrd. A second. There's a motion and a second for the consent agenda. Any discussion? Seeing none, let's vote on the screen. That passes 6-0, takes us to, let me get there. Texas to 4A, items for individual consideration. I'll call a first one. 4AA23-0003, consider adoption of an ordinance of the City of Denton, Texas, regarding a municipal service agreement pursuant to Texas Local Government Code, Section 43.062, between the City of Denton and Lake City Holdings, LLC. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and members of council, Angie Manglaris, development review manager, here to present A23-0003. This is the M forest addition annexation. This specifically is the adoption of a municipal services agreement and schedule of annexation. This is the first of three items relating to this annexation on the agenda this evening, and the only one that requires action this evening. So a little bit of background. This is a request to consider adoption of an ordinance that would approve a municipal services agreement for approximately 6.28 acres of land that's located approximately 1,100 feet north of East McKinney Street and immediately east of South Trinity Road. This also approves the schedule for the annexation of the property. Some background on this property. The subject property is approximately 6.28 acres. It is owned by Lake City Holding, LLC, and there is a non annexation on the agreement, which stipulates a development plan for the subject property. Currently the subject property is in violation of the non annexation agreement. The non annexation agreement generally authorizes agricultural uses as well as single family residential on lots five acres or larger. The property is currently being used as a commercial business with associated vehicular storage and is in breach of the non annexation agreement. City staff has been working with the owner since December of 2022, notifying them of the breach of the agreement and the necessary steps to either begin the annexation process or cease operations. The annexation process was begun in the summer of 2023. However, the applicant became non responsive after returning the first round of comments. After several months of no response from the applicant, city staff is moving the annexation forward as a voluntary annexation as outlined in the terms of the non annexation agreement. The owner did reach out to me yesterday for the first time in several months and requested this item be continued to a meeting in April. Due to the ongoing communication with the owner or lack of response, staff is not in support of that request of continuation. This is not the final step for annexation. The final step would occur on May 7th if we approve the schedule as outlined tonight and we can continue to work with the owner between now and then. Having said that, we did send out our municipal services agreement to all of the departments in the city who would be responsible for serving this parcel should it be annexed into the city and those associated departments have signed off on the agreement as presented and included in your packet. As I mentioned, the adoption of the municipal services agreement also authorizes the annexation schedule. So we are here today, March 19th. We are considering the municipal services agreement which does require action. Following this, there will be a public hearing. Following that, there will be the first reading of the annexation ordinance. The ordinance will then be published in the debt and record chronicle. We cannot act on that ordinance for 30 days after publication, so the first date that it could be acted upon is May 7th where the second reading and adoption of the annexation would occur. Staff is recommending approval of the municipal services agreement and authorizing the annexation schedule. I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have. Okay, thank you very much. Questions for staff. Councilmember Holler. Thank you. Tell me again what the property is being used for currently. It is currently being used as a commercial business with associated vehicular storage. I've not gotten an exact answer on what it is that the owner is conducting business-wise on it. However, there are over 100 cars being stored on site. I see. Thank you. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. Angie, if we move forward on this, can you describe the differences in our authority under a condition of an NEA versus annexation and what our powers and rights change during that process for lack of compliance? Sure. So fast forward to May 7th. If we were to annex this property, it is the annexation is effective immediately and the property is automatically zoned designation. It's a placeholder of rural residential. In that per our usual zoning districts, we outline what's allowed for uses and what is not. And the property is a commercial business with associated vehicular storage is not currently allowed in rural residential. It would require a zoning change and that would be required to come before you all and it would need to be approved. So they would be in violation of our zoning ordinance and could be subject to citations for violating our code of ordinances and our zoning districts. Currently, they're not inside the city limits and the step to compliance is the non annexation agreement. They're in breach of it. And so this is the authority that we have to bring them into the city to assign zoning to that parcel. So essentially, if I can paraphrase and you can tell me if I'm wrong or not. This is a way of getting compliance to to follow the agreements that we had previously. Yes, following annexation, the business would need to cease or rezoning would need to occur. I appreciate that. Thank you for the clarity. customer wants. This has been going on since when we were notified that there appeared to be cars associated with a commercial business in December of 22 and began communicating that this was a violation and giving the owner opportunity to to respond and cease or comply. When was the non annexation agreement executed. The non annexation agreement was renewed in October of 2020. Okay, let me let me get the dates right. You were notified when that there was commercial 22 right 22 years of compliance one of starting to slip. So in 2020. Yes. How many cars did you say 100 car. How many cars, you can. You can see a bit of it here in the aerial where these these cars are being stored. So, then, is it staff's assumption that in 2020 when it was renewed that this condition did not exist. It did not exist in 2020. Okay. All right. Well, I'm certainly for moving forward with the annexation but I'm more for is also expediting and moving very judiciously on ensuring compliance, because. So, let's say for instance, there's no compliance, and they issue us your citations what's the citation. Is it a daily fine is it what is it. When you're in the violation of the