Apr 02, 2024 City Council on 2024-04-02 11:00 AM (Joint Special Called Meeting with Denton ISD Board of Directors)

So at 1106, today is Tuesday, April 2nd, 1106 a.m. We do have a forum, so I'll call the city council's portion of the meeting to order and turn it over to the board president. And I will call the order and then I will speak with the trustees. The present forum is present, and no April fools today, so we can really get down to serious business. Yes, no shenanigans. And so there's there's mics within the room, they pick up all those things, so just be mindful we don't have to have to click on or off or anything, they're a good surprise. With that, the first item is item A, ID 24379. Receive important discussion, give staff direction regarding an update on city of Bitten summer camp program. Good afternoon, my name is Ramiro Martin, and I'm a new assistant director with the Parks and Recreation Department. I'm into my, probably a third hit today maybe, but glad to be here, but knowing that one of the things that's been beaten into me is unite, grow, play. You guys know that as our mission, when we unite together, we grow together, we play together. And one of the biggest things that I've been fortunate enough to be able to do in my career was working in a city, working in collaboration with the school systems. And the city function as well as the county function, so knowing the importance and the value of that unity to be able to make sure we maximize the resources for all of our residents is very important. And so that's why today we're going to present an update on the summer camps to be able to, you know, definitely look at how we can continue to grow and work together with our programs. So I would definitely turn it over to Megan to be able to present. Thank you. Good morning, City Council, Dayton ISD. My name is Megan Thomas, program area manager, Parks and Recreation, and I've just got a brief summary of summer camps, where we've been, and where we're going. So as shared last time, the city operates eight all-day summer camps, and for nine to 10 weeks out of the summer, and then we operate those camps Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. And each of those camps have a variety of field trips, swim days and themes, and you can actually view all of those, all the summer camps and all of our programs online on our registration catalog. Prior to 2023, the city operated one school site as part of the summer camp program that was at McMath, and all of the transportation was provided through city vans, renovations, and charter buses. And then in 2023, we expanded, we added three school sites, and we added bus transportation that allowed us to expand camps by 164 spots. It allowed us to keep the kids a little bit safer by providing professional transportation, and added some on-site amenities to those camps. Moving into summer of '24, it's fast approaching. We are, we're actually going to be at three different school sites instead of four this time, and with Calhoun and Evers being under construction, we're going to utilize Strickland, McMath, both gyms at McMath, and Bournemouth Elementary School. One of the things, all of our summer camps, our camps do run ages 3 to 15, but all of the school sites operate the 5 to 11 camps. And capacity at those camps are going to be anywhere from 50 to 85 kids. We are adding 36 spots this summer. 30 of those spots will be at DISD school sites. That actually brings us to a 57 percent, DISD is serving 50 percent, 57 percent of our campsite, of our campsites, our camp kits. I did bring Adam with us today. Adam DeSoto is our summer camp supervisor, our recreation care supervisor. He will oversee all of the daily operations of the summer camp. He is that main contact for daily operations throughout the summer, and we provided that information here as well. And then into just working together, we are working to schedule a meeting with the principals and DISD staff for May. The goal of that meeting is staff introductions and give an overview of our camps, provide the staff with some understanding of DISD facility rules, and then also establishing a clear line of communication so that we can continue to work together to serve our community. And I'm ready for questions. Okay, questions for staff? Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. That takes us to item B, ID 24381, receive report, hold discussion, and give staff direction regarding city space and future Bitten ISD elementaries. Good morning, council and DISD staff. I'm Christine Taylor, one of the assistant city managers, and I'm going to talk to you today about an additional collaboration opportunity that we wanted to make both boards aware of. So the city and the school district work together in a variety of ways to share resources. One of city council's priorities is our focus area of strengthening community in our surrounding region and a specific focus area that we work on is leveraging partnerships. So through that, both organizations have had ongoing commitment focused on what are the mutual benefits, exploring opportunities to elevate our services while maximizing our limited resources within the city and DISD. And as Megan mentioned in her previous presentation in 2023, both boards really started focusing together and carefully reviewing our shared resources to explore opportunities, how both of us can enhance our programming opportunities by maintaining fiscal responsibility as those resources become more limited. So the collaboration