Jun 22, 2024 City Council on 2024-06-22 8:30 AM (City Council Retreat- Day 2)

We're recording. We're recording, but not streaming. Okay, got it. Okay, got it. So we can start. No cap down, I'll let you. Got it. Thank you very much. Okay. So today is Saturday, June 22nd, 2024. It is 8 33 a.m. We do have a forum. So our call meeting the order first item is item a ID two four one zero six six received training whole discussion regarding the city of didn't code of ordinances chapter two article eleven. Hello, Madison didn't say after me to give you the annual ethics ordinance training, which most of you are required to receive every year. I'm not going to read the list, but it's on here. Sorry for the staff members. So today we'll be covering one the ethical expectations laid out by the city's ethics ordinance to the ordinance is mandates and prohibitions or what it requires three house city officials subject to the ordinance can request clarification and on its application and for a quick overview of what happens if an ethics complaint is submitted against you as a city official. To begin the city of Denton's ethics ordinance was adopted in twenty eighteen and was most recently amended in twenty twenty three. This ethics code is intended to foster an environment of integrity for those that serve the city of Denton and its residents by ensuring that decision makers provide responsible stewardship of city resources and assets and providing behavioral guidelines and requirements the key goal of the ethics ordinance is to further public trust in those who govern their community more specifically the ethics ordinance outlines six aspirational. Expectations that are intended to guide city officials and carrying out their duties and these include conducting yourself in a manner that fosters public trust performing your public duties with personal and an organizational integrity avoiding behavior that might call your motives into question in a road public confidence placing the interest and concerns of getting residents above your own valuing honesty, trustworthiness, diligence, objectivity, fairness, efficiency, and credence and balancing transparent. With the duty to protect personal privacy and preserve any confidential information that you have been trusted with all the rest of this training will focus on specific behaviors that city officials must comply with. This is the most important sex of the ethics ordinance if you ever find yourself questioning if a specific action or inaction might be ethical first ask yourself if it would align with these expectations important things to note about these expectations or that they focus not. Just on the way things are, but also on how they appear in addition, the city official has a position of privileges in the community that they must respect serving your community as a city official is an honor that requires integrity and dedication. Now that we've covered the basics of the city ethical expectations get into more specifics the ethics ordinance includes 3 mandates and 9 prohibitions that cover different actions or behaviors that city officials may take. We'll briefly cover them over the next 4 slides and put more detail is obviously available in the actual ethics ordinance. Also, there's like a red light, green light, yellow light stop system and that I'll be discussing somewhat as we move through here. Red lights are basically a hard prohibitions and yellow lights are stop and pause before you proceed. So, beginning with the mandates, the ethics ordinance requires that city officials disclose certain business relationships if they are relevant to a pending matter specifically if a business entity with the pending matter is owned by a city officials business partner. The city official must disclose this relationship to the city secretary and city auditor at least one business day before the meeting where the pending matter will be deliberated all disclosures will be provided to the relevant body for the deliberations. This is a yellow light because you're just required to disclose, but you should consider what you're doing to make sure that it's not actually a conflict of interest before you move forward. In addition, the section requires that city officials comply with any financial disclosures required by Texas state law and that city officials report any person that they know is violated the city ethics ordinance. Not reporting a known violation is itself considered to be a violation of the ordinance. These are red lights. There's not really gray area in the ordinance around these areas. Onto prohibitions or potential city official behaviors that are specifically considered violations for the ethics ordinance. We're good. Okay, beginning with conflicts of interest. Sorry, I got confused. In general, a city official is required to recuse from deliberating on a pending matter if they are their relative, have an interest in a business entity or property that is not general to the public. This type of interest is specifically defined as owning 5% or more of a business entities voting shares or stock owning 600 dollars or more of a business entities fair market value owning 600 dollars or more of the fair market value of real property receiving 600 dollars or more in income from a business entity serving on the board of directors or as an officer of a business entity or nonprofit. Or having solicited received or accepted an offer of employment from a business entity or person in the last 12 months. If you have a conflict of interest as defined on the slide with a pending matter on an agenda, you're required to recuse yourself from the discussion and submit an affidavit of this abstention to me, the city under a pending matter includes an application seeking approval or authorization a proposal to enter into a contract or a case involving the city that is or maybe before a civil criminal or administrative tribunal. Further, it's a violation of the ordinance for current city officials represent a person group or entity before a city board or commission or compensation. This prohibition also applies to former city officials for 1 year after termination of their official duties. Similarly, former city officials are prohibited from negotiate I'm sorry performing compensated work on a city contract or arrangement. If they substantially participated in the negotiation award or administration of the contract, unless this participation was limited to deliberation. I'm sorry, in general, you should recuse if you have a personal economic interest that's not shared by the general public, but this is not specifically called out in the ethics ordinance, while the red lights that are listed are specific provisions. Next, the ethics ordinance prohibits a city official or their relative from accepting any gift that might reasonably influence a city official and just judging their official duties. This is the yellow light to stop and pause to think about again, there might not be specifics for it, but if you think it would influence you, you should still not do it. But specifically, these are the red lights. This prohibits a city official from accepting a single gift valued more than 50 dollars or multiple gifts with a total value of more than 200 dollars. In general, a gift is considered to be anything of monetary value such as cash, property, services, meals, entertainment, or travel related expenses. If a gift is accepted, the city official may remedy the violation by promptly donating it or reimbursing the gift giver the actual or fair market value of the gift. If a gift is accepted, the city official must disclose the acceptance and remedy it by filing a disclosure with the city auditor. The ordinance does allow certain exceptions to the gift prohibition, which are essentially green lights, and those include lawful campaign contributions, expenses related to a city official's travel to a conference or other training event that is connected to business, expenses related to appearances at nonprofit or community events related to city business, complimentary attendance at fundraising events or hospitality functions, complimentary or promotional copies of trade publications or clothing items, or gifts given due to a personal, familial, or professional relationship regardless of the city official's city related duties. So any items that fall under one of those exceptions do not need to be disclosed. However, a city official can choose to do so if they would like to. Next, it's a violation of the ordinance for a city official to misuse the influence or information gained due to their city, their official city position. Specifically, a city official may not use their influence to secure special privileges or treatment for a person, group, or business organization beyond what is normally available or to imply that they can do such things. Further, a city official may not state or imply that they are acting as a representative of the city unless they have been authorized to do so by city council. It's also a violation of the ordinance for a city official, either current or former, to use confidential information gained through their official capacity to advance the personal or private financial interests of themselves or anybody else. So in the ordinance, securing or granting special treatments, there's not specifics listed there, so it's more of a general guideline, but stating that you're acting as a city representative without authorization or using confidential information or specific prohibitions that you should not violate. Last, it is a violation of the ordinance for a city official to abuse the city's resources or the power or privileges granted by their official position. Specifically, a city official should not use, request, or allow the use of city resources such as facilities, personnel, equipment, software, or staff time for private purposes, including political, except to the extent that those are available to other city residents. This is a yellow light because there are times when you might be allowed to use city resources because they're available to other residents like renting a city facility. Similarly, it's a violation of the ordinance for a city official to harass or discriminate against a person based on their ethnicity, race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital or parental status or religion. Further, it is a violation to interfere with the city-related criminal or administrative investigation, including persuading or coercing someone else to withhold their cooperation. These are red lights. It's not considered ethical to do that under the ethics ordinance in any situation. So now that you have an understanding of the expectations, mandates, and prohibitions outlined in the ordinance, if you have a situation where you need additional guidance, you have a few options. So first, if you need help finding a section of the ordinance related to a particular situation or an answer about how to submit disclosures or complaints, you can reach out to me, the city auditor. Second, if you have an attorney, your own personal attorney, they may be able to provide you with an interpretation of the ethics ordinance to help you decide whether to recuse yourself or not in a given situation. And finally, you can also request that the board of ethics issue an advisory opinion, which is intended to answer a question about compliance in a particular situation. The biggest advantage of an advisory opinion is that a city official may use it as an affirmative defense to a submitted ethics complaint if they relied upon it in good faith. To receive an advisory opinion, a city official must submit the request in writing to the city auditor, including relevant details of the situation in question. The city auditor will then communicate the request to the board of ethics chair, who assigns it to a panel of three board of ethics members for review. The panel then has 30 days to issue the advisory opinion once the request is received. Finally, the board of ethics' primary function is to process ethics complaints. There are four phases of the ethics complaint process that I'll now briefly run through. Additional information about the ethics complaint process is available on the city's board of ethics webpage, or can be requested, if you would like, I can provide that to you. So first, the initiation phase. During this period, an individual submits an ethics complaint using the prescribed form to me, the city auditor. This complaint form should be accompanied by any evidence, such as images, videos, or documentation that the complainant has to support their allegations and must be sworn to in front of a notary. The city auditor then determines if the ethics complaint is administratively complete, but does not make any judgment on the complaint's merits. If a complaint is accepted, a copy is forwarded to the complainant, the respondent, and the board of ethics chair, who then assigns it to a preliminary assessment panel. During the preliminary assessment phase, a panel of three board of ethics members reviews the submitted ethics complaint and determines if it is actionable or baseless. A complaint is actionable if, on its face, the behaviors alleged in the complaint would constitute a violation of the ordinance. The panel may also recommend that a hearing be held to determine if a complaint is frivolous instead of determining if it is actionable or baseless. The outcome of the preliminary assessment is communicated to the complainant and responded by the city auditor. If the complaint is determined to be baseless, the process stops, though the complainant may submit a written appeal within 10 business days, which will then initiate the hearing phase. During the hearing phase, the board of ethics schedules an evidentiary hearing and may request additional documentary evidence or issue subpoenas to require individuals to testify. The complainant must attend and testify at this hearing and may also present any additional evidence that they have gathered. In addition, the respondent may provide testimony and evidence for the board's consideration. Both the complainant and respondent have a right to be represented by legal counsel or another representative at the evidentiary hearing, and based on this hearing, the board will determine if a violation of the ordinance has occurred and if so, they may issue a sanction. Once the board has decided on the ethics complaint, the complainant and respondent both have five business days to submit any new evidence and request a reconsideration in writing with the city auditor. The board of ethics chair will review the reconsideration request and will unilaterally determine if a new hearing is warranted based on the submitted evidence. So if during the evidentiary hearing, the board of ethics finds that a violation of the ethics ordinance has occurred, they may issue one of four sanctions based on the city officials' perceived intent on the seriousness of the violation. This decision process is generally illustrated in this decision matrix on the slide, but I'm not really going to go through it. If the board decides to impose a sanction, the city official will be notified within ten days by the city auditors. And then congratulations, we completed the annual ethics ordinance training, and I'll have a question that I can answer now. Any questions? Madison, I'll just let you call on people that's easier in this format, you know, so questions for Madison. I heard you use the term perceived intent, who makes the determination that it's perceived in a certain kind of way, can there be additional conversations with that individual before? Yeah, so I use that term in reference to how the board of ethics determines what type of sanction to issue, so that would occur after the evidentiary hearing has been completed. So in theory, the respondent who the sanction would be issued against would have had an opportunity to basically state their case, present testimony and evidence against what they did and why they did it, so that explains basically why their intent behind the action. Their perception by the board is still how they're determining at what level that is. Does that answer your question? Yeah, and I kind of know, of course that's fairly obvious, but I think I was leaning towards the appeal. Do you appeal it to say that, hey, the board did not understand my intentions or is that already taken care of? So there is a- I mean, it's like, it's the last, this is it. Yeah, so after the evidentiary hearing, you have five business days to basically, the board will make their decision after the hearing. The respondent or complainant then has five business days to basically do sort of an appeal, they call it reconsideration, but they can basically present additional evidence. And if the way the process currently works, if the board of ethics chair believes that that evidence, I don't remember the word it used, but basically if it has enough significance that they should have another hearing, they can call it. If not, they'll just dismiss it and say, we already decided. The current process. Yes, Council Member Jesper. Thank you. Can you remind me, what are the qualifications for someone to serve on the board of ethics? I don't believe there are any special qualifications apart from what is just generally required, which I'd have to- And that's okay. No, I know I'm trying to- I think you have to be a resident is basically it. Residency and 18 and a half. Is there any reason why the city's attorney's office is not involved or have a representative present at these to advise what is legally possible? Because I'm also wondering, what is the statute, the basis of a subpoena, where that authority comes from? I don't know where that authority comes from. And again, I know I'm- Yeah, I mean, I guess it comes to the ordinance. I don't know how, or, you know, in theory, that's where it comes from. There is, the city attorney's office does have a representative at every board of ethics meeting and for- I'm sorry, the city attorney's office has a representative at every board meeting? Yeah, every board of ethics meeting. And for any complaints or advisory opinions process for a city council member, we actually hire an outside legal attorney to advise the board at that point due to potential conflicts of interest. And that attorney, what area of law is- I think it's like ethics, municipal ethics. So municipal law. Right, she works with a firm that actually drafted the ordinance. Oh, I would love to meet with