zoning ordinance you could be cited daily for continued violation and what is that amount is there a range on that amount, not to exceed $2,000 a day. Is that right. Yes, 2000 a day. Oh, right. Okay. And how is that fine determined. How do we determine if they're in non compliance, what that would be. Who makes that decision. There's a citation issue, and we go through municipal court at the municipal court the judge would ultimately, there's a window fine, but he has the authority to either raise or lower that if there's a conviction. Okay, somehow, your mic was. So you're saying that there's not when the citation is issued there's not a specific amount, it starts a criminal process. Okay. And there's a window fine associated with zoning violations at the court, if the person just wanted to go in and pay the fine. But they wanted to go through the trial process. Ultimately, if there was a conviction, then they would have to pay the fine, and the judge has discretion, you could either impose this window fine at that time, or he can raise it in an egregious situation. He also has the authority to lower it. So the time. It sounds like the timeframe for that could get pretty stretched out. Good. Okay. Well, I think we need to move quickly, because, you know, there's a lot of value and not having to move, however many cars there are out there and whatever's going on. And sometimes it's an economic decision. And I think that's something that we need to be aware of so. So when we issue the citation. It's just like any other criminal proceeding. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. Okay, any other questions for staff. Seeing none, I will take a motion. Mayor Pro Tem. I move approval of the item. Councilman McGee. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion. Seeing none, let's vote on the screen. Second passes six to zero. Takes us to item five a our public first public hearing. It is five a a two three zero zero zero three a hold a public hearing and consider a petition for voluntary annexation of approximately six point two eight eight acres of land generally located one thousand one hundred seventy six feet north of East McKinney Street and east of Trinity Road into the city of Denton, Denton County, Texas. Thank you, Mayor, members of council, Angie Manglars, development review manager. This is the public hearing associated with the M forest edition annexation. We did go over this background a little bit just now. This is a six point two eight parcel located approximately eleven hundred feet north of East McKinney and immediately to the east of South Trinity Road. This is the second step in the annexation process. Just to give you a little bit of idea of where this is situated. So currently this this property is not within city limits. It does have a future land use designation of low residential upon annexation and would automatically be assigned to base owning of rural residential. The purpose of this item is the this is the public hearing associated with the annexation request. There is no action associated with this item. I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have. Okay, thank you. And I'll open the public hearing and if asked if there's anyone that cares to speak, you can fill out a card after the fact. But is there anyone that would want to speak on this item? It is a public hearing. Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing and I'll either take questions for staff or a motion or no, there's no action. So if there's no questions for staff, we'll move on to the next item. Seeing nothing. Okay. Then that takes us to our second public hearing 5B, which is 5BZ23 and I'll close the public hearing. I'm sure it's closed by by the fact that I move on, but just in case. So and then 5B is Z230014A, hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of Denton, Texas, regarding a change in zoning district and use classification from rural residential district to light industrial districts on approximately 13.4 acres of land, generally located on the south side of US 380, approximately 2,400 feet west of Miami. West of Marsh Branch. Ashley extended assistant planner. This is Z2314A this is the rezoning for RDO equipment. The request is to rezone approximately 13 acres from rural residential to a light industrial zoning district. The proposed use is an equipment sales and rental use and a warehouse use. Equipment sales and rental does require a specific use permit in LI zoning. So that application will follow at a later date. The map in the bottom left shows the current zoning. The green is the RR and the blue is LI and the map on the right shows the zoning. If this request is approved and you can see that it would be consistent with the surrounding zoning and the land use pattern. This request is consistent with the future land use map which designates this as light industrial and industrial commerce. The light industrial designation is intended for light industrial activity and associated supporting uses such as retail and industrial commerce applies to both light and heavy industrial uses. The intent of the requested LI zoning district is for a variety of light industrial and employment uses and a wide range of supporting commercial uses and activities. Notifications were posted in the newspaper and the website and signs were also posted on the property. We mailed out notices to everyone within 500 feet and we did not receive any responses in opposition or in favor. The applicant did send out neighborhood meeting invitations that did not receive any RSVPs so the neighborhood meeting was not held. Staff does recommend approval of this request as it meets the criteria for approval and the Planning and Zoning Commission also voted 5-0 to recommend approval. Happy to answer any questions and the applicant is also here to answer questions. I'll call up Amy Bassett. I'm assuming you're here for the applicant. Yeah, okay. If you can give your name you'll have 10 minutes. Good evening mayor and council members. Amy Bissett 109 North Elm 76201. I have a few slides but I don't know that it's really necessary to present them this evening. You all have already had a long day and this is pretty cut and dry so I'm here if you have any questions. Thank you. Okay, questions for the applicants. Those anyone care to go through the full presentation. Okay, then it is a public hearing anyone care to speak. Seeing none I'll close the public hearing I'll take a motion Councilor Watts and make a motion to approve. Mayor Pro Tem. Second. I have a motion and a second any discussion. Seeing none let's vote on the screen. That passes 6-0 thank you. Good luck with your project. That takes us to that concludes the public hearings takes us to our individual considerations items there's two. The first is 6A, A23003B conduct the first of two readings on ordinance of the city of Denton Texas annexing approximately 