opportunity we want to present to you today is that through our partnership, we've worked out or we've been talking through the idea of when new elementary schools come online, the opportunity that the facility can include the inclusion of city programming space. We're talking about in the gym space, creating office space and storage space in there specifically designed for city programming after school hours. So what this does for the city and for DISD is this provides a cost savings, maximizing that existing infrastructure and minimizing the need for duplicate facilities. So as we grow through the community, instead of us looking at putting rec centers and individual neighborhoods, the city can focus on that regional approach and then we still can, while they're building a school, minimize that cost and construct a small portion for the city, which can be used in the evening for programming time. So this can serve as community hub for offering services beyond education. So we're our thoughts for community meetings. We talked about summer camp programming, educational programs, health care events, events that will benefit students and residents. And again, we're talking about evenings and weekends when school is not in session. So that we are in the early stages of this process. The first school that we're talking about doing this in is Bournemouth Elementary. They're early enough in the design process for us to capture that shared office space that we can construct, that shared storage space. So just reiterating that we are in that early stage of planning, and in any design contracts, budget approval or fundings, we go through board approval. So this is not the first or the only time we want to do it. So our commitment today is that both of our organizations are working very closely to explore those additional opportunities to elevate our services while focusing on maximizing those resources between both entities. I'm happy to take any questions on this. Great question. Thank you. Well, my question is going to be, is Bournemouth an example of that cooperation now, but there's going to be a new Bournemouth school. Is that. So when they're in that design process, if we have the opportunity, we're going to look at how can we include space in there that could be used for city resources versus us having to look at building individual rec center facilities. So this leans into the expanding the camp programs or any other programming throughout the city. If you could clarify that question, that statement a little bit about you said, we want to do this operation to either minimize or reduce or eliminate the rec centers in certain neighborhoods. Of course, help me understand that. I mean, what would because I know in rec centers, we have gyms and of course, schools typically have gyms, but we also have meeting space. We also, some of them have workout facilities. So this isn't a substitute for rec centers. Am I correct in that or is it. Through the master plans that all of our teams, libraries and parks have brought forward to council, the industry trends are moving more towards regional facilities. So when we talk about building these larger ones, but there still are individual needs and communities for community meetings. So this is an opportunity instead of building new rec centers and individual communities of having some additional space, it could be utilized by that neighborhood. Okay. All right. Thank you. So I know that we're in an exploratory phase, but is this where the city would purchase additional resources at a campus or what's the the vision, not the details, but the vision of the sort of financial. The vision is that when they're in the page, we'd be able to maximize those resources by while they're in construction, adding on that two hundred, three hundred, whatever, five hundred square foot space that the city would pay for at that construction rate. So we're looking at just saying a smaller amount to have availability of space versus what we talked about going through the bond program when we need larger facility that are. Thanks for the clarification. Any other questions. So, with evening usage and after hours usage and maintenance cost, I was saying that there was going to be a sharing of that with that maintenance cost me on denton. I would that be a collaboration between the city and I'm all for us working together as a team. However, we have not gotten an increase in allotment since two thousand and nineteen and now with a significant increase in utilities for us. It's just more and more financial hardships for the district. And so my concern would be if we are sharing these spaces, which I'm all for us doing an extra two hundred to three hundred square foot added on. I think that we're going to have to continue to eat and cool during all times of the year. And it's just very concerning utility costs for the district. That is something that both groups are already aware of and working through our office. We work very close with and part of that is we're not trying to either entity make money. It's are we able to capture those costs that we have an existing for the summer? Are we paying our fair share for that? Are we covering the cost of what it has to have the school open and have the lights on when certainly the intent, which we've not gotten that piece in the program, but the intent is to ensure that we're covering the city is covering whatever costs to have that facility running in those evening hours and not in the practice of making money. But