her. I don't believe she was involved in drafting the ordinance, but she does work for that firm. And what, do you know the name of that firm? It's Alan Borquez's firm. I think it's called Borquez. Yeah, I think it's called Borquez law firm. I'm sorry, out of Boston? Oh, Austin, thank you. Thank you so much, I'm good, thank you so much. Any other questions? Okay, very good, thank you very much. I do have a piece of paper for everybody to sign who is required to have the meeting. Oh man, I'm signing away my insurance policy, my personal insurance policy for my kids, that's okay. [inaudible] [inaudible] Thank you so much, that's always been that. I like your shirt, that's cool. Yeah, we have to get you a shirt. Wait, is that against the ethics? Well, I just assumed you were in trouble, and you were in trouble, and you're in trouble, and you're in trouble. You just keep wearing it. I'm so scared right now, I'm like, I can't buy something like that. I mean, I just want to follow the rules, that's all. Shirts are under the phrase over there. [inaudible] I think it's unethical for the shirts to be the same color as the emblem. I think it's unethical to look really good in the shirt, because I don't look good in those types of shirts. Oh good, good. [inaudible] [inaudible] I don't want him to jump ahead and get into the data just yet. Yes, we do actually. We're going to get there, I just don't want you to get there just yet. I want to know the alpha and the beta on every single item. We will get there, and I will give these to you when we get there, I promise. [inaudible] I need to know more about this Uber service though. Does it go to Temple? It goes from development services to Miss Angelina's. [inaudible] What's the frequency? You know you don't get picked up, there's no schedule in advance. It's not round trip. I'm going to leave you behind. And the fine for throwing up in my car afterwards is really high. It should be, it should be. I'm headed to a resort city here on Sunday, and the city manager there said, "Just so you know, Uber's not a thing." I was like, "What?" Because there's an airport, and she said, "No, it's not a thing." Because you have people, and it's like, "Oh, I'll pick up a fare here or I'll pick up a fare there." But not anything consistent, so she said, "Don't even try it." Yeah, like, where is Uber not? It's everywhere. Can you knock down your resort city? I can ask them. It just sounds pretentious. I was trying to avoid sounding pretentious, and then I get to ask. And you think a resort city sounded less pretentious? You're right. It was Marcos, our friend. Shout out to that. I'm going to a ski area in Switzerland. I'm most excited that the highs were like 72. It's like 72 for a high during the day while I'm there, so I'm excited about that. As it was already above that when we woke up this morning here. You're going there in this kind of capacity, or just to enjoy it? Yeah. Yeah, I've never been to Aspen. I've only made it to Dale and Beaver Creek. I've never made it around the realm. What's the hotel downtown you're supposed to stay at? The Jerome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dumb and Dumber. That's how I know it. It's from the movie Dumb and Dumber. Everything I know about Aspen. And is that where you're staying, I hope? No, no. It's high season there. That's where all the coolness is. Yeah, it's an interesting time there. COVID changed their population a lot with a lot of people having owned residences, but not having residency. And those folks, now that COVID has happened and they're working more remotely, have sort of moved in. So it's a different population, a different mindset. So they're having a lot of struggles getting through that. So it should be interesting. It's always interesting. What is it, Aspen and like West Aspen or East Aspen or-- Okay. Sorry, we'll sidebar later. We'll talk on the southeast side. Okay, item B, ID 241067, hold a retreat workshop and discussion facilitated by Strategic Government Resources, Inc. and give staff direction priorities regarding government governance, challenges, policy development, and specific goals for 2024-2025. All right. Well, thank you all for all of your time in advance of this retreat. You gave me a lot of information that you'll see presented here in a little bit, trying to kind of piece together community wants, your wants, cities' wants, and then what we really can afford in moving forward. So we'll spend most of our time today on the priorities, that long, long, long list that you all have. We'll talk about best practices and then we'll try to figure out what the best path forward for this group and your opinion is. But first, I want to start with just a quick review of some governance principles. We're not going to go through a big presentation like we did last night, but in talking with you all in advance, there still seems to be a feeling that there is a lot of friction amongst the board. There still seems to be kind of a divide and where a divide is not a bad thing, meaning that we have differences of opinions and votes swing certain ways. It is a bad thing when we are not able to communicate through those. So just in review, and then I want us to have just a little conversation if there's anything we need to talk about related to governance policies, governance issues, specific issues that we want to work through. We'll do that here at the beginning so that we can move forward in a more cohesive manner throughout the day. So we're going to get through the governance review, then we will move into Sarah's going to give a quick update on the financial picture, really what money we have moving into this next budget year and what we have that it's available to spend on some of these priorities that don't necessarily fit within the line item budget as it's presented. We'll talk about the priorities as they exist and really trying to craft good solid priorities and prioritizing the priorities so that the city staff has a better concept of what is most important and where they should focus their efforts most immediately. And then there will be a presentation at the end related to the two minute pitch, which has been one of those little problematic items that I've heard from many of you. So I think there's some suggestions on how to move forward with that. So we've got a lot to get through, but we're going to start with this. And, you know, this is really meant to be conversational. You have a new member here on your board. This is an opportunity for us to kind of come to you. Jill, that's you. Oh, yes. It's an opportunity for her to hear, for you all to speak, for you all to kind of congeal as a team if that is the will of the body. But really, why is good governance important? Why do we spend time talking about these things every year? Number one is to eliminate ambiguity. If we can set the rule book and we can follow the rule book and the public understands the rule book, we have eliminated all of that gray area where it feels like there's gamesmanship going on. Doesn't mean we agree with everything, but if we can support the policy and we can support the procedure, we can stand behind the integrity of the decision. Setting those standards and expectations. If we're all playing by different rule books, then how are we to know if we are playing by the right set of rules? Really trying to get the focus on the issues, the common issues that we're dealing with and not personal agendas. You'll see when I present some of the material here later that there are some items of priority that are just one member's priority and that is not the will of the body, but we may be spending a lot of time on those. And so really what we want to do is figure out what is most in common so we can focus our efforts most specifically on those and then fit in the other pieces where we have availability resource. It also helps speed the process. If we all know what procedures need to be taken, if we know what steps have to be followed, we can put all of those things in motion in a more seamless manner. It allows staff to plug it into their daily workload and bring it back to you in the most expedient manner possible. Enhancing the quality of decisions made. If governance exists and it's in a good format and one that works for you all as a group, it allows for that healthy deliberation. It allows for the differences to be aired. It allows for a solid decision to be made. And hopefully it allows for everyone to unite once the decision is made and move forward. Rather than continuing to try to change opinions or change the decision. And ultimately, it's really trying to move the community in the future. Everything you're doing is not a one-year decision, it shouldn't be. It should be a 100-year decision. I mean, that's really the power that you all have as counselors is to be making these very long-term decisions. And if we're making decisions that are only good for the short term, we may be selling our residents short and the long term. Good governance leaders are expected to be external communicators. You should be stating your position. You should be talking to your constituents. You should be explaining issues. You should be asking for input and information. You should be explaining those processes to folks. I always use this example that every time Mrs. Jones calls and says, "I want you to fix that pothole in my street." And you say, "Okay." And you call the city manager and say, "I want that pothole fixed in Mrs. Jones street." You might have skipped seven other people that have been waiting in line, going through the correct channel, going through the reporting process, doing all of the right things, unknown to you. But because you have the power as a council person to influence an action, you may in fact be harming those seven people that have been waiting patiently in line by putting this other person first. And so if we're not teaching those folks and those opportunities how to use the system appropriately, they will continue to call you. And yes, it feels good. It feels great to be able to rectify someone's issue or problem. But that's not honoring the system. And it's also not giving the best service to all residents. It's giving the best service to one resident. Internal communicators, saying what you think to each other, not holding back and waiting for an opportune moment to say, "Well, this is what I really thought." Really trying to give that information. When you're hearing things in your circles, when you're hearing things in the community, bringing those things back to your city manager or city staff, the worst thing a staffer wants is to be caught off guard. They want to know. They would rather know that there's this groundswell happening over here than it pop up at a council meeting and be surprised by it. It's the same with you all. You'd rather hear it from your staff than read it in the newspaper the next morning, I suspect. And so that internal communication piece is so important. Fiduciary overseers. So I believe you all received a financial... Remind me, Sarah, what's the correct term? There was some sort of presentation about... Oh, the last council meeting, they were given sort of an overview by the chief financial officer of kind of where we are. And then we haven't received our complete tax rolls. So kind of what we're looking at. And we'll talk a little bit more about that today as Sarah is developing her budget to present to you all. She wants to give you some specifics and give you some information related to what money we have and sort of where it's planning to go and how that aligns with the priorities that we'll talk about. But fiduciary overseers does not mean counting pennies. It really means making sure that the system itself is supporting itself. You're not overspending. You're not making short-term financial decisions that have long-term impacts. It's things like making sure that the audit is complete so that we know that money is being spent appropriately. And you all approve one of those every year, I suspect, like most cities do. But really, it's making sure that the system is solvent and can support all of the things that we want to do and not overspending our resources or stepping beyond those. Policy developers, obviously you all get to set policy. That is your privilege and that is the expectation in the governance system. And so good policy requires good debate, it requires good research, it requires good input from interested parties. And then once that policy is set, it's to you to uphold it. It's to you to say it is currently working, it is not working, we need to change it or that's the policy and we're sticking to it. Information system overseers, you know, transparency is that big word. And government drives me crazy. May drive you all crazy, but transparency is the word. Making sure that information is made available and appropriate to the right audiences. I mean, this meeting, for instance, I know we're recording it, not streaming it live, but it will be presented to the public following this. But it's also things like, you know, filling out your paperwork correctly, disclosing your ethical obligations. Any of those sorts of things that provide the integrity to the system, it's when it's murky, it's when it's kind of gray or in the background when people start to add assumptions. So the more of this we can do up front and in the light of day, the better. The less assumption and appearance of impropriety there is. Priority setters, that's what we're going to talk about today. You know, cities have a bazillion things and I'm not joking, y'all have a list of a hundred, I'm going to say it wrong, 67? - 39. - 139. I don't know where I got 67. 139 priorities, which is a lot. As well as the day-to-day obligations of the city staff and what they're supposed to be doing. So it's really to you to say this is where we want to focus our efforts because this is where we think the efforts spent will take Denton in a better direction. And then strategic visionaries, you know, really looking long-term and trying to figure out what do we want Denton to be? Where do we want Denton to go over the next 100 years? That's where you're headed. These aren't, you know, 20-year businesses that you're hoping to sell off to some other company. I mean, you really do have an obligation for long-term. I mean, you probably have buildings in the city that are older. Certainly you do. Older than 100 years old. How old is Denton? - 1896? - 1896. - Yeah, you take 66. - Okay. - It's old. - Yeah, it's old. - 1866. - And so now, of course, it would have been incorporated probably much later than that. However, you still have to think that if we've come this far, we need to be thinking that it's going to go at least that far into the future unless the state of Texas decides to dissolve cities in total. Gosh, you guys have been fighting with me for saying that out loud. It feels like it sometimes, doesn't it? - That's not medical. - So it requires focusing on the future, understanding our specific roles, you know, policy, developers, overseers. Sara is the operational lead. Respecting that even if we don't necessarily like the person who's sitting in the seat, we respect the seat because they were duly elected and they have power. They have a power that was granted by the residents. And so, you know, moving through this and recognizing that one person does not make a consensus and does not make a vote, a majority vote, and we really have to look for those areas of commonality so that we can make those public votes and stand up those new policies or programs or facilities or services. Respecting each other, again, you know, we all have differences of opinions. You all have just been through an election cycle that always leaves a little bad taste in people's mouths. And so, you know, regardless of whether we like each other as people, respecting the fact that that person was elected and has a seat and has a voice at this table is really important. Again, adopting and upholding policies and processes. So, we can adopt a policy and then look for all the gray areas to work around it. That's not upholding the intent of it. And so, the more of that people see publicly, the more confusing and gray and murky it becomes because it's like, "Well, but I thought the policy said, but there's an exception over here." So, really, it's to you if you adopted it to really kind of stand firm and say, "You know, we adopted this as a group, and if we need to revise it, we'll have that discussion at the dais." But until that point, I'm going to stick by what the body decided and move forward in that way consistently. Thoughtful deliberation. Last night, Ron said something that I wrote down, and I'll point it out to you here in just a second. But he said, "Hunanimous decisions, it's no longer a thing." And it's not. And I would have told you that today, regardless of whether he said it last night. I worked with a council... I'll just... I'll just out everybody. Amarillo. They're not in office anymore. I worked with Amarillo a couple of years ago and then last year. And they had a group of council that had been together all along for... They all got elected together, they all stayed together, and then they started turning off. And there was one new member who came in. And the mayor based her success... Yeah, he's not mayor. Yeah, we'll talk about that. Sorry. The mayor based her feeling of success and failure on unanimous votes. That is old style thinking. When the public sees unanimous votes, they think rubber stamp. They think good old voice system doing it again. It's just not the way of the world anymore. Yes, most everything that you have is probably the really kind of fundamental operational stuff that comes before you are probably going to be unanimous votes, consent agenda type items, those kinds of things. And that's fine. That's okay. That's right. But when it comes to the big issues, if I see a 7-0 vote every single time, I'm going to start wondering what's up. Because that's not the way the world is. The world is divided. And he spoke to some of that last night. And so the real challenge here is to not get into this mentality of shut down debate. I have my votes. Let's shut down debate and move on. That allows that boogeyman thing to kind of creep in where it's why won't they talk about it? So where you may feel like you're moving it forward and you're taking action, it's kind of counterintuitive. Yes, if you're all together, people have suspicions. But then