6.28 acres of land generally located 1176 feet north of East McKinney Street and east of Trinity Road, the city of Denton, Denton County, Texas. Thank you mayor members of council, Angie Manglaris development review manager, this is the last of three items we will be discussing today for an annexation for M forest edition. This the purpose of this item is to conduct the first of two readings of the ordinance adopting the 6.2 acres of land into the city limits. Following this, it will be published in the Denton record Chronicle, and then we will have the second of two readings following that. So I will simply read this ordinance caption and ordinance of the city of Denton Texas annexing approximately 6.28 acres of land generally located 1173 feet north of East McKinney Street and east of Trinity Road into the city of Denton, Denton County, Texas, providing for a correction to the city map to include the annex land and providing for a savings clause and an effective date. Any questions I'm happy to answer them. Okay, any questions for staff as as they touched on no action. Any questions seeing none. Okay, then that takes us to our last item before concluding items. That is six be ID 24463 consider adoption of the ordinance of the city of Denton Texas establishing the schedule of rates for electric service, providing a cert severability clause and providing an effective date. Good evening, Mr Mayor, council members, Bill Shepherd DME. I am here tonight to talk to you about some changes to the electric rate ordinance that Mr point a brought up last month when he was talking to you about the budget adjustments and the, and the pro forma. So just wait a second for my presentation to come up here. I don't know if anybody was going to my apologies. I was waiting for the guy behind the curtain to do it and I was the guy behind the curtain so well Terry helped me a little bit. Sorry about that. So, what we are requesting to do is do a mid year rate adjustment for both the energy cost adjustment, as well as the transmission cost recovery factor, and both of those are planned to go into effect on April 1. So, really, what the energy cost adjustment is, is it as a pass through of how much it costs for DME to purchase power through the air cut market. Likewise, the transmission cost recovery factor is very similar and it also is a pass through for the cost of transmitting across the air cut market. So, with that, our, our goal is to fully recover those two costs starting mid year for the rest of the year, and what that looks like is for the ECA is currently at 3.41 cents per kilowatt hour is been that same rate for the last seven years. And we are proposing to adjust it to 4.47 cents per kilowatt hour. Now what that means to an average residential customers about $10 and 60 cents per kilowatt hour. I'm sorry, per month. As a increase in their monthly bill that transmission cost recovery factor. It is currently zero, it was suspended back in October of 2018. And what we're proposing is to reinstate it at 1.35 cents per kilowatt hour average impact to residential customers about $13 and 50 cents per month. Okay, this is the same financial forecast that Mr Puente showed you last month and what I wanted to do is just show you the line items that we're talking about, starting to recover. So if you look at the, the red circle on the bottom. That is the gross purchase power cost to DME. So, our energy cost adjustment recovers a portion of that. And if you look up what we're proposing to do with the increase is to collect the amount that circled in green there, which is the 70 million for the rest of the fiscal year. And then the bottom one that square, the 26 million 881. That is the total cost to DME for the transmission access through our cut. And what we're proposing is to recover half of that for the rest of the year, which is $13 million figure you see in the green square above. So I also wanted to walk you through some of the nuances of the ordinance itself when it comes to how staff is going to do this on a quarterly basis, as well as the delegation that you've given the pub to to set the rates. So, what we're going to do is we're going to monitor on a monthly basis the balance account for the energy cost adjustment. And if that account is forecasted to go over or under of the collected amount by $5 million. What we'll do is we'll go to the pub with a recommendation to make a change. And that change would go into effect. The very next month, which would be the first month of the next fiscal quarter. And that gives the city council an opportunity to see the rate that was approved and make any suggested changes if necessary. Likewise with the transmission cost recovery factor. It'll also come and be monitored in the same fashion on a monthly basis. And if it looks like we need to make an adjustment will also propose that adjustment to the pub for approval. And, again, it'll be going into effect. The first of the following month. So with that, staff and pub recommend the city council consider adoption of the proposed ordinances. Okay, thank you. Questions for staff Councilman watts. Yes, thank you, Mayor. I was not here for the work session so I have a few questions that may be redundant, and your responses may be redundant so I apologize for that. So that I can understand because I know in the backup. I thought I read something about alone. Was that something else I'm thinking about the. So what you're referring to is our purchase power costs last year, right, they were much higher than anticipated. So we were going to take $31 million of that purchase power costs and finance that through. And that'll spread it out over the next five years. Okay, so that has nothing to do with this recommendation as far as ECA or transmission cost or is that, are we trying to recover some of that money with this. No sir that'll be a separate separate. Okay. All right. Is that. So, I guess my question is when I look at this. It's about a $20 a month addition to a monthly bill is that right. Yes, sir. And what is the average monthly bill before this monthly bill right now is about $106. So it's about a 20%, the little less than 20% increase. So, the answer to my first question is it causes me a little bit more concern because what I'm hearing is whatever caused the loss that we're trying to borrow $31 million for is separate. Than what we're trying to recover here so what are we actually trying to, I mean I saw your presentation and the circles of the amounts. Yes, so let me pull this back up I don't know why I lost it. Hold on just a second. If you could pull the slide up that shows the green and the red on the spreadsheet. Okay, so, yeah. So the ECA revenue, and that is just as your energy costs fluctuate. You're just recovering your energy costs, it's not, you're not tacking on anything we're just trying to say, we want to break even. We want whatever we're paying