are we both coming to the table where it's an official response? That was kind of my question too, but as far as would this be city staff members? Who would be working at these collaboration efforts? Would this be contracted with city staff? Do we need nurses and all those other things that we're not talking about? Staffing them full time, so it's in the summer camp that there is an office that a staff member can work at or a touchdown space for an evening. So it still would be city staff coming in to run a city program, and then we'd have an MOU or a rental agreement with the district to pay for those utilities, what it costs to open the building at any of those. Yeah, just to piggyback off of those two questions, it's something more to come up during the city event perspective. Someone gets hurt. Is that how was that? Okay, any other questions? I'll just ask, do we envision or do we know the sequence of kind of bond elections? Do we ever, obviously they overlap at some point, but do we ever coordinate those things? For example, this would be a great example of an opportunity if while Borman's being reconstructed and if we had the funds for Denia Recreation Center to be reconstructed, you know, to kind of do that at the same time. You know, the RFP and more work and lower the cost, but do we ever kind of coordinate on that? Those timings or that overlap on bond elections, but I will say going into our last bond program, we met heavily with Julie's team just to understand about how well they ran their program, how they marketed it. So I certainly see that collaboration for the future because of both groups as resources become limited. We're going to have to look at the office and needs to do things together. Just a couple of points from our staff side. So let's just kind of give a little historical perspective. Some people are here around the table. We're here when we rebuilt Lee Elementary School and then turned into Alexander. We built it around the school as it was. School's going on. We added a new school to that. And we know there's some challenges whenever you replace a campus. Everyone was here probably when we did Nattie Shultz and we recognized the impact to the neighborhood, impact to our families, the impact to our students, their learning into traffic patterns and parking and all those different pieces. So as we started working through our 23 bond program, which was the Borman replacement and the Newton-Razor replacement, those four elementary schools, and then you had in Variety Road, Reeves Elementary School, those were the first ones in the city of Denton that the district had done quite some time, right? Because all of our schools had been in Lulow or had been in Montana or had been in Corinth and other places. With Colin Hunter coming on with the southern portion of the city of Denton really growing, it's the perfect opportunity to kind of work out these details in a partnership because what we're going to see as we go west of I-35 is double our size now. And as we work through some of these issues, I think it's going to be that much, that much more important. And I think when you see what the team has done with the Borman School, we learned a little bit about Nattie Shultz building on site on a smaller place. We did it, we worked through it, the city worked through it, the district worked through it, but it was difficult for families in a lot of ways. We're trying to really work hard on this Borman rebuild to where we locate the school, how we work with the new roadway infrastructure in the neighborhood that's just south and west of there, how the soccer fields and all those things interact. So that it is a really master plan partnership between two municipalities and not always, it's not always private-public, but sometimes when it's public-public, we can even do some really, really interesting things with regard to that. And I think you'll see that when we get to the Borman pieces. And you know, with the rebuild of the high school in the Calhoun and Nick razor, you see that as well. So I think all the staff is working together, recognizing how those things move forward. And we're also talking about prior partnerships and how are those working or not working and what do we need to do to make those better. So, you know, we all represent the same taxpayers, the same people. So trying not to repeat costs to our taxpayers is really, really important. Okay. Any other questions? I'll just say, and thank you staff for the answer, but I look forward to, while they're here, discussions around Calhoun activating those spaces, because I think that's going to be a great partnership. And what we can do there around, I guess the South Lake, Eureka Park there next to the middle school, those partnerships, look at those conversations and what we can do. And as I just appreciate the work that staff, both staffs have done together. It's really been fantastic. So thank you very much. Okay, that concludes item B, takes us to item C, ID 24380, receive a report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding an update on the City of Denton construction projects surrounding Denton High School. Trevor Crane, Director of Capital Projects. So today I'll be here just to give you a quick update on some of the capital projects we have in the Denton High School area. So here's just a quick overview of the map. As you can see in the different colors, we have the Rodney Road East Project, which is number one, highlighted in the yellow. The Westgate Drive and Windsor