if there's no debate, no full deliberation of an item, they also have suspicion. So really what I'm trying to get at here is this thoughtful deliberation where we've built a system that allows all of the science to be here and all of the discussion to be had in the long of day. So that people can't just say, oh, well, they just shut it down because they didn't like it. So we have to be conscious of the appearance in the public knowing that we live in a very divided world these days teamwork. Again, don't have to all be best friends, but it's great if we're playing by the same rule book and we're all going to the same goal toward the same goal and talking with you all. And when I asked you kind of like the big legacy question or, you know, what long term you want to be known for, what you want the council to be known for, everybody in more or less these words said they want to make dent in a better place. That's a pretty consistent goal, right? Now, we all have different ideas of how we get there. But if we can start with the assumption that the person at the table next to me has that same baseline goal in their mind and not assume that they're trying to, you know, chase some personal agenda, then we've moved the needle a little bit. We've at least come from a positive assumption rather than the negative and making someone an adversary, because ultimately it does take the majority of you and hope in some instances, a super majority and in some instances, all of you to make this thing go. And so whatever we can do to kind of patch up and plug in some of the gaps and misfires that we've had along the way is going to help and trust. So trust, I know this group dynamic and I'm not saying that Joe, you have to immediately trust Jill. I mean, I'd advise it because I think she's still like, I'm just kidding. I don't play favorites. But what you do, what we do want you to do is have a system that you trusted. Trust that that person is trying to do what they think is right. Trust that they're trying to play by the same set of rules. Trust that we are all trying to get to a decision point on the other end. And trust that regardless of which way the outcome goes, that we're going to continue to move forward and try to continue to make it in a better place. So it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be, you know, I would trust you with my life. You know, you may, some of you, I don't know, but we do want to trust that the other wants what's best for them and we need to trust that they trust the system. Because as soon as we start saying, well, you know, they didn't do this or they didn't do that or they didn't follow this rule, now you've made the public distrust system potentially. And that is where the distrust in government comes. You saw the examples last night that Ron gave of being sued by the residents because they didn't involve people in the comprehensive cleaning processes the right way. I think I may have told you all the story last year. We had seven council members recalled and kicked out of office for six months in my city. Because it was a, it was a city manager firing situation. And there was, no, I'm sorry, six and the mayor, the mayor's state. So there were no seven, eight, the mayor was eight. It was seven members and the mayor. So we lost all of them. There was an election. So they put one person back in because there was somebody who was opposed. The other people were not. and the newspaper ran the campaign against the the father of recall ended up getting elected into a seat following all of that the guy that led the charge but guess what happened for 10 years after that for 10 years after that i got to field the questions and see the headlines recall city council blah blah blah forensic audit blah blah blah stolen money blah blah blah all referencing back to this because it had created such a distrust in the city government that before that did not have it and i will tell you why it is because they elected to have the city manager leave um behind closed doors and never never said to the public this is why this is why we're paying this amount of money they let it just be assumptions across the community and what happened was a recall election so i know the staffers are like how does that work we pre-approved everything that was already in the budget knowing that they were there was a good chance they were going out and then we just trusted that the new council would ratify uh what we had and the forensic audit produced not one cent of misappropriated funding after we spent seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars trying to figure out if it did so that's what this is my cautionary tale about why we just want to really try to be as objective and as forthright and as open and transparent as we possibly can because it takes one misstep and you heard a story about it last night to just erode the entire system and it's decades before that is corrected i was actually part of the plaino um he talked about that they had sent out these community listening sessions which they did during the chaos that they were going through well they did another round after to see what the temperature of the community was and i actually participated in those and they were successful in recovering um fairly well fairly quickly um but it it was certainly not as a nasty situation as we had been in but you know if you just think about the power of the people and the people can say i think you're running a shady business not only does that jeopardize your term in office but it's the reputation of the entire staff too because if what people think is that you're not doing a good job or you're doing something that is you know ripe with malfeasance they think the whole thing is corrupt and so again just trying to be as open and deliberative and honor the systems and processes is is what will continue this for regardless of your differences of opinion people expect the split boats i'll show you a statistic here in just a second but if you can't trust the system the public can't trust the system so it's to you to build the system and create the system and reinforce the system that's in place for the betterment of the entire community i will stop lecturing you right now but are there any things we need to talk about specific to governance any issues frictions problems thoughts disagreements give me anything that you're thinking yeah please jeff uh one of the very very first things you mentioned the pothole exam and i want you to correct me if i'm wrong i i have had a terrific relationship with getting constituents that that to use a pothole as an example hey there's a pothole on hobson lane and i've sent it to to sarah and within minutes typically but certainly very promptly i get a reply go to hell or no that's not what she says i'm just kidding about that i'm just kidding she says she says we'll we'll get on it yeah record that we'll we'll get on that and and and it gets results now i have never thought that that was inappropriate it's right well you're putting it in the system because she knows the system she's going to work the system and she's going to put it in the right um order so you're actually funneling it correctly it's when you call the public works director and say you need to get that pothole on whatever fix well let me put another tip when i'll use jesse davis as an example former council member he notified me of a stop sign that had been knocked out not not a lot of stops well that to me is high as priority ever because somebody's going to run to that hurt someone pothole can be the same thing uh cause someone to go and swerve and then an accident occurs so i i immediately tried to address those things that could in my mind have that issue of that could cause a problem that could cause cause the car to divert could it all sorts of things so yeah i admit i'd get anything from any of you i try to put it into the system and then we our staff who i'm very proud of and who do a great job uh take it on to get out there and get it fixed to get the stop it wasn't even our stock sign by the way i think it was the county's but we went out and put it back up because that's the right thing to do okay but if the system is that i take these things and i send them to sarah and sarah clothes them inappropriately that's the appropriate system the system is not to step out of line and go over to the streets crew leader and say hey i see you out there go fix that pothole while you're here well and the cool thing about this is that frankly this makes me look great because because because there's an action immediately uh the the situation gets rectified and they think joe did something special but you know she also she also knows if that street in particular is scheduled next week to have resurfacing done so the appropriate action might be for that day to go put cones around it uh because they know they're about to repave that street but she has that kind of depth of information through her staff that you as a council person aren't expected to have and so she is is the appropriate person if that is the system to be making those decisions and plugging into the system so that's absolutely right very good very good yeah that was really one of the first questions that i asked when i got on board um was what is our um you know what types of things do we send directly uh and you know who do i send it to so uh my first question was answer was that send everything to co but i've come to find out that um i don't have to do that because i do use the engage didn't app and the engage didn't app also does the same thing by immediate response now the thing is is that what things are sent in versus what can i use we're engaged in because i get you know council member bird there's probably my street engaged in now it comes right um i'm getting ready to tell somebody right now and and i can tell that it's going to be responding to me the next day or two yeah so what i do is i send in those uh larger community oriented type complaints yeah and then i use engaged in for smaller things but here's the thing is i believe that everything that we send to uh the city manager's office is noted some kind of weight on a percentage thing that we get every how do we know how many times we contact the city yeah we give a matrix yeah a little matrix and then that kind of it tells us it tells me which council members are are it kind of shows which council members are more active right or just which council members have sent in more things and sometimes the mayor has a lot of things there so he apparently sends in everything through there whereas i may have just two things that are bigger for me in my mind uh and it shows that i and it is luckily i can understand but i'm not sure if everybody you know is capturing that but it does appear to the public that i may not be as engaged uh because it's shown here they only put in two things right and someone else may put in six things or seven things or five things and i like for us to you know dive into that a little bit more because if i can put in something such as a pot hole or um right now i want to put in something about a sidewalk you know that's uneven yeah the only reason i say that i mean the health and safety stuff but everything's kind of like health and safety and i think the best way to do it unless you feel you know and one thing you want to encourage residents to use engaged yes if they feel if they feel that they can do that too but if you feel there's something like an uneven sidewalk that is a safety issue particularly with some with mobility challenges so we you know now the question is is on the public side because here's the other thing if it's a sidewalk in front of someone's house or something that is their responsibility in many cases so you may hear back from us that uh that would be the homeless responsibility if it's in a public area we're responsible so the best thing to do is send it to us through the cmo if it's something like that then we will as you know we're pretty quick about or to me and then i i get it to the appropriate staff who does an investigation like farhan would do and look at it to see what we need to do but in in the case of joe when he talks about some things um we sometimes have to ask farhan who is our transportation expert to go out and do an assessment of that area which he's done on many occasions and does a fantastic job it takes us about a week but we're able to recognize is there an issue there is there a blind spot doesn't need better signage those are things we need to know because we want to avoid any kind of safety issue there you know anywhere so just you just let them know so uh we can um we can recommend that we send all the health and safety stuff to record to you all or from you as a councilman as a council member yeah we need to be cognizant that we're sending health and safety stuff directly to see absolutely and then some of the other frivolous type things uh which you know oh there's water pooling up and at the end of my street well we might want to know about that but the other thing is my playground yeah yeah that goes to engage see and so that's what we'll kind of have to come to with the sisters as to what we're going to send the cmo versus what we can do to engage them that's what does everybody else think what do you all think about that no yeah okay i'm just glad to know from your point of view sarah i'm just me personally and maybe others would then relate do you feel that we're using the cmo channel inappropriately no i don't think it's inappropriate at all i mean i think uh one thing is it encourage residents if you can if it's not what you think an earth-shattering situation but when it's drainage issue flood roads when it's uh signage it's down when it's a pothole or there's been accidents that you've witnessed that there needs to be an investigation we we need to know that as soon as possible if it's something that is like a residence asking when am i going to get a new playground replacement that could be an engaged hit or you can send it to the cmo we're going to answer it either way those may take us a little bit longer because we're going to look up when's the master plan do we have a match plan what is it state or we're just in the process because several parts are getting ready to do new playgrounds i think it's either way we're going to answer it so i don't feel like it's being used inappropriate i mean christine cassie you jump in here christy but i don't feel like it is what do you all think i think health and safety absolutely we want to know immediately so we can fix it so sarah what's that list what is in your mind what is your list of health and safety so they have i mean anything that you could really it's anything that you could think of that might cause an issue sidewalks even if it's not ours it is incumbent upon us to make sure the homeowner knows it's their responsibility a tree down and there's a question of whether it's on city property or it's the homeowners responsibility we spent a lot of time dealing with that through this recent storm if if i mean even to the point of someone's complaining that we haven't picked up their trash that's not health and safety but it could be and and we need to answer that did did we already make a swoop they came in and put their trash can out at 11 o'clock we picked it up at 7 a.m we need to answer that question so in in even senses of whether it's not health and safety related engaged in it could be the one that answers the question about the trash but the other side of this is i want to be able to get back to the citizen which is the council member who has to get back to the citizen and i don't want it to take a week to do that and i i have a rule of 24 24 hours of trying to respond to get to these things because that's how you build citizen support and that's how council members are seen as being responsive and that's the name of the game so to speak i'm not trying to i don't play the politics but i know it's important for us so i don't feel like there's any um and we'll say to you if we do think it's not a health and safety and it could wait a little bit we'll say okay we'll get on in here and just uh we're picking up all the debris and everything around the storm we'll get right on as soon as we can um but most of the things they send like grass and weeds grass and weeds that could be engaged in right if it's a danger yeah i feel like but again someone might say i can't see turning around there you go i've reported this and no one's gotten back to me but what i love to tell you is that engaged in is built like all of these customer relationship management systems i assume where it gives an immediate response of what the policy is or it pops up it should it does not so it doesn't send a response that says um it's just kind of message received okay is there is is that a is that a possibility in your system let me uh let me i mean uh share my experience with engaged in initially when i started using engaged in it would say received and then in the same at the same time it'll say closed yeah but i made that you know known and i can tell you that now they come back and they follow up and it's a it's like a personalized like somebody's there emailing and saying okay we're going to do this on this day here's the problem and this is what we're going to do so i really appreciate the engaged in map more so now yeah i think that that was a privilege that i had to be able to go in and say hey we need more information because they're telling me that it's received and then same kind of they're telling me that it's closed and i think i think that we've stumbled on something that's pretty important here we're encouraging people to use engaged in but engaged in is not giving them the feedback that a human would or giving more information then then sometimes people feel like they're being sent into this need and not not getting what they need so i want christine to talk about what we're getting what we have now that we're working on which is 3-1-1 not 911 but 3-1-1 which we've worked very hard on so that citizens will get those uh persons to talk to real person real time yeah so we're working on implementing that system right now with engagement platform if a request comes in it's manually routed to the corresponding department so it is essentially kind of answered in a vacuum but they are typically the pot hole or work order type things so 3-1-1 we have uh we're getting a platform which all those requests