for energy. We, we need to make sure that we're collecting at least that that's correct. Yes, and we're going to look and forecast the next four months or three months ahead and make sure that we are collecting. So then, with this increase. That means that we've had some type of disparity between what we've been paying for it, and what we're charging the rate payers for it. That's correct. All right. And that has nothing to do with the money that we have to borrow for the $31 million or whatever you said. Yeah, right. Those are different. I mean, one of them is because of high temperatures and all that and temperatures and high, high. Okay, all right. So then on the transmission cost recovery, we just hadn't been collecting that correct. And is that right. Well, we've been collecting it through other means in the bill. Sorry, we've been collecting it through other means in the in the base rates. And what, what was the avenue for that was the vehicle for collecting that before we make this change base rates, base rates absorbed through the base rate. Okay, yeah. So does that mean the base rates are going to be decreased by the amount we're doing because what I'm hearing you say is this TCR. What is it TCRF. Yes, is somehow embedded in the base rate. Right. So we're collecting it. I mean, we say it's not going to be a commensurate change to the base rate, but it'd be less power less upward pressure on the base rates. Okay. All right. Because it's, I mean, what I'm hearing is, we've tried to get it in the base rate collected, even though we're saying we haven't been collecting it we sort of have, but yet, now we're going to directly collect it in an itemized in an itemized rate. So whatever we were collecting in the base rate for it just sort of stays there and it's it's there to absorb where we don't have to raise the rates. Okay. I'm concerned that this is a pretty big whammy and this doesn't even include the the loan that we've got to take out. I mean, whatever created that problem with the loan, you know, I want to, I know that some of it was discussed, but that could happen, unless we find a way to address it through whatever means y'all have a forecasting, you know, all these kinds of things. That's a risk that we have, but that's separate and apart from now we're going to look at raising the rates. I will say I'm in opposition to the PUB having the authority to raise the rates, simply because we've raised the rates 20% now. And I think that if we go delegate that authority to someone else who's not directly responsible to the electorate and to the citizens. That's a concern for me because this thing could, I mean, it could go up another 5% maybe or another 10%. And I know it probably won't. That's why you're asking for such a big, a big push. But I struggle with because we're asking you're asking us for a rate approval today. And I mean, I know the PUB, they do a great job and that's nothing against the board. But I think when it comes to setting rates, especially on the heels of a 20% increase, I would rather see how this flushes out over the next, you know, few months or a year to say, okay, we feel comfortable, but that this is pretty stable. And we don't have to come in and because if all of a sudden the rates get raised and council, you know, we're going to be the ones getting the calls. And so I really have an opposition to that delegation of authority. I don't have an opposition to this. I just wanted to make sure that the community through the question and answer maybe has a chance to understand those two components of why, you know, one is going to increase our debt service and the other one is going to increase the bill by, because that's on an average bill. You know, if you've got a little bit higher, and that's that's, you know, if you got a $400 bill, that's an $80 a month increase close to 100 bucks. Well, it's certainly a course correction. Yeah, you know, we don't anticipate having these kind of differentials on those quarterly snapshots that we're going to be taken throughout the year going forward. Even with this increase, we're still below the average of our peers in the state. So that gives you an idea, just a perspective on on surrounding utilities around us and how much they're charging. Seven years is a long time not to have any kind of increases. Yeah, yeah. Well, I agree. And we need to make sure that that's not how we move forward because and one of them says we haven't been collecting it, but we sort of have it's just been sort of indirectly through the through the base rate. Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for answering my questions. Mayor for Tim. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and, and I really appreciate. Councilor Watson's line of questions. I couldn't agree more for pretty much the same reasons that he said on the delegation of power to the pub. We all need to fall on our heads, no matter what the outcome is. We need to make the heavy calls and not our appointees. We had similar concerns about where was the the TCRF, you know, coming from before you said it was based into the base rate. We're going to continue to base, put the base rate as is and this is limiting that that amount in the base rate limits the size of the TCRF. So I understood the answer to be. So what this does is this going to pull some pressure off the base rate. So if you remember in the presentation last month, we were looking at potentially a five and a half percent increase in October. This will probably pull some, pull some pressure off of that. So, my, my concern is and I've mentioned it to you and others before is is parsing a single topic item across multiple different categories of charges. I don't think I understand some of the logic of why we do that but I don't I don't think I think it's confusing for the ratepayers, and I think it's, if we're going to have a category that this is the cost of our transmission costs, and we're going to recover that cost like DCA is this is the cost of our, you know, having PPA is with our sources, and, and we need to adjust that rate to to match, you know the the expenditures that that the power cost us. If we have transmission costs, then we should bake that all in, and I think we should have the base rate, come down the amount of the TCRF should should not be and so can you explain to me why we shouldn't reduce the base rate and raise the TCRF, it's more transparent more direct. Yes, so pretty much I mean the way the way the TCRF used to be collected it was separate altogether on the bill, and that was suspended for whatever reason back in 2018. So we're looking at it as is really a price signal to customers it just directly indicates how much it's costing for DME to do business with with open market of our cot and breaking it out on the bill they'll now see that as opposed to it be sunken into the base rates. So you just put it all in the