Drive, highlighted in that kind of aqua green, number two. And then number three is our Bonnebrae Phase Six project in the red. You can also see Denton High School there in the white and then also our fire station number five, just for reference. So starting out with our Bonnebrae Phase Six project, this is from U.S. 380 to U.S. 77. So project scope, roadway widening, pedestrian facilities, utility installation, traffic signals, and lighting. Our project schedule, so we're currently at 100% design. I expect to get the go ahead from TxDOT any day now with an approval of our plans and specs to allow us to bid that out. So looking for a construction start date probably towards the end of this quarter and then a construction complete of quarter four of 2026. And just to break out a little section of this project, up there at the top where you see the first number three at the top, we have been working with DISD to break out a section of that project for the sidewalks. So typically sidewalks are installed at the end of a project. We've been working to expedite the sidewalks from that project, pull them out of the Bonnebrae Phase Six project, and move that forward as an independent project. So working with the contractor out there with DISD to get everything up to grade so we can go ahead and install those permanent sidewalks to give our pedestrians and citizens a safe route to Denton High School. So Rodney Road East, this is the west of Hardaway Road to US 77. Project scope, again, roadway widening, pedestrian facilities, utility relocations, and this also does have a park trail component that will connect the future elementary school to North Park. Project schedule, so we are ahead of schedule on this one as far as the design. We're at 60% design, anticipating our construction starting in quarter four this year with a construction completion of quarter three of 2025. Our Westgate Road project, so this also includes Windsor Drive, so project extents are going to be from Windsor Drive from Westgate Drive to I-35, the north-south Westgate from Westgate to Windsor, and then our east-west Westgate Drive from I-35 to Bronco Way. Once this project is complete, we will work through the process of renaming the east-west Westgate to Bronco Way for the entire length. Project scope is roadway widening, pedestrian facilities, utility installation, as well as some drainage installation. We're ahead of schedule on this design as well, and so we're currently at 90% design, anticipating a construction start date in quarter four of 2024 with a construction complete of quarter four 2026. We are looking at putting some milestones into that project that will dictate the east-west Westgate project being done first as a part of that construction to give us some construction relief and allow that east-west all the way through from 77 to I-35. So this is just a quick graphic of the overall area timeline. You can see Bonneberry Phase 6 in the green with Ronnie Road East just below it in that kind of dark grayish blue color, and then Westgate Road reconstruction in the red. So communication plan, as you probably saw on those on the previous slides, we do have one project manager that's going to be over all three of these projects. Jesus Perez, I put his contact information up there as well. And what I've also done is I've assigned one of our senior project managers, Scott Fettig, to assist specifically with the communication on this project. We realize there's going to be a lot of construction going on in this area, and we want to be very proactive on the communication piece. So we're currently working through the final stages of creating that communication plan I mentioned there. So working through what that stakeholder list looks like, all of our partners and everyone that's going to be in this area. So, of course, DISD, UNT, DCTA, residents, all those types of things. This communication plan will lay out what that communication looks like, so the content of what we're communicating out, whether that's just monthly updates or traffic closures. It'll also dictate when those different types of communications come out, and then how we're going to communicate those things. So if it's just a monthly update of what's going on, that may go as an email. If it's an emergency where we're shutting down something, then that's obviously going to be a phone call or something of that nature. So this communication plan will dictate all that prior to any of these projects going into construction. We'll be having a meeting with all of our stakeholders so we can get their input on what that communication looks like, who it needs to be, how they would prefer to have that come to them, so that all of that is done on the front end so everyone knows what to expect as far as any of these communications and all this construction that's happening. So just a couple of additional projects that we have. The Borrow Gravity Sewer and Lift Station, this one is actually done. We just finished it up last week, so just working through the final stages of it, getting grass planted and all the fun stuff to close it out. And then our Northwest Water Transmission Line, they are currently out there working at Discovery Park on UNT, so I'm expecting that to be completed in quarter three of 2024. With that, I'll take any questions. Questions for Stan? Thank you. I just really wanted to commend the attention to stakeholder communication. That emphasis is really great and I appreciate you all doing that. Sir, thank you. Anyone