will come through it will be a 24-hour eventually call center they'll speak to a live representative or can still use the online if they don't want to speak to somebody that way we have start building those responses and it's operators that are answering those questions you can help so versus us going to the department back to department it will have a seamless kind of workflow and we've already taken two or three departments online with it and essentially the users have not seen a change it's more of an internal better better access to resources but engaged in is utilized very well and i think the questions that come in typically from council members for us are we're able to give that higher level perspective with the acms and the city manager to prevent you know the department's able to do their job and we're able to give them that answer that they've probably gotten from multiple constituents and that can turn around i think i think it's important for them to know if i release my control of the issue to a system or to sarah or to whatever what happens because sarah's office i suspect there's a little bit of a lag in the turnaround yeah it's going to be it's going to take 10 minutes 15 an hour two days who knows whatever the issue is where if there are those opportunities for the person to get the immediate response immediate feedback that heard i know someone saw this i didn't just get thrown into this vacuum of long list of people in line whatever those human elements are that's what i hate to even bring up ai but there are those types of functions that exist now in some of those systems that start to to give you more of that feedback because that's what people want they want the immediate information so i think it's important to have this conversation and figure out what the correct balance is and it sounds like right now it is if in your determination it's life and safety or health and safety what so i just so it comes in and we have a team of employees i see it the assistant city managers see it frank sees that he's not here he's on vacation but and then we got we we log it immediately so that it doesn't get lost somewhere and then somebody's like where's my what happened and then it's sent to the appropriate department to address who says we're getting ready to resurface that road in on friday and we get back to the council member immediately and say we don't we're not just going to fill the pie hole we're going to do the whole road so that the council member can get back to that constituent now in a case of and i can use council member beck called me on a weekend we had a neighborhood that was flooding particularly one neighbor where because of a contractor it blocked the drain it was backing up in the person's yard well i want to be called so i can get that the group of employees out there to try to resolve this so it's not causing any more harm to their home their backyard and those kinds of things so and that was a contractor the city had hired so we have a responsibility to say get out there clean out the the area so i just honestly i don't there's very few times i feel like it was immaterial not important and if they're hearing from a constituent it's important to them and so we try to address it as best we can and and try to get out there and fix the issues and if there's just specific questions those are the things that we can get to the next day or whatever but we still try to do a 24-hour turnaround i want to push back just a little bit because i know that y'all are logging it and i think that that's great but a lot of the things that like we're talking about like potholes and stuff all that the way that they are informed with those things they are engaged in primarily like we're not really going around driving around looking for potholes we get them we shouldn't so what's your point right my point is like it doesn't sound like y'all are putting it in engaged in so then we're we're missing some of the work flow inputs basically because we're not tracking them in the system that we're tracking everything else what we're engaged in isn't the asset management system so you know our stuff go put in city works when you see a work order system it's in a workforce system it'll get into i think that it has a different tone when it comes from y'all but that's fine well a good point and if that's the case then i would say i think that's a good reason it was brought up then we need to know if it's some of those kinds of issues so that it goes into the different system so that it's i know i mean first straight since we're talking about potholes they have one crew that's specific for more rapid response those types of issues that come up so we can't address them quickly it's not like we're pulling off four four crews just to respond to this one pothole so we've we've created the system internally to allow for those types of issues and react to them but i do think with our 3-1-1 system there will be a system of logging as well so that all any kind of issues addressed is important and one of the things we need to look at then is we need to pull that information so we have the data this is not just the ones that were brought to our attention but how many potholes did we deal with um i would have i would say though Madison to you that if it's an issue by a citizen that's complaining about a pothole and it's been there a while it's going to get to a council member who's going to tell us about it especially if it's been it hasn't been dealt with well and one of the i mean i guess what i'm talking about is like one of the things that we look at from the potted side is like let's track from engaged it into this to asset work or cartograph whatever system it is and see how fast and and so if it's not going in we can't always track some of that because like especially if it is from y'all because that's not really documented and engaged in wow okay well we just need to look at that one that's a good point it just it just seems like it's a reach around and so are uh one of the things i wanted to make sure that i was doing was not you know overusing my privilege uh on something that could be just an engaged didn't thing uh i don't know if i necessarily am concerned about my reputation and getting something done but i can definitely put it in engaged didn't at least and i appear to misuse my privilege of going directly to cmo unless it's a it's a a serious type thing you know like someone uh is using an ordinance or something to that effect so uh you know it's a good conversation here i don't like the volume of questions we get are work order related yeah they're typically you know what's in the works what's the project what's the yeah that's i was i was gonna actually i'm glad you said that because that was the play was going to make it does seem like there's a difference between filing a ticket on a work order request um which i have done both in cmo's emails and uh i signed up for second engaged dentin account under my city email oh now we know he's got a handle well no i don't i don't want my trash issues as a citizen mcwellald with council issues but um so but the the point was there's there's a difference between the ticketing system so i think for the three one but we're also going to the three one one system right so doing too many changes to the old system is is yeah may not be a lot of gain if we're gonna need it yeah no that's why i want to look at it and pull some of the data so we have it from previous but i think once we start with a full blown three one one system we'll be able to track all of that and then we can mirror it up to any cmo request and to see if we're missing something but um i was gonna say i don't have i haven't i i love the dialogue but i i think engaged in and the the cmo balance is really good the cmo emails can be big ticket or emergency things a policy or or you know i found this this danger in in the community and then the work orders at the i mean i think it's really well balanced and i send citizens to engaged in constantly all the time everywhere i think i think the balance works really well we can make it better with three one one uh for some for auto trailing but um i think it's i think it's good to hear that the cmo deals that the system is working which you've also got a new member that's listening in on this conversation and learning how to to do business so if if what we're if what we're dealing with right now is working as a system and we all believe that the system works and it can be improved then then i think that's a that's a good spot to be um you mentioned something else vicki about uh the reports and the reports looking like some people made more requests than others did you have any more on that that that you wanted to know uh you know if i was sensitive to it uh you know it would be a concern it's not a concern it's just it is what it is but i was just wondering if it balanced out and this is why they engage denton versus contacting cmo you could see it are we seeing that on the report so you have you know pothole pothole pothole and this this council member has put in 10 you know 10 things but this other council member is doing potholes potholes through engaged didn't which is not showing up on that you know on that report so um i just wanted to make sure that we understood that you know when in the community whoever else is reading the report i don't know but it is taking a look at it from that perspective now all of this is all the reports and maybe this individual doesn't use engaged in they just go through cmo for everything but i've determined that you know i i contact cmo when i have a big thing it's not necessarily a bottle but i think it does bring out that there are a few different systems that are being tracked maybe somewhat in isolation when it comes to the public facing part or the the reporting part and so it sounds like maybe marrying those in a way that is more reflective of of the information you're talking about could be a potential okay anybody else have anything else related to governance that we want yeah paul yeah i mean just to close out that one i don't know i don't know if it's hard to do but if it's a matter of like a public facing document showing like you did good stuff for constituents maybe the council address engaged in submissions could show up on that report uh that's i mean how hard that would be or what the best i could just let that out there the other issues you you've caught my attention with your story about how it blew up that there was a high level change you know that was done with the public and i'm very curious to hear your thoughts on how it could be done different you know sometimes and everyone here will know that i'm alluding to if you have a high level change it's an hr thing which like explicitly kind of for the benefit of that person right don't want to you know you want to deal with it delicately so is that the kind of situation that blew up this was and how would you do it different he had a two-year buyout by contrast which you don't see those very often anymore and you certainly don't see them in the city that i came from um and so that was number one and i will never forget this number it was five hundred fifty five thousand dollars i will never forget that number because i had to repeat it so many times uh this was your this was 2011 so it was a while ago a while ago yeah so two years salary and benefits 555 check no questions asked and so it was his benefit to be fine because if he left he did not receive any of that while he made some allegations of council people alleging some some um an email had said to you remember back when ford's worth and you young people won't remember this but you remember when people who support stuff all the time on email yeah okay one of our council members who was an older white male had sent something that was somewhat insensitive and forwarded and so he made an allegation that there was a racial um the city manager made an allegation that there was a racial component to his dismissal um and so they decided to pay him seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to not be sued and i sat with each one of those members in my office and said how are you going to justify it pay in the contract and risk it pay in the contract and risk it because you can justify that that was the way the system was built right so there is no amount of explanation that's going to explain why i gave this guy two hundred thousand more dollars with no admission of anything other than just to make it go away right with right with assumptions and malfeasance and so you can't get back from that and so that's how that's what went down um and what i would have done differently is what i advised him in the first place was paying his contract and move on risk him suing you i don't think that anything um and instead we went through the recall election and 10 years of and they're still going through it yeah yeah nasty stuff but again it was you had a council who was looking at their own a number of the members were looking at their personal interests and how am i going to be perceived and how am i going to and then some of them were siding with the city manager and saying we want to give him more and it just became less about the actual issue and the actual contract in the actual city than it did about some of these personal feelings or opinions or agendas and so then how do you as a body stand up and say we've paid him 750 000 to go away yeah so nasty times but again you know that was that was one that was that was a decision that was made based on emotion and people's discomfort and inability to like have a real conversation and and come to some sort of consensus i mean i remember what i was wearing it was it was so crazy like that night was really crazy um and and the fallout from it was really tragic what is the sort of generalizable guidance that you take from that experience honor the system if you had a contract with with that city manager you as a body had a contract with that city manager and you all said we're going to honor the contract because it's in the best interest for him to leave honor the contract instead of getting into your own camps and thinking well i don't think they're being and it's fine to say i don't think they're being fair but when you start committing more money to try to make it easier on the outside party who's separating or when you start trying to cover your own tracks by giving more money so that this guy never makes an allegation again in the future you have you have stepped aside from this is what's in the best interest of the city is to separate now and to separate cleanly and you've moved into what's in my best interest long term would you uh let's say everyone agreed to do what you're recommending but there was still no public communication about the reason for for firing right you know wouldn't you still kind of have the pitchforks and torches well i mean if i so i was the communications director of time and if they had said we're paying him his contract i could have presented to the public here is his contract here is the we can no longer work together it's no longer a workable situation and so in the best interest of the city moving forward we are separating his employment and paying his contract like that is a reasonable explanation i could have given and shown this is why it's five hundred and fifty five thousand dollars versus this nebulous seven hundred fifty thousand dollar number over here and then when i have to go explain to the public well we owed him 555 and then they come back and say well what about the other 200 what do i have to say to that as the city right and so it just created this this mess that was unnecessary you're going to have sticky i mean y'all have been through some sticky situations and are probably still going through them i don't know where where the marijuana issue stands um but where the should i i take that i i strike that from the record but you know you to be sued by an outside outside entity and all of these sorts of things and we have our personal um agendas but if the decision was made and the decision was made with integrity it's the decision and we're going to suffer the consequences uh but when we start picking camps and picking sides and splitting apart and and uh saying well they did or well you know so and so was whatever that's where all of this gray area starts to creep in and you and there's no longer a way to justify it publicly or to say well there was a decision made on this date and that's why cautionary tales all right anything else related to governance that is uh questionable jill i'm looking at you because you're new do you have questions about anything related to the system or um thoughts on how you want to move forward uh with governance or anything you're doing something on you sure um it you know it has been such a short period of time since i've actually been a member of council however um what i'm hoping for is that not only am i open to other council members opinions that they are hopefully open to my opinions and interested in consensus with me uh so when i speak or uh make suggestions or alterations that they are um considered in the interest of consensus and i would i hope uh that i am the same um and uh as an outsider coming in um i would love the outside of council discourse to uh as you've mentioned respect the seats uh and you know i think it's appropriate to discuss issues it's appropriate to disagree it's appropriate even at sometimes to complain uh however what i see online is not in my in my and again i've not walked in everyone else's shoes asked me a year from now and i could be very different so i absolutely take that to heart that it's easy for me to say absolutely but i would love to see a dialing down of um the outside uh rhetoric to public forums um and hope that we can come to a place where uh and i don't know how to but that some kind of trust is reestablished and i and i am a part of that as well as far as having some trust issues um so but i i want i want to and i want all of council to be at a place that we can um change our minds when given good evidence and in the best interest of the city and of consensus and of considering um a global interest as far as all of our citizens and taking their interests in uh and at least a feeling uh that that is happening and again i i just want to preface it by saying again it's easy for me to say because i've been doing this all the month so you know there but for