TCRF, it is all in. Yeah, and I'm sorry if I miss misled you that TCRF will be all in its own light item on the bill. But the, the transmission cost, I thought you said to Council Watts that the transmission costs that we had been paying had been had been a line item of zero, but the actual expenditures had been baked into the base rate. Okay. So maybe I could get some clarity on that. Mayor Council Tony point to the general manager for DME. So, just a couple of things. One, remember we we had a very substantial revenue stream that we lost. I mean that represented over $36 million a year that disappeared overnight. The transmission cost revenue that was coming to us from a from a recent rate filing that we had right so the other thing to is you got to understand that we've been managing this fund on an aggregate basis we've been doing exactly what you're alluding to right is kind of manage it all as a single fund. What I will tell you is that best practices and certainly how the PCT views, these sorts of funds on the private sector where they regulate utilities is that you have, you should regulate out your costs based on variety of different measures right and so that's what we're proposing here. That's what DME had done well past 2017 before 2017 began 2017 that's when we started changing how we manage this because we had a very significant revenue stream that helped us to keep rates low. And to Bill's point about how were we paying for some of this we were paying it from a single source revenue that we had that disappeared right base rates haven't changed ECA hasn't changed. That's why TCRF was suspended. Right. So what we're proposing here is that we address this fund on a more traditional basis, and that's by implementing a an ECA rate that fluctuates, right, albeit every quarter or every six months. Right. Councilmember Watts, you know, while the pub may have this delegation which they've had for well over 25 years since I've been with the city. The reality is the council still retains authority on rates regardless of whether or not there's a delegation, right. So that's what we've done here and what we propose is another step and that's to notify the council. If the pub makes any kind of change before it goes into effect and if the council receives that notification and lets us know that, hey, we need you to put the brakes on that increase because it's too high or it's the wrong timing, or whatever the case may be, then we'll set up a time to come back to the council and have that discussion before that rate goes into effect. If the pub makes that decision right or makes that recommendation. What we're trying to consider is that we're collecting these fees in arrears, right, and so the longer we go and not collecting these fees from our customer, we're going to be in the situation that we are today in a rate shock situation, right, because instead of me collecting the last three months of payments that I've already made. Now I'm going to be looking at six months or nine months, right, and it gets us back into the same type of cycle that we've been in over the last few years, right, where it becomes even more difficult for you to want to approve a rate increase when we're looking at six months or nine months or collection, and now it's a 20-30% increase, right, by having that systematic routine review by the pub every quarter and making recommendations and adjustments is really the more fiscal approach to this. So hopefully all that addresses some of your questions. Yeah, no, I'm standing pat on the fact that the buck stops here for the pub issue, so I'm not in alignment there, but I want to get to that point about the previous transmission costs, what revenue stream were we using to pay for that, the base rate or the other stream that no longer is available? It was the other stream, it was that additional revenue that we were getting that was dedicated to keep those base rates low. So none of our transmission costs were in the base rate? No, that base rate has not changed. Okay, so I think that was the point of confusion is that I was hearing that there were transmission costs in the base rate, if there's no transmission costs, I agree we have to pay our bills, we pay for our generation, we pay for our transport, we pay for our trucks. I mean, you got to pay for what you use. So my part, the concern and the confusion was, are we parsing an expenditure over different funding lines? And that was the part that I didn't agree with. I agree with what you said, which is generations should come from a funding line, transmission should come from a funding line, and base rates should come from a funding line. I agree with that. And just keep in mind that transmission costs that we pay to other transmission operators in 2017 was about $12 million. Today, it's north of $26 million, and it's going to continue to grow. Thank you, Tony. Thank you, Bill. Yeah, the city manager. I think something here to note, I was just talking to Councilmember Watts, it's been five years or maybe longer since staff came to any council and recommended increases like this. As a matter of fact, it was either flat or in some of our utilities, it was decreased. Now, that's great at that time. What we're seeing, though, is the fact that we have to be more transparent when we come forward to you and our budget processes, and particularly right now in the mid-year, and share with you what the actual cost of service is and the facts that we now want to make sure that we are being upfront and honest about where the costs really are, what they're associated with, whether it's ECA or it's our rate base or anything else. And so, yeah, this is a bit of a shock, but it's also time for us to tell you where we are and to show how we can't run a utility without these rate increases. And I hate it that we're the bearer of this kind of news, but we are going to come back to you every time we see something like this and with our other utilities so that you are well informed. And not only are we doing that, but we're also going to, once this is however it's handled, we will be doing media information that goes out to the public that explains exactly what this is so they know this is not some trickery or anything else. These are actual costs that are associated with the service that's being provided. Okay. And I just want to get my head around the pub component, because in essence it sets up like a recommendation like anything else they recommend to us right it because it's not it's not it's not decided action it's we are recommending this and then council was notified pub is recommending this, and then we would ratified am I understanding that wrong. Yes. Okay, so it gives you the option to say, time out. We're don't we don't agree with that it's a let's say it was a 15% increase in the pub is already approved it through the delegated authority. However, you all have the option