else? Absolutely. We want to try to live in that kind of proactive space and not be reactive if we can all help, but we understand that construction, you know, is not the best thing. Things happen, but we want to try to get that information out to the people who need it as quickly as possible. My question is, I have a couple. One is, obviously we're far along, but is there a way to make it increasingly punitive if someone hits a line or something? Because there's only limited ways in and out, right? And then you have a high school right next door, so we're interrupting class potentially if it's significant enough. So is there a way midstream to raise the importance of getting it right? Sure. So you mentioned kind of being punitive. What we found is you try to live in that proactive world again. Those are the things we try to address on the front end during design. Bonnie Bray six was a little farther along when we got involved with it, but specifically for the Westgate projects and our Rodney Road East projects, those are things that we're addressing during that design. So bringing in all of our utility contractors, so our franchise utilities as well as our internal stakeholders, identifying those issues, making sure that we have a plan to work around them or that they understand what the construction is. And then also the implementation of our utility coordinator that works on my team to help kind of work through all those problems. As far as being punitive on hitting lines and those things, we just try to be very proactive and make sure everyone's aware of the importance of making sure we're sticking to the schedules, not hitting those lines that would affect road closures and those types of things. But, you know, really just having that communication plan in place so that we understand we understand that those things are going to happen. And, you know, no matter how much planning you do or how much front end, it's it's not perfect. So understanding who to call, who needs to get that information and, you know, and mitigate it as best as possible. Yeah, so I think for me, the difference is you have to evacuate a school potential. Yep. So neighborhood, a house, but dollars, teachers, bus routes, evacuation routes, all the things are constrained in that area. And so that's why I think I mean, I take your take my other question. I guess my follow up to that are the subs in those meetings, right? Because you have the contractors, you have the generals, but do you have the subcontractors or those leads on those teams in those same meetings? Absolutely. So anytime we're working around a high risk. So, you know, a water line that's feeding a school, a gas line, something like that. We're having meetings, you know, to a month, two weeks leading up to that work so that everyone understands the risks. They understand kind of what the plan is to address those things. If we're excavating near some of those things, then we're also communicating out to those utilities. So we'll take Atmos, for example, a high risk gas line, we're going to if we're working right around our line, we're going to have them on site just in case something goes wrong. They're out there. They can quickly mitigate whatever type of issues. Same thing with our water department. You know, we have great partnerships with them. So, you know, we we take those things seriously and we, like I said, try to be in that proactive state, but also be prepared for the worst case scenario. Perfect. And then I like your point about prioritizing the East West Westgate, which is just a lot to say. But so if the whole project's two years, what's your read on that? Because I agree with you, if we can get that up and running, what's that time? Is that one year to get that component done in another year for the other or is it even split? Sure, so without committing myself to any timeline, so the running road east side, that should be relatively simple. We're just talking about, you know, widening that out. Most a lot of that section is already at that width. We're just making a uniform all the way down, you know, probably six to eight months after construction is let, we should have that piece done. I would say on the Westgate piece, I don't know what that phasing looks like. It may look like just connecting that and not connecting the north south piece to it yet. Coming back at a separate time, just so you can't come north and make that turn and just be all the way through. I would say probably a year to probably a year. There's a lot of drainage that's included in that year to 18 months to have that open as well. And just for just for my just because I need to go out there and take a selfie next to it, that little odd job on Windsor. Like you're taking that out. When is that going to go away so I can memorialize that? Sure. So if we're going to prioritize the north, then I can't prioritize the south too. Once in a couple of years. That's going away as part of this project. But, you know, those are the kind of conversations we have with that contractor. We're going to tell them, hey, I want you to concentrate on the north side first. They may come in and say, well, I've got three crews. I can do both at the same time. Hey, that's fantastic. Let's do that. But we want to make sure we give us some relief on that north side during all the construction first. But it won't go away. Just for just for good old times sake, you know, yeah, absolutely. That's the weirdest job ever. OK, any other questions? Great. All good. OK, thank you.