the grace of god go i you know so i again i but i recognize that absolutely and i'm not pointing the finger at any one at all um but that has been a bit disappointing i was hoping once i was in it that maybe my perception would be different than the outside perception and i've been a bit disappointed and i hope it's okay to say these things here so thank you for everyone's graciousness and listening to my two cents thank you okay so she's new and so i'm going to ask each of my senior members um what is the best piece of advice you received coming in when you were new or the piece of advice you wish you received this is a great question i look forward to hearing everybody because i definitely want all the good advice i can get best advice i got was uh from joey hawkins and his wife when they he was a former council member that got put through the paces more than anyone should get recalled i mean i think he was in office two turns and ran three times it was something crazy but the best advice was uh your your your wife should watch the meetings and i said why would why would she ever do that and because from a communication standpoint you have this huge gap right like if she misses a meeting i'm exhausted and frustrated by the time i try to explain what happened and then never get to what happened right so it has it's just a key part of functioning in this role time away from home all those things you can still have these conversations you don't create gaps that's the best advice i've ever received for this position uh what i wish someone would have told me that's that's more difficult there's a lot of moving parts there but i would say uh by and large um it's the to focus on the 365 days versus the 37 meetings we have 37 meetings a year and that i view as my shopping list to do the work that i'm supposed to do 365 days a year so i we're here because i just personally the 37 weeks are draining right those Tuesdays and seven hours and all the things that we're going to get through today drain encouraging and fulfilling is none of that has a bearing for by large or doesn't overshadow the other 300 days plus that i get to be out and about and solve problems and and because there's there's two things right there's there's stuff that has to get voted on and there's stuff you can just do right and so i work with the city manager and staff and get a lot done that doesn't have to get voted on right pop holes signs all those things those critical things you don't have to vote on those things you can get those things done straight away that is i wish someone would have said hey you know um eat the meat spit out the bones mayor pro tem uh one chest up that came to mind when you asked that uh was uh from former council member don gravery who said to me that you can take positions you know that are counter to what people have supported you if you can clearly explain your reasoning to them and uh generally if you know if you can explain your reasoning and it's grounded and it's valid you know it may not be happy about it necessarily you know if it wasn't a decision to have but continue to trust you know i don't recall uh any any words of wisdom which is probably reflected in my term but but but when i when i when i was running for for city council and and when i was elected the the uh response from my friends and and people was almost like they've been a death in the family you know man what were you thinking what did you do it's such a contentious atmosphere and ladies and gentlemen i don't see it that way um i have certainly certainly we have disagreed but but as far as a contentious atmosphere i don't see it that way i have a lot of friends on the council that i frankly i didn't have before we absolutely disagree on a lot of things but but at the end of the day i'd like to think that we shake hands and and we're still friends i hope that's the case so that's that's that's my take on this thing and and uh i don't i don't i don't see it as a as a as a contentious thing it's a challenge and sometimes it's frustrating but but i still don't you know it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't make me mad sometimes i wished i'd done better but but it doesn't make me mad do i need to call you judge the rest of the day yeah yeah please okay thank you thank you uh very there's grief of mine the one that encouraged me to run um i thought she was just kidding uh when she suggested that i run this was not something that i intended to do i was just knowing just chill out and be retired but um one of the things that she did tell me it's like why why me you know you just want to know why why are you picking on me but she uh told me that i have this ability to speak truth to power that's what she said and she uh suggested i just be authentic just do you and that is the thing that i am uh you know putting out there that what you see is what you get i don't have anybody else to to be you know i can just be me however that's delivered uh then it is what it is and uh i think i had to make it known a couple of times you know on the days they're not here for the people i'm not here for me because i i had a life uh before i showed up and i'm certainly going to not be here forever and i'm just going to pick up and keep going on with whichever direction i was going and i'm going to be okay so uh that's that's why i am sitting here is that it is what it is whenever you get that date that's what you get this is awesome hearing advice from everyone thank you yes oh i forget who told it to me first but i heard it from a number of people is um deal with an issue parse and move on uh the next issue is the next issue uh and and we have that deliberation discussion i think that came from another number of people that were on council i think somewhere in the room today and then others that have moved on um but you that that was the thing that that i you know i think joe was sort of alluding to that too that sort of okay succeed or fail if i convinced you or not move on and and i'll pick you up and we'll go to the next one and play the next round sarah what is the piece of advice that you give or would want to give to council members when they came on board well i think i did i think i told jill you know if i can give you one piece of advice that is to vote the way you feel is right based on your constituency and what you think is best not because someone over here tells you or someone over here do what you think is best in life and that's what i said and i'd say that to all of them you know the political affiliation is important but we've become too political in a world in our society and too polarized and council members need to vote the way they feel is best and right and then everyone needs to respect that person's vote and move on i swear we didn't rehearse this but you just led directly into um my next slide which is i showed you this last year and it won't be it's a pew research um study and it won't be redone until 24 so this is 22 but i think it's really interesting and then i'm going to marry it with some of your community survey results which is also really fascinating to me but sarah just said it the political politicization society has become such a 50 50 split i mean it is it is so divided and the one thing in city government that has been consistent is that it was apolitical for so many years which i think was part of uh why you're going to see these numbers and we'll talk about them but you know ron uh hollowfield who was with us last year not this year loves to say potholes aren't red or blue and that's the truth the types of things that we're dealing with in city government are so often apolitical in fashion and so kind of getting into our camps red blue what not necessarily along political affiliation lines but getting into our camps and staying there creates this divide and you start to see the divide in the amount of trust that's placed in government so i think this is just fascinating to me and we'll look at this one up here but the trust in uh or the favorable feeling about federal government is 32 percent versus 66 percent so 32 percent of people think oh federal government is good and then you've got this other 66 percent who's saying i don't trust them i don't know what they're doing um that that's not for me when you move to state government you get a flip but not too much of a flip so you're pretty well evenly divided where 54 percent have a more favorable perspective on state government so it's still a very divided camp but when you get over to local government the favorability feeling is the exact opposite of federal and so last night ron touched on the fact that people can get to you where you can't necessarily get to the president you can't necessarily get to your congressman or your senator but there is this this familiarity you go to the same grocery store you know you may work together and they go to church together you may do whatever but they can also show up at a city council meeting and be heard they can call you and say there's a pothole on my street and be heard and so this being such a separate and opposite reaction to government at the local level is where i just want to take just a minute and talk about you know why or how do we protect that and the way we protect that is to continue to be open to constituents and continue to be the place that they can come but it also is to continue to not get messed up in all of all of this all of the outside noise and really focus on dentin and what's best for the citizens doesn't mean that there aren't federal level issues or state level issues that impact your community but the fact is that you're still focused on your community and not on those those bipartisan or separate perspectives and so like there's a whole bunch other stuff this is about media but what i want to do is go from this slide to here so the citizen survey said 69 of residents are uh trust you all or have have faith in you all dentin county 63 so those are both local government according to the the previous stats state of texas 51 and the u.s 31 those are your statistically valid results that came from your survey that were presented last night and now let's look at this list which is what i just showed you and look at how these marry up almost exactly so if you had some doubts about the way dentin faints versus you know some of the the nationalized statistics or whether it was valid or reasonable i think this is really really impressive so if you average dentin in the count of the city of the county it's 66 which is exactly what the nationalized numbers are um state of texas is doing a little less well than than overall uh which we all know that it's you know texas has been a little crazy lately um and then the united states it's almost dead on so it's really interesting and what i would say in using these statistics is how do we protect how do we protect that number and that's to you all that's to having the right processes it's to having the right staff it's to being responsive it's to deliberating with integrity it's to to you know acting as a body deciding the heart issues and then moving forward looking to the future of dentin in the community planning toward that being financially responsible all those governance things that we talked about as well as many other reasons but but how do we continue to protect that number so that number increases like we saw some other numbers in the survey last night increase and don't head toward this or this because let me tell you we were probably less than this when we got into our situation in my city um and that is that is not what you want you want a community that has faith in their local government um and and they can trust that when they come to you with an issue that you are going to be honest with them you are going to tell them whether you can or cannot help them and explain it um and then you're going to do your your absolute best to create policy related to what you think is best for dentin regardless of whether it is what they think is best for them and their own personal agenda so i just thought that was super interesting any any thoughts about the way that that'll just a minor point there's a margin there around our numbers oh yeah yeah statistically they're the same as the yeah the national yeah exactly isn't that interesting though when i when i put those two together i was like whoa that's wild and now of course things will change the political climate we're in an election cycle with the federal government and who knows what's going to happen so those numbers may change a little bit as we move forward but from the the nationalized data to the localized status it's pretty interesting yeah yeah i think that that says though that if it's this nationalized data is the same as the city of dentin and obviously amaryllis politics and dent politics and minneapolis politics and san francisco politics are locally all different sometimes it's in fighting sometimes it's it's cross camp fighting whatever in terms of the national thing but i think that that tells you that it's the access or something else that's a commonality and not not the political the inference from this discussion is that we're avoiding politics we're not avoiding politics at all what that says is that the community feels like i know my politician i don't know in my case well i happen to know ted cruz because we've now met him but but before politics i hadn't met ted cruz all right and so i think that's the the issue is do i know my politician we all know each other the community knows us like you said we shop i think that's the distinction i think we're drawing the wrong wrong inference from the disparity between local and federal well i think what i'm what i'm trying to impart on you is when you take up an issue like um marijuana for instance just using it if you think about what the people they they trust in you they trust in you because they have access to you absolutely but when you take up an issue that people are so divided on and so polar opposite on in some parts of the state you know i will tell you my city passed uh ordinance and so did one next to the city that i live in absolutely not never will just not going to do it um and so when you look at that and you think okay so i have taken on or brought this issue that is very polarizing and very divided into local politics and maybe this is a bad example but i'm just gonna use it because y'all have been doing it the chance of your split going down because people feel so passionately one way or the other and it's such a dividing issue means that this could bring that number down just based on the issue itself not necessarily they may still like you as a person your 50 may still trust you or whoever your constituents are but what i'm saying is the more you bring those types of super divisive issues to the table and create the division amongst yourselves the more it looks like um y'all are just up to the same antics as the state or up to the same antics as the as the feds so it's not necessary i'm not necessarily saying you know that that that you're wrong about the access is absolutely a hundred percent true but what i am saying is the reason that these numbers start to get so divided tends to be some of those stickier issues that people are very very divided 50 50 or more on doesn't make them not issues i don't disagree with you i don't disagree with you yeah so question brought back process the question the final question just i asked was about your inference is it proper to speak to that inference or ask are you making an influence know what i mean like it like it was it was put to you like hey this is your inference is that proper or is it more proper to say what is your inference and then react to that it doesn't matter to me um we we're not you know like i don't i don't know you personally so and i i expect to be challenged so in my position like i don't i don't take offense if he thinks or if he feels that i'm inferring something but i also you know others may so you know typically coming from a position of what are you trying to say or are you or the way i'm hearing this might be a little softer for some people who may be more easily offended um but i i don't take that personally that example i don't take that as a challenge yeah no no and nothing i don't have an end goal but i just say that to say from a communication standpoint i think you know that's what i'm asking is it is it received the same to say so staff members up there and it's like i'm inferring the staff member saying x or i'm asking the staff member right so that that's what we're here you're not at our meetings yeah so so put yourself in the in the skin of a city staff member how do we how do we communicate with him from my perspective and from my experience as a staff member starting with the question rather than the the conclusion or the accusation is always going to be a more positive place so if i were to say to you um can you help uh can you explain to me why this isn't is a very different thing than your dad is wrong and i disagree with you so it's um obviously you're supposed to ask questions of staff but it's sometimes the tone and or the way that questions are asked that dictate the response and so if you want to send people on high alert and have them kind of defensive from the start it would be to come at them with you're wrong or you know kind of a judgment or an accusation that their data points are wrong rather than the question about can you help me with this just in general it's the it's the way that the question is delivered it's going to give you a better response or not um rather than cross-examining or uh um let me tell you to staff their this is their job this is their livelihood this is their pay this is their future this is their next job and so when a question is asked that challenges or um uh criticizes their professional expertise or judgment meant or not that's challenging their livelihood in their future so it's a very personal reaction that happens i had to get way past that because i got just banged up by the newspaper way too much but but you know oftentimes it feels like their expertise or their uh knowledge is being uh challenged in a way that is to to devalue it when the question is is is brought with criticism or a foregone conclusion rather than actually asking the question okay you know the risk of uh getting into unpleasantness if it's going to keep on coming back as an example i'd like to just at least share a perspective on you know what