at that point to say, time out. Let's let's have a discussion about it and then at that point we would not move that rate forward. Right. But, so just share the thought behind that action, the staff's recommendation, share, share the thought behind that. So the thought is to one, it's going to be a quarterly process, it's going to be a very quick process once we look at the the past two months of actual revenues and look at the front, the forward three months of of projections. We're going to make a quick determination, go to the pub on a quick basis, and then get approval and have it in a work session or whatnot. But again, I think where we, where we cleaned up the ordinance is allowing that time for the city council to go in there and say, stop the process. Let's have a conversation about it. Yeah, I hope that answers your question. Yes, no, it does. And it gives me a level of comfort. I just, I think that's for me, personally, the statement that we were somehow not maintaining as a body control over those things just seems, it's not accurate, accurately capturing what's been put before us, just my, as I process information I hear what you said. Then I, for me, it's a step forward where we need to be. Right. This is a, this is not a political issue. It is a, in everything else we do, we have a, we're moving towards a cost recapture type, and I'm sure there's a better phrase for that, but we're recapturing at cost what they are. The utility is, it is what it is, right. It's what we pay. We got a bill, we pay a bill, right. It's not a political, hey, let's see if we can delay, that's where we get into trouble. That's where you see cities that are getting in trouble with their water systems, it's where they start getting political with these hard fixed costs that, you know, hey, I don't want to out price this and now we can't afford to buy that and the next thing you know you don't have water. Right, and so those things are concerning for me that I don't want to turn this into a political thing. So, so that's really my concern is, it gives us step in the right direction for me to have that oversight but at the same time, begin to move towards a, we paid $100, we recouped $100, and just kind of have that, that look at things, versus a, is it popular to recoup a $100, we can recoup. We can recoup, maybe $90, but then a winter storm, you're even blows in, you know, and, and it really, there's, there's good life happens and so that's my concern is, you get in the habit of maybe going out on a limb, and then on odd instance that limbs breaks, and it really gets bad in a hurry. So, I'd rather case in point. I'm certain there's people that aren't excited that Tony's out there with a saw cutting down their trees. But we have to go out there and cut down the trees, because if they break a line. It's, it's more significant right so we take those lumps, because we have to, because that's best practices. I get comfortable with it. And I'm comfortable that I don't subscribe to the theory that we're somehow advocating our authority, we have that authority is baked in, and it probably calls more attention to it. And I trust the, those that are serving on pub so I'm comfortable with that. Frankly, do we have an option what if what if what if this fails. Where do we go from there. Well, so, so right now what we're projecting is that we would draw down fund balance even with this change for about a little bit over $2 million. If we're, if we're not able to do this, then you're probably talking about a 20 to $30 million drawdown of a fund balance that's already been drawn down $31 million from the previous year. You know and so, so we'll would likely have to come back to you and talk to you about another financing of that and so that that would be that would be pretty difficult. So 20 or 30 million and pretty soon we're talking about real money here. I mean, that's. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mayor, if I can, so we're talking about the ECA and the TCRF only. We're not talking about the facility charge we're not talking about the base rate, those are still going to would still be set by the council. As part of our annual budget process. We're still going to bring to you a forecast in that forecast we're still going to have a projected ECA and TCRF that you're going to be able to see. Right. And my hope and our hope is that if we do our jobs correctly, that we won't vary, we won't deviate too far away from that information that you're going to already see in the budget process and let me tell you I find it very difficult to see that if we get into the situation where we lose another $31 million. Or we have to draw down $31 million that we're going to automatically recommend to the pub, or do I think the pub would accept that, that we increase the rate to recover that right, we'd have to explore some other options so there has to be some level of reasonableness that goes into it just like we did this time around. Okay, Councilor Watts. Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I mean I appreciate that the explanation, and so I'll summarize to make sure I understand it is, which is what I thought. The reason we're having to have this. For the most part is because we lost the transmission cost. I mean we lost the transmission revenue. Okay, so that's basically the bottom line. When you lose $30 million or whatever it is, you're going to have to replace it somehow or you wind up going bankrupt. So, that's, I'm okay with that, because that's an explanation that I can wrap my head around, because it's just, we lost revenue. We've got to increase revenue from somewhere else to balance the budget. I'm still, I'm struggling, and it comes to the point where the, there's no collaboration on trying to find a solution to this authority thing, I'm going to have to vote against this motion and so I'm going to propose this, because what I'm hearing you guys say is that we will send you a notice. And if you don't want to do it. Then you take some kind of action. Why just simply say instead of sending us a notice, just put it on the consent agenda. And if it goes on the consent agenda then you know if we don't if we don't want to pull it, then we don't have to pull it because plus that gives the public notification of this that's to me the concern here is not who's got the authority and who does not trust pub. To me it's, there's things that are happening that the public doesn't have an opportunity necessary but if it's on the consent agenda, it's like, okay, we'll just approve it, and if there's a problem we'll pull it and then we'll discuss it. We can certainly do that. I think I think just from a timing perspective right. So, generally speaking our accounting department will close the previous month and quarter end by the 15th of the following month right. So then, we would have to go to the pub schedule so they meet twice a month. The likelihood is, we're not going to be able to put something in effect at the first of the following month, it would likely be at the first mid month, the next month so now you're talking about, you know, collecting something that you could have started collecting, you know, two months after you made the payment, and now you're looking at three months maybe four months. And again, if, if the timing issue is not that big of an issue. If we can we can certainly accommodate those costs and those projections. Okay. Yeah, I was gonna say, look. Yeah, you meet it twice a month we meet twice a month. There's got to be a way that we can we can solve this timing issue because that's really what it is. And I'm however you want to do it, I'm certainly open to it but I'm just almost categorically opposed to, then what I'm hearing is that when the books are done, the PB meets, they change the EC a rate, it goes into effect in two weeks, people are getting bills, and their, their utility bills are going up, and it's okay I mean stuff goes up without notice, but I just, I struggle with it, and that's just my own personal opinion so everybody else has theirs up here. And in the end we just have to vote what what we believe is how it reflects our individual values so if we can find a way to figure that out, I'm okay but if you press the key that's okay too. So, so we can do, I think what we can do is do the consent thing but I also think if we need to we can do an emergency meeting of the pub and we can do an emergency meeting of council if necessary, so that we make sure we're not missing some two month gap here, if it comes to that I'm, I think I'm hopeful that what Tony's saying is you're not going to see that fluctuation of that issue, but if we start to see it, we will call an emergency meeting of both the pub and the council so we can address this immediately, that should take care of it and go from that way. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. Thank you, Mary. Yeah, I just want to lend support to the idea of it being on consent I think that's an excellent compromise. It's, it's still fast, and it's still us. So thank you for coming up with that Council was okay. Sorry, then, then can this item be withdrawn from the, from consideration. In light of that. No, because it's the actual ECA and read and state adjust ECA and reinstating the TC RF. You're basically saying you recommend adjusting ECA and reinstate TC RF but you're saying, put the item on consent for Council, if it's the necessary if it's necessary to have a meeting to look at the, the, because of the loss of funds or whatever and it needs to be an emergency, an emergency meeting can be called. It's not going to be delegated to the pub. But we're not voting on that are we. You are. You're voting on the first, the first adjustment, which is the first line there, and then a confirmation on the PV delegation process. So, the first adjustment I think is, you know, very straightforward. Yeah, I mean we can we can remove the delegation piece and have that discussion. Later when we have three months, three and a half to figure that out and get it back to you to massage that a little bit, but as far as this first adjustment. I don't know that from my perspective and it's certainly but I mean, I think we need to solve this so that we know what we're doing with ECA and the TC RF and then we need to have Council agree on how you want to handle this obviously I don't think there's a support for it to just to be a pub item to be, you know, authority to set it, and then to have Council go no no no don't do it. I think what we have to say is there needs to be an item that's placed on the consent agenda for Council to do it they can pull it and have the discussion, and you can either. You can either do it through a emergency meetings or you can do it through a joint pub and the city council meeting to discuss the, the actual rates. So, we can have another work session and discuss that process will prove the rates moving forward for April 1, right is that. Sorry, Council and I'm going to look at Mac for some help but I think if you, I think you could make a motion to approve the ordinance and striking the delegation component from that ordinance that I think that solves the issue for for us. Council says. Okay. That makes perfect sense to me just a motion to approve, but not delegate the authority to the pub that would keep it with Council is the authority that actually approves it going forward as well. Well I'm going to get back to the order of things, just get in line. If you have something else to say, Council member. From what I understood in our work session. And I'm just going to try to put some kindergarten level as I possibly can. That we have got to come up with a way to maintain our status and giving and providing the community with what they need. And because we did take some time not to raise the rates for several several years that put us behind. And I know that there was a discussion, you know, one of my frustrations and hearing that particular discussion was that we, you know, we just did not raise the rates, and now it's, it's, it's do or die time that we've got to get caught up with whatever all of our circumstances are for us. So, you know, the, I'm just talking to the citizens right now they did hear, you know, my voice in terms of a why didn't you, you know, raise it 2% 1% just keep going until we got to somewhere where we were comfortable with. That sounds like a lot. And if we don't do anything in the proactive term it's going to be more. So if we're talking about a you know $20 here. This time and we don't move forward, it could very well mean that we're talking about $40, you know, down the road. So I would much rather us move forward with this process right now it's kind of like buying a car right now and that car is valued at $28,000 and it's the car you've always wanted and you put it put it off and for whatever reason and, you know, the next time you get it it's valued at 36,000. So, it's just a matter of what we want to do as a, as a city can we bear, can we bear, adding on an additional $20 to our light bill that's alive for some people, I stopped getting my nails done, because I had to make some adjustments. And so, I know that was kind of petty but it's still a matter of us. It's the same thing with the city, we've got to make some adjustments, and we've got to get caught up. I know for sure that I'm going to go ahead and vote for this and I'm not real sure what all the communication was about but I do know that we've got to make a change at some point so however this motion is going to come in. And however the all decided that we were going to do it. I just know that we've got to, we've got to make some changes we've got to be prepared for. We've got to be prepared for change and we've got to accept that. That's why I have to say thank you. I just