i think no one i think could be used as a example of it when it's not related so uh when i was on council previously uh i was part of the group and saying this is this is murky difficult local role unclear and actually worked with the judge and chief of police to find work around it because there's a shared uh view that we didn't want to nobody's interested in ruining people's lives over something yeah that was avoidable uh and uh and i was part of saying no to further action now it was it was if you want to find out if something's really divisive or not one way to do it would be for the people themselves to have a vote on it so that was a resolution that came from the public didn't come from council i mean they only wish it would have come from council unhappy people were deported that one happy it didn't come from council that's why it was and and uh is it divisive absolutely and the no position is very principled i completely respect the no position uh but in terms of is it 50 50 it was like some closer to 70 30 and i think it was closer to 75 25 in my district so is an example of something that's super hot and you know where people are you know very coming from a very principal place very dug in yes but is it something where there isn't a clear majority isn't an example of that well again back to thinking about the the integrity of the process if the integrity of the process was the public brought this to us we acted on what the public asked that's defensible and so you know in that example that not being 50 50 in your community okay but there are other issues that would be but it's the process that i go back to and how do we ensure that things are fully vetted fully discussed fully understood so that if we do make a decision that's going to turn off half of the community that we can at least defend it and we can explain why we did it and and you know what our reasoning was for the long-term benefit or gain of the community so yeah i don't i don't disagree with you at all um and bad example on my part um but but again it's the integrity of process and making sure that we're following that rule book every time so that the public sees that we are operating with integrity even if we're making a divisive decision because again at the end of the day if you can protect and defend the system and point to the system is the reason why we got to where we got and how we made the decision with integrity that stands up against that tested well i still don't like it i still don't like it but i don't necessarily hate you because you did the wrong thing right um and so you know whatever in your estimation as as counselors in this city and the mayor in the city you can do to shed light on those sticky issues that may divide a community or may make people feel um one side or the other and protect that number and keep adding that number up that's what you have you have the integrity and the trust um of the community at this point and you just don't want to see that slip away but i thought it was really interesting to see the national statistics and i can't wait to see the the flip-flop uh or the the broadening after the next presidential election just to see what happens the political numbers yeah question again does in anything in any scenario that we deal with does percentage of win matter or not so for example if i'm elected with 90 percent of the vote versus i'm elected with and i won by one vote does that does that matter a win is a win right right so so it's is it proper to lend extra weight to using this example so extra weight because 70 percent led to a win or is do you lend the same weight if that marijuana ordinance passed by 51 percent what right well again so again if you go back to being able to defend the way the decision was made that you followed all the steps you engaged all the right audiences and you won by one vote that is still a win and you can still say we put it out there we did all of these things and and it is a win so i mean that doesn't mean they're not going to come back and try to you know oust people from the office and this that and the other they don't like it um but the same could be saying you're never going to have 100 that's not the world we live in anymore um even even when someone runs unopposed they don't get a you know 100 um there there will be people who just choose not to vote yet we always put the unopposed on the ballot too because they wanted to be duly elected and i don't know what y'all do here but um but yeah so so at the at the end of the day if you all trust the process and the integrity of the process and you can stand up and defend the process one vote or a thousand votes doesn't matter because you went through the right channels and the right processes and procedures and and what i will tell you is that's your privilege to determine so if you think that there should be more public engagement at this point you think there should be a you know survey on if you think there should be more uh town hall meetings related to whatever those things are that give you the sanctity of process that's your privilege to determine but what you can't do is on this one sticky thing i'm going to fully engage the public and bring them all to the table and on this other sticky one i'm just going to quickly vote it through and get it done with because that's when people start to see the inequity and start to to mistrust the system because why are you hiding this over here i'll give you an example of that so the city of temple the city that i live in is about to go through a major bond uh program and so they're they're going to have to go to the to sell bonds and they have they're putting together a blue ribbon panel they're going to have all the stuff and it's going to be like these six different areas but they also have um this uh capital improvement plan that includes building a whole new wing of city hall and a whole new this and the other uh community gathering place in their downtown they thought they were going to promote both of these things at the same time they have to go to the voters with the bond election right but they have the money for the city hall over here and we were just going to talk about all of our projects as one absolutely not was was my advice absolutely not because the people will say why are you letting me vote on these things but i have no vote on this thing so if this was already in the plans of already happening then it should be treated in that way it should be promoted in that way we have the money we're doing all of these things and then the bond piece should be separate from that and be talked about in whatever way it should be because what that does is it creates the confusion that why is the system different because the system we all live in is very complex and very complicated and so you know to sit and try to explain to them well the you know law says you have to do this and bonds and we have a debt capacity here we have you know cash in the bank over here and blah blah blah blah becomes very very convoluted to the general public but it's things like that where the perception and you mentioned this morning sometimes it's the perception of impropriety that we have to be concerned about and so again if if you have built the system and you are operating the system you have to honor the system because people will start to see the cracks in that and they'll start to see where you know you're doing these in the shadows but you're doing these in the light of day so all of those things go into the to the trust that you develop and the reputation that you have the city government all right i think i showed you this last year we're we're moving through this but governance being a system a system that has moving parts and everybody has their own unique position in and so in city government obviously and last night we talked about citizens are at the very top of your work chart as they are in most cities but oftentimes issues start with citizen input to council it is we want more parks it is we don't feel safe it is we want here's our petition whatever it is and that comes typically through a staff channel and the staff puts together all of the background information to to present to you ask your opinion which direction do we want to go and then it's presented to council with possibly some options about what you want so if council has their you know strategic priorities does this align with those what they've already said what they've already said is it something that we need to have a bigger discussion on what do we want to be long term where do we want to go long term does this align with our core values all of those sorts of things and brings that discussion to council for council to say this is our opinion of what we want we want um a new y'all had a a new police what am i yes okay we think we we have a need for a new substation we think we need more policing that's what the public likes that's what we want to save city that's where we come from you hand it to staff and say okay well how do we get there how do we build that so they look at financials they look at land they look at facilities they look at all of those sorts of things and then they bring it back to you to either pass the ordinance the budget amendment the budget itself that affirms that that is the direction we're going to go and gives them the the signal that they are now to go execute staff takes that they execute i is that facility that facility is done yeah is that right okay yeah so staff is now executed council did you tour the building yeah we did okay i did so you say pretty nice facility or or not or this isn't big enough or whatever whatever your opinion is you send it back to or or there's all these there's all this extra space you need to fill out with officers like whatever your opinions are when you go see it so that's your sort of evaluation you talk to your constituents you hear what the community says you look at the social media posts and you bring that back and say hey staff we think you missed the mark we think you did a great job whatever the right answer is and then we move back into is it serving the citizens the staff comes back and says you know we need a couple more officers to fill whatever we need you know some piece of equipment in this building whatever it is if we go through this process so it's a cycle we're always in a cycle and throughout that process council has this ability to say this is what we want to affirm and approve whatever it is they say they want you say you want to evaluate it and then to talk to your constituents and your citizens to make sure that you're meeting their expectations and so i just this when one thing gets out of me when we don't bring one of these elements in it can throw the whole thing out of out of loop and so what we always want to do is know that staff has a piece all along the way and council has a piece all along the way and it's your responsibility to make sure we're on track it is not your responsibility to say um is that chair going to go in that corner or is it going to go in that corner right that gets a little little too far in the weeds and i'll give you an example this is all kind of setting up where we're headed next today so this is priority goals i actually took these from from your plan as it exists now but basically your responsibility as council is to set these goals this is where we are headed this is my expectations what it means and this is what i want so in this case this is just an example from your plan let's say it's organizational excellence that is your key focus area the issue is municipal operations depend on staffing availability meaning we have to have people to do the jobs uh to serve citizens right okay so you have set a priority that says we support city uh staffing benefits and retention as part of that we have to be able to recruit them we have to give them what they need to succeed and we want to be able to keep them right so from here council hands this off staff is the lower part of this staff goes okay year one in order to achieve that priority i need to go and look at peer cities i need to update our staffing plan our service levels and our compensation study in order to make sure that we're meeting that mark or to see how far we are from that mark that may take a year they usually do takes a while by three years staff says we think by three years we'll have the funding available and we want to complete phase three of the compensation adjustments because we were off by this percentage so staff is putting the plans into place to achieve whatever your priority is uh you're not saying we want raises right here right now because it may not be financially feasible at this point so now let me give you an example of what doesn't work identifying specific solutions before determining what the issue really is so we're back to organizational excellence and let's say one of you says i think the parks manager is underpaid i don't know if you have a park manager i'll just make that up and your solution is to tell the city manager give the parks manager a raise because you saw them working really hard that weekend and whatever the problem is the strategy is we're trying to support city staffing benefits and retention city staffing not individual personal particular staffing and the reason why this is important to not get out of sync is because what if the entire park staff is below market if you single out the manager position you've got all these other people who are underpaid and lower paid who are who you know they're 10 percent below market or whatever and it can also cause compression and inequity between in internal to the parks department but what if there's a manager layer across the organization that this now throws out away so these are all things that have to be considered when we're looking at this one individual thing where we feel like the parks manager is underpaid does that make sense and so what we want to do is we want to shift this and go back to what's our priority and it's to support city staffing benefits and retention and say hey that's one of our priorities sarah have you looked at the parks department lately and allow her to say we're doing a compensation study a staffing study whatever instead of getting ahead of and creating the solution that we're going to give a raise to this one person because we saw it and we feel it we need to go back into the system and make sure that we're we're in sync all along route does that make sense that's the correct point correct point does anybody disagree okay and the reason this is so important is because if you go back to this loop you've said uh compensation is important and you've handed it to the the city manager plan so the city manager knows okay i'm going to go through this route but then she also has to start looking at the finances and come to you and say okay guys we've got a million dollars to spend this year and we're going to put it toward whatever this this bleeding need is um and that's all we have we can't promise everybody a raise it's going to take us three years to get there or five years to get there and it's on her to explain all of that to you so you can explain it to constituents who is also the parks manager maybe your constituent right and so we just need to make sure that we are staying in in the system because if not you start to have these splinters and it makes staff less effective in executing the plan it creates more division potentially amongst the the staff because they're being pulled in a million directions and that you know consistency is really important to your staff and that's why organizations highly performing organizations do strategic planning and strategic visioning it's because you say this is the way we're going this is the path we're on staff head that way instead of this this and this and getting pulled in a million directions y'all are a busy council i there's no doubt whatsoever um 100 wait 136 no 38 139 thank you i'm gonna write that number down because i have 36 in my head from your other from your other part but um just just kind of framing up the the conversation for later on today i wanted to give you kind of those types of high level um thoughts but now we're going to turn our attention to finances and that's sarah do we want to take a quick break does anybody need a break can we take a five minute break yeah let's take five and then we'll come back and then sarah's going to talk to you about the the financial picture was that not the intro you wanted sarah yeah that's good okay so this is not the whole presentation but i do want to give you a picture of where we are so there are as you know obligations that we have from our co's our 2019 and then of course our recent 2023 box that's taking a lot of any of the money we have there and then we have about five million dollars left to work with and i want to just to give you a highlighting overview here so you kind of know that going into priorities um police and fire we have an agreement as you know that honors five positions but also based on and i will tell you i did not know the city survey when i we started doing priorities i hadn't seen it yet but um they're missing a dispatcher they need a warrant clerk and a quartermaster position that they've not had they've had an officer do it which we need more officers on the street firefighters were adding two new firefighters but if you recall they brought something to council during meet and confer for a reclassification of several firefighters to lieutenant positions that's based on a reclassification ordinance so there's that and then there was an audit if you remember with animal services that asked that said we basically needed to add three positions two technicians which are the animal services position the behavior enrichment coordinator is based on the um the need to have someone from the someone different that is separate it can be either contractual or a full-time position that does the assessment of whether an animal is aggressive or not because of the issues where it's like why did you put that animal down well we thought they were aggressive this is a way to have someone take the animal outside the animal services building into an area that is non-biased and see if that animal mostly dogs are can be trained and trainable and then they don't get used to us and so um that's what that is those positions then one is for an asset manager position because we have created now the asset manager program that tells us if