want, could you say again, or just brief summary, but it's not a certainly raising rates and not raising rates to debatable, but the key issue that's not $36 million in one year in one month or whatever that great kid. Could you just explain where the 36 million that the catalyst kind of issue is the right case but can you explain that. I just don't want people, I just don't want the emails tomorrow saying hey you should raise my rates incrementally, and that's not the issue is that we, we had a rate case, and we lost $36 million or 31 million what you know north of 30 million I start to forget. Right now it was it was 36 million plus that we lost and that was on an annual basis. And we do have to figure out how to fill that gap. And part of that gap is to start looking at these costs like the TCRF that was previously absorbed by that piece and I, and I misspoke I said base rates but yes you're. I'm glad Tony corrected me on that. But yeah, that's, we got to fill that gap and part of that is to start reassessing that TCRF and and looking at our ECA and and collecting it's full cost. Got it customer me. I was going to make the recommended motion from the city attorney but if Mr Watson's going to do that, I will stand up. I don't know what recommended motion you were thinking about but yeah I'm going to make a motion to accept bullet point number one, and to accept bullet point number two, with the addition that it just simply be put on the next council consent agenda, because I don't think we should remove that delegation necessarily. And if something happens that really needs attention. Everybody's nimble so I don't want to take away that but I just want to find a vehicle. And this is my attempt to find a vehicle to just the whole point is you're going to let the council know, and we only will back off of it, we will only not do it if we have a concern, but that's all happening behind the scenes. If we don't like that and then we got to worry about Toma and who's going to, I mean, this is just the easiest solution. Mr Mayor, if I might, if I may, and maybe this is for the city attorney but we could just put a placeholder on that consent agenda every quarter. And, you know, already have the numbers identified and the placeholder set and if there's something that moves forward, it moves forward if there's no change for that quarter, we'll just wipe it off the, the agenda. That makes sense but I'm just a little bit of clarification on the motion so you're saying you're delegating the authority to the pub, but you still need to have council approval. That is basically what we're doing as originally proposed, but yet, under the auspices of something that I mean because if they're sending us something that says, here's what we're raising it to. If we do nothing we're still approving it because we've done nothing, whereas if it's higher, then they want us to take it before the council in a public meeting. I'm just saying, does not go into effect until council takes the vote on consent though that's so it's still councils approving the rate, but I guess my question is this and this is a legal question I just thought about it. If someone said it's PB approve something, and it comes to the city manager, and the city manager sends out an email to the council saying does anybody have a problem with this. That sure seems like a potential issue. Because then, if people are responding. Anyway, that's that's my real concern. That's just, it just, it's about a transparency issue as well. Adjust the ECA and reinstate the CCRF rate delegate to the PB, the authority or the maybe change that word to recommend I don't care, but that they present a rate. And that rate comes back to us in the consent and that's an operational question as far as whether there should be a placeholder anything like that I don't think that needs to be in the motion but that's an operational question. So it will be a pub recommendation required and then council approval for race to become effective. Yes, okay. That's it. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem. So, I'm going to restate this because we kind of went back and forth I think I understand the motion. The motion is I heard was approved the rates. Delegate a PB to recommend a rate and have council approve that rate at the very next consent agenda is that correct, then I can second that that's correct. All right, discussion. Any discussion, these in queue, you done or no. All right, yeah. I'm just going to say, I can't segregate out the two votes or I'd vote against it. I have a problem with it. Today, we have 20 items on our consent agenda, and this is a light day. So, I don't believe it's going to get picked up, I don't believe it adds any visibility, what it does is buries it versus a dedicated conversation, we're saying hey, we're going to take it and shove it in with 2030 other things with large numbers and call that visibility. Okay, well, if I took that if I took that approach. We wouldn't be having the miscommunication we have now because everyone read this and got their questions in early and we discussed it, Monday, and came here Tuesday ready ready to vote but somehow. It didn't happen. So, that's my problem. But I can't I can't vote no. And yes, at the same time so I want I understand the rate issue. I just wanted on the record that I don't support burying someone's rate issue in the consent agenda in the middle of nowhere. That bothers me so, but you can't get one without the other. So, that's my concern. Any other discussion. Passes 60 consent agenda items. Any consent. It's the, it's, it's, it's at the end. I even called it twice I said hey it's coming next to last. Mayor Pro Tem. McGee's birthday and I was going to wish him a happy birthday. Okay, in any, any other consent agenda. Councilman Holland. Consent agenda. Thank you. I lost a classmate last week, my friend Dick Craven passed away, Dick and his family owned Craven's dry goods for generations and generations they first started out where Queenies is now. They moved across the street to where Wells Fargo is now they moved across the street to where game free play games is now. The best water skier I ever saw I always wanted to grow up and be as good a water skiers Dick Craven his service is tomorrow at 11 o'clock at Denton Bible Church. Anything else, anyone else concluding items. I just want to thank all the staff, it wasn't directly city event but with staff and police and capital police etc. We were able to get the United States House Ways and Means Committee in Denton, they had their committee meeting there at a Denton airport and got them back out of town safely and that's a huge undertaking I can only imagine. But great exposure for the city of Denton that opportunity to have that many members of Congress here here in Denton so thank you to all that made that go. And with that at 816 I'll conclude tonight's meeting thank you.