you know all the things you've been seeing with our buildings we had to do a facility assessment this is because we didn't know what the conditions of our buildings were the conditions of our parking lots the conditions of our air conditioning all that this is the position that is able to look at we're going to enter all this into a system and then manage it so when we come back with budgeting for capital programs and other things it's a roll-up it's not here's this way of picking it's a roll-up of here's five air conditioning units that have to be replaced in 2026 here's the 10 air conditioning units that have to be replaced in 2028 and it just it tells us strategically what we need to do from a budgeting position and then we're resupplying the city attorney's office because he graciously gave us a position to fill halfway through the year that we needed and it's resupplying that and then all is left is a three percent cost of living the cost of living in this area is seven percent it's gone up seven percent we can afford a three percent and then it's up to a two point five percent it's not guaranteed it's if the employee is performing at that level they would get a 2.5 if they're excellent if they're good or really good it might be at two percent that is what we have excess other than health insurance costs have gone up 10 percent so we're trying to balance that the employees may have to pay a little bit what i'm trying not to do though is say here's a three percent cola and by the way you've got to pay 4.4 percent on your health insurance so we're working on that still but so again the obligation to geos and co's there's two parts as you know the o and m and our i and s interest in saving and sinking and then what this means just so you know is it's a d 3.4 million dollar decrease in the in the o and m too so that there will be a two cent increase that looks like it would be in the average residence taxes but we told those those taxpayers when we did the bond that because of the bond program that's where taxes end up going up a little and that's 98 cent dollars a year basically that would be that's what it looks like as is this obviously goes to council you make your decisions on what you if you want to change anything but this is where we have the money and we're based on priorities public safety um and and then uh and our employees this does that taking care of our employees which you'll thankfully and i'm so appreciative that you supported last year's budget and infusing eight and a half million dollars in our comp class system which by the way has made us tremendously competitive we are getting over 100 applications for most of our jobs not all but over 100 and that's how we're able to hire really good people but i i'm standing for questions but i wanted to make it quick you didn't do the visual yeah oh would you give the visual please hillary this is where we are folks this is where we are it's a balance it's not like my shirt is covering yeah i mean we're not we're not cutting positions we're not uh having to do like dallas is with the six percent they're having to cut right now six percent from every department um and then they have to put 200 million dollars every year now into their um pension plan because they're at four billion dollars in liability but our our both of our pension plans tmrs and our firefighting pension plan is good but um when you look at the cost of doing business when you look at all the other things that goes around and this is a suggestion from the city manager's office of priorities but again i just i thought it's important to share that with you because i didn't want after you all do this such a priority then all of a sudden when you get the budget presentation you're like well why don't you tell us when we were doing the priorities because what we wanted to do is priorities cost 10 million dollars well i'll have 10 million dollars so i'll be happy to answer questions but that's it i'll be the stock of the pair so what do you say i i mean part of what i hear you saying is there's not a whole lot of money for a bunch of new things to think of are you also saying we are going to have to in order to fund all this additional already you know strongly strong killing must do in order to fund all that you need to cut somewhere no i mean what it shows you is that it would be uh it is still because we're putting more emphasis on the um i mean and cassie if you want to because she's better at it than i am i want to make sure because you'll make there's an operation maintenance fund and then there's interest in sinking that's the two funds we work with if you increase the expected increase in the interest in sinking is based on our co's geos so when you look at that we're taking two cents we're taking two cents off the o and m now you can decide not to but we're taking two cents off the o and m so that we don't see a bunch everything go up to our taxpayers so it's still going to go up about 98 dollars a year for an average homeowner with this but that's with us cutting us cutting uh and decreasing the o and m rate by two by two cents and so i'm sorry you last little bit how are we doing that so that's what we're recommending based on based on the appraisals the way that we think that the appraisal values are coming in um we are able to lower the o and m rate side of the tax rate two cents to offset the four and a half cent increase that's expected on the debt tax rate yeah so an overall two and a half cent increase to the taxpayer but it will not be the four and a half cents tax rate though it wouldn't happen so i mean i mean this is all my questions that uh i just thought so we lower the o and m rate by two cents what does that mean look out does that means based on the appraisals they're still coming in strong so that means we let people's taxes go up because the valuations went up is that what you mean yes well we're not setting the appraisal values that's coming from the appraisal district but based on those appraisals I got it I got it violations have gone up right yes and they're going to have to and we and we're saying we'll let their taxes go up based on the fact that the valuations went up is that what you mean you say we're going to cut the rate but not by as much as we might have is that is that the move I'm saying based on the valuations that we're predicting which we haven't gotten the final yet um it's looking like I think last week's report was about 14 higher than last year it is about so instead of using all of that funding in the general fund we're saying we're not going to use all of that money the 14 increase the people would pay on their on their if he didn't change the tax rate the valuations went up by 14 percent then they would end up paying 14 percent more that's right and but instead of that what well they're still going to pay 14 more based on their valuation but the way the mix of how we're spending that money is changing yeah so we're using more on the debt side than we are on the operation side and would it help if if they described the effective rate and the um the tax cap I'm going to make it all about my questions I can pursue it I mean we're going to go into detail when we do the budget workshop I just wanted to give you a snapshot of when we balance it out when we look at what um what we needed to pay off our debt CEOs GOs from the two bonds that we're still paying on starting with just 23 and as you know not everything's done in 2023 or 2024 it's faced out over five or so years and then the interest in sinking fund it's about what's left really in reality is this amount of money that I recommend this is just me again it comes to council you can do what you need to do and this is based on us reducing the operation and maintenance fund and saying we're going to then increase the that about two percent on the interest in sinking fund that the citizen would see about a 98 dollar increase in their bill over a whole year so divide that by 12 and that tells you kind of it's a what it would be this is just a recommendation but it is based on it wasn't based on the survey but when I looked at what the survey said and public safety came in line and other things um there it is you guys get the chance on that saturday in august i believe to say well i want to do this and i want to do more how do i do that okay fine then we can help you do that but um we were trying to be very strategic but also very conservative and i will tell you there were how many millions of dollars cassie of request 30 million dollars of staff requests for supplementals or increases in their budget and we've already met with most of the departments and told them and i want to tell you what i'm telling them and that is the next few years are going to be basic level of services staying where we are and looking at what are we doing we don't need to be doing anymore because someone else is doing it and we're just duplicating the services what are we doing that we need to improve doing because it matters to the public and what are we doing that we can outsource to someone else to do at a better rate or most cost effective so i don't want to be in a position where other cities are where they are debt they're so debt heavy and they also are poor in their general fund because you heard it loud and clear on the city survey about public safety and i i think every one of you most of you would would say we need to make sure we're staying in tune with our public safety that people when they call for emergency services that they're there but then the other side of it is citizens care about the basic services pick up my trash i want my water to run and i want my toilet to flush and also they care about animal services i mean they may not have heard as much about it but i know from just the things we hear other i mean again this is what i'm going to recommend but council gets a chance to do their thing i just wanted you to know up front so when you're deciding your priorities you know a little bit about where we stand from a budgetary point of view you can turn this upside down saying one on five million to go to whatever but this is where we are that's that's it what what would the enrichment core what would you look for in the enrichment core it's really bad so let me i'll just give you experience when i was in Austin i was an assistant city manager over animal services and i worked specifically with the animal services board the advisory board and the biggest number one issue and it's happening here was uh they didn't they had a really bad feeling about animals being euthanized versus they were they were animals that could be trained and then adopted versus they were over they were oversized and they just euthanized for space or because well that animal shows aggressive behavior instead of evaluating the animal to see if that animal really does have aggressive behavior tendencies and here's why when a dog not so much a cat when a dog goes into a shelter it's shelter shock immediately it is they don't know where they are they've been on the street they've been in a loving home that dump them and immediately they become different and so what's happening across the country and this is why you see the big push for a kinder gentler way to look at things is having an animal behaviorist is what it's called who actually takes the animal out of the shelter goes out into a very non-biased area and does commands to see if they can listen to see if they can learn to see if they are immediately aggressive if they are immediately aggressive they have no tendency of learning skills then that person puts a report together that says this animal is not trainable not teachable and needs to be euthanized for public safety purposes we're putting this on the back of our animal services technicians it is not right it is not fair and they're not experts in that area and then it comes to the judge who says i'm suing i'm suing the city because this animal bit my bit my kid that you adopted out so it has to be a way that we can document okay i get that my question is what what qualifications does that person bring with them do the job so they have uh sometimes they're a veterinarian okay sometimes they are someone that's gone through uh animal school or orbit texas a&m where they focus on animal behaviorist and there's groups of people that literally are animal behaviors and there's more and more of them now more than anything i need one for my own dog uh but this is something that takes it off the back of our technicians and our animal staff so i just want to clarify we have not conducted an audit of animal services no this was an audit that was done uh by the staff and by the um we did do like a preliminary analysis yes but they're understaffed i mean it's just that fact and they're relying on volunteers and this was a i won't use it in on it i'll use it in an analysis but uh they are they are not staffed appropriately it's just a growing need that's why the the citizens voted to build onto this building that also is going to handle with that you had gone to the building and you don't have the staff we're just setting ourselves up for failure so if i if i can pull back for a second the general tone is or not tone intended but let me understand that if we keep the status quo then there's five million in change and this is a preliminary recommendation for status quo plus the delta is that okay and not necessarily because the status quo wouldn't be animal services other than it is just it was analysis instead i mean for all all of these categories are your recommendations for the current that's right functions of the city plus this additional five million this is your preliminary stab at how to spend the five million okay and particularly i didn't mention it but the addition to the animal services building which is under develop not develop but design you got happy so to your point of i mean for the most part council at least during why i've been on council has shown a tendency to stick with the status quo but to the point that you brought up of there are places where we can we need to go up and like these other places where we might be able to yeah down or whatever or when i'm assuming that when we get the final proposals for the budget workshop here a little bit uh that that you know all of that's going to be in play with this typical sort of you know threshold numbers that well i won't have that information because i'm telling them all now don't this is this year but but for the next few years they need to understand i mean i can tell you very uh because it was misrepresented but uh when we started the budget process i said to them point blank i don't want to see any more than three supplementals because there won't be any money because you know most departments will say i need this many things it's like 10 items i said i don't want you to waste your time i was very clear about i want you to just focus on your top three and i'm not sure i can fund those and so a lot of departments did that some didn't and went ahead and added a lot more but you know this is what we have the other side of the coin is we have to get back to what the basic level of services are and how we serve our community and that's why i looked at this so the information i'm going to get is not going to come from them today or this month or this budget year but i'm going to give you an example just to show you now some of you are going to lose your get you're going to lose your mind but don't kill the messenger okay one item that we could save one million dollars on and the school district can say one million dollars is outsourcing the natatorium and the water park to a hawaiian falls or another area because we're doing it and all these other places around the country are doing it and doing it better and putting more things in it and it's more attractive but it's one thing we could do to save the city one million dollars and the school district who is hurting like crazy and jane is the one that brought it to my attention because they are hurting they're doing a 2025 budget on 2019 dollars so they have to look at this it won't happen this year but it will it will be something that i will be bringing back to you because that that's what i believe that's my job to bring to you other opportunities i'm not i don't not wedded to it because if you say well not just no but hell no but that is something that i would recommend we look at and that's what we've done is started having some staff look at the possibilities the pros the cons because i'd always want to do our due diligence again i don't want to get into a budget discussion but i didn't want to set you up for failure either and you sit here and give about three you know ten million dollars worth of things you want to do well with only a five million dollar opportunity but also i wanted to remind you we have uh we have to honor our agreements and our meet and confer and um not much else is there well thank you for the honesty and we need no we need the straight talk thank you so so sarah you were saying just for just to make sure that we're all clear the top two so the 2.3 ish million dollars has to be done based on previous agreements well i mean if you don't want to violate what you can see that i have five positions for police one and i'll be honest with you we are finally going to get our canines but then we have not added to dispatchers and it's an ongoing issue with our calls the call volume is up and and the call volume is up particularly if you want to know where it's coming from is the 288 facility both police and fire and then the civilian world clerk and quartermaster because when you have a police officer doing quartermastering they're not out on the street protecting the community so um and then the firefighters was approved by council through a through a reclassification ordinance and it was then adopted by meet and confer so yes the answer is unless you want to violate or break that or negotiate a new contract or a new agreement well the quartermaster is correct me if i'm wrong less expensive than a sworn place also it is like i thought that was important to show that there are some that are pretty firm obligations um and then when you move down to the cola and merit increase for employees um whether or not that is a customary practice that you try to honor every year i don't know but it really leaves about 750 000 in the middle if you take those two things off well and i'll be honest with you i mean uh i i made a commitment to replace the position in the legal department and i'm going to honor that one way or the other and then you know the truth about our own asset management it will save us money in the long run because if we don't know what we have it's if you don't know what you what you have you don't know what it needs to be replaced that's what we've been doing is is picking things off at a time and saying oh we need to replace their condition here oops this is bad oh the parking lot's bad this is an opportunity to put it all in a spreadsheet and be completely transparent with the council and the community about how our infrastructure is when things need to be replaced what's the cost and then when we get new equipment new new capital projects it goes in as this is when it was built this is the warranty this is how long it's supposed to last this is when we should be replacing it or parts of it it's all there you can print it right out by the front of a print of a button it's just as valuable as having a chief strategy officer and i think you can see how important that is from a data driven i'm just gonna say something to the public a lot of other opportunities to say this shows in part if we don't come to grips with the county and with the other cities in the county with a need for actual mental health services we are going to keep paying for it in cops and fire and homeless services you're absolutely right that's a money issue i agree with you 150 and i will tell you that one of my steps what i'm asking right now is when someone has dropped off at that shelter they're asking where did you sleep that night last night and then if they say i slept in lewisville the question is who brought you here and then i am gathering data to be able to have those conversations with those cities who who i will tell you not many of them are willing to come to the table whatsoever at least their city managers are i'm not speaking for the mayors or the council but this is the issue we're facing and i'm going to get a report on monday i'm meeting on monday with homeless services with chief police and the chief of the fire department and they're going to share me some very eye-opening numbers and data that has increased their workload exponentially this is great sarah and i think that this is the way to because i don't think i don't personally see a way to make people to make other cities or make the county participate however we could maybe use facts to influence their publics and their citizens to show that they are not carrying their share and they are not being carrying community members i mean and of course again i'm new to the game but i think that the facts are what is going to help us uh sell to put pressure on their councils to put pressure on their cities to step up to the plate uh anyways those are well i'll just add just one more point is when some of the calls are getting and that's what i've asked for is a call or i've got splinter i got a blister and so we're working on that as well what's the answer to that one of them just so you know is we're working with twu for dental services there at at the site they'll come there so we have some other options we're looking at it's not like we're not we don't have our finger on the pulse but but councilmember melzer you are absolutely right take it all right i will take a different look at that though every and i part of your report please report back my understanding is it's services it's that's the draw it's not because that before mental health before this that nail there it becomes what's drawing people to denton versus drawing people to other cities is that proportionate no because the services aren't proportionate you name it we have it and lewisville doesn't corrent doesn't lake dallas doesn't and so if you're in if you have a need it's been signaled go to denton no you're right there i and so before you get to a mental health issue you get to a services issue and a issue of are we attracting we're getting what we're asking for and then almost saying hey we can't handle what we're asking for don't know if that's the answer but but so yeah i look forward to what staff bring back but i think that is my understanding without doing the math is that before you get to treating any of that or assessing or managing it's you're attracting it right and if that's your desire if that's the community you want to be then that comes with a cost if you don't want to be that then that's a different thing right but but i think that's that's really the key is you ask for it the the boo bird say this but i i mean it in all sincerity if you build because right now if you go pull up the old document pull up the old document because i want to talk to you about this from a from a from a cooling station standpoint pull up the old document on the county from from a warming station they'll list 15 stations and 14 are indent you know this crazy that that's not that's not true that's not what it's for and and so there's some work to be done from a messaging from a hey here's it's all public right but but what are we marketing what are we asking for because we're getting what we're asking for has there been have you as a county or a region done any sort of collective study on the issue like everybody put in some money and did a comprehensive look at some of the factors and things you're talking about so the discussions i've had with my peers and it has been over after hours uh was you know i need at some point for you all to come to the table to talk about how we're dealing with homelessness and take a more regional approach and i'm not getting a sense of a feeling of love or even they want to spend a dime towards that these are the city managers not the council i'm happy to facilitate that i have facilitated i can't tell you how many meetings with all the cities around here to talk about a regional approach to governance even including the school district nctctw and unt just did it to talk about how we work better together and a governance point of view for looking at a lot of the things we have in common to help address the issues with the legislature just had a meeting not when i first got here when i became the permanent city manager with the surrounding cities to talk about a regional approach to water and a regional approach approach to electric and everything else because sangher and crumb and other cities are struggling and it's not that we're offering a free card it is that you've got to be thinking 20 years out about your water supply and about where you're going to get your electricity from now saturn's doing an agreement with us on transmission because they had it with the lower colorado river authority but if you don't have those conversations so believe me i'm the one setting these meetings up but when they come to the table they come for two meetings and they're out the reason i asked we we went through a similar struggle in bell county where i'm from and our city tended to be the collector even though it wasn't the county seat belton was but belton being a bit more affluent community and temple being a more affluent feeling community had sort of allowed killian to to accept the the homeless population to a degree and we we were successful actually in commissioning a study and i think we may have paid for all of it ultimately but it helped us look at some of the things that you're talking about where are they coming from what's the what's the transition plan it gives you those facts to stand up and say hey south lake you're not doing your part or hey so-and-so county you're not doing your part i know another study is another study is another study but um any facts that you can put to this and you do have the big the big issue of you are the county seat and so you know you are the bigger city in the area and so like like you said if there are the services are here well then you you know and we're connecting people to services um that's a different picture so here's the thing hillary uh if you look at where they're coming from they're coming as far as uh desoto dallas uh irving uh wichita falls uh i mean you name it that's where they're coming from and so they were sending it from austin to us yeah yeah just yeah for me forgive me what what explanation are you getting from for example the county you know are we sending them a bill no and and how and what's what's the response of hey it's time to andy hey it's time to pay up i don't think andy i have no i'm not going to speak for andy um i was facetious yeah i i um i think uh i don't know where you know well no for me if they do get a bill they they when people say that the city it costs the city money for homelessness that's not accurate per se the county runs pays the hospital they pay for indigent for the hospital to county expense it's not a city expense and cost the city we get reimbursed for our fire and police and we when we go to the county hospitals so the county pays those and i would assume they would account for that to say we're doing this we're doing that i'm not i don't have a look into that but but yeah she has a great relationship with with the county and the county administrator and and they continue to be supportive to the degree they can but they also pay for all these other health and medical and issues and so we're almost saving them money by coordinating and working with twu to sarah's leadership and the less people we can send to the hospital the more money they can probably save and reallocate towards different things so from a county perspective that that's how they pay okay so so do i misunderstand that the that that we are current they are current with with support of the uh facility and look to it so they were going to give us 3.4 million dollars to help with that and they wanted to purchase the old uh building and then lease long-term lease for the park area to put in 4-h and other things that are supported um but they wanted their county county board kind of commissioners wanted to put in there that then that meant that all the cities around the city of denton would be able to use that facility and i told them that can't happen because we are full as it is you start saying yes you're open to every city that's in the county would overwhelm us to the point where and if you're going to do that two options i told jody if you're going to do that jody then why don't y'all as a county take over the operation and fund it fully or why don't you give me three million dollars a year to help operate and uh you know uh understandably they don't have it and so uh i will say just so we are we are doing so many things to help people and we are looking kenneth hedges is working with presbyterian and medical city denton to look at a program with paramedics and all the other things that they would support because let me say this isn't just hitting up this is hitting our hospitals and costing them a lot of money so it is bigger than just going to other cities it is looking at this as a true regional approach which i'm happy to try to set up any of these things again i just will tell you it's very frustrating for me when they show up for a couple of meetings and then they're out i think we had a couple we'll come back to you unless it was a follow-up well it's kind of a uh clarification okay uh i think it's sort of an attractive thing to pick up the hardest part of the problem to say you know other people should you know want to take our own our homeless people are not breaking here that wasn't actually what i said i talked about mental health it's not a mental health facility and and if you talk to mayors and council members around the county they all are facing the same first responder increases and if you ask them to ask their police is you know is the percent of the cases that they deal with whether they end up whether they end up dropping them off here or not they still to respond to the calls how much of that is driven by mental health they will agree that it is somewhere need a study in the like 30 to 60 range so it's a money issue for flour mount for lewisville all these places so you know i'd say you know i i don't count on asking people to care more but i do care i do expect them to care more about the fact that their own budgets are under as much pressure as our budgets are and and it's because we're not solving the problem we had a club is that a response to this yes okay that's not right i'm getting you i see your hands that's not that can't be right if that were true then southlake has the same and westlake have the same problem as denton does if i if i use your analogy that mental health is mental health across the board the fact of the matter is there's a level of enforcement in southlake capelle westlake that is different than denton you're you're not going to go see i'll try to be as middle road as possible you're not going to see sandwiches set outside for people experiencing homelessness in southlake you're you're not going to go you're not going to go to southlake and see somebody pushing a target cart wheelbarrow i mean will car grocery cart down southlake boulevard you're just not going to see it because their enforcement is different their community support for that is different their tolerance for that is different so i take your point about mental health but i the the one thing i just want to say is that that environment you create dictates how many people experiencing mental health issues are in your community if i look at the barter in louisville i look at the blotter in capelle westlake southlake frisco it's very different they don't have naked people running around all those cities doing all these things didn't does and that's an issue but i'm just saying it's not equally distributed that's my only point you if you make that argument it's an error in my estimation i accept you that's your world experience but my world experience and lived experience is that's very different because of the way we handle that is our community it dictates how many people mentally this is an issue now how many people who's attracting who where and and and i believe that's that's a unique part of that if you're facilitating if you're handing out sandwiches on every corner if you're doing these things then that's going to attract more more people generally and a percentage of those people have mental health issues those that's where it ties together that's my only point not not trying to say that there's not mental health issues i'm just trying to say we're probably attracting more than our fair share because of these behaviors of our community not taking a position on those behaviors i take your point uh but wouldn't data help whether it's exactly the same percentage across you know sure probably probably not exactly and i and for the reasons you say i i acknowledge that but wouldn't data help in the conversations to see what is the sort of total shared community burden and uh you know are other cities contributing when i think we know they're contributing to who shows up here right and that's part of the problem but i i can just say anecdotally they know it's a problem and it is driving their budgets so i wouldn't data help that's that's really my question wouldn't data all right so i like the discussion and and let's let's lay out a couple of cards on the table if we can there's a reason that to make the analogy to medicine that we do preventative medicine versus emergency room medicine because ultimately it's cheaper even if we're spending 50 million dollars in vaccines it's better than spending 300 billion dollars in emergency room responses so my point is that catastrophic care and you're seeing it in the increases in police and fire this is trending in the direction of you know i have to deal with a a mental health crisis or physical crisis or a a heat uh response or cold response where someone is on the verge of death or causing property damage or otherwise impacting society with those costs and dealing with catastrophic costs is way way way more expensive than saying okay i'm going to do diversion it's why every department in our city and county really tries hard to do diversion for whatever their primary issue is and i know that's more used in waste and water but it's still true can we do diversion it's cheaper rather than do catastrophic response and so if we don't have services that are diversionary then we end up paying the catastrophic costs of more and more and more and more and more and we could do that and there could be reach a point where there's no diversionary responses anywhere in our region but then we everyone will entail the catastrophic costs of of oh i i found five dead people in the park because they died of heat issues all right so what is the cost of emergency response to go pick up corpses all right what does that cost us and how does that impact our quality of life and whether businesses want to relocate here and be in that kind of community so i kind of take it to the extreme and i'm not saying anyone is moving to those extremes but if you we don't include diversion versus catastrophic response opportunity costs in in our analysis then and simply saying what are the costs of simply diversionary costs and how we can't do that we're ignoring catastrophic costs and that needs to be in our analysis that's that's that's completely outside that is just spreadsheet that has nothing to do with moral and humanitarian which we would layer that on top of or whichever on the bottom of however you feel you want to prioritize morals and humanitarian and sympathy to the community but those are both real issues that you have to deal with and i think it's we need to be very mindful uh to not you know throw babies out with bath waters so that would be my my encouragement is to to not see saving in one area as saving if it ends up costing us 10 times in another area thank you you still have your hand up he was first so i appreciate the discussion between you two um and i hear what you're both saying my one simple question is mayor you're saying if we build it they will come so if we don't build it what that's long for i just didn't care about yeah no it would be if you're asking me my opinion it's enforcement if you look at the supreme court and where it falls it's they're looking now at what is the enforcement mechanism for public property that's where the argument lies what can you enforce where is that delicate balance of public property versus i can sleep here and be uninterrupted i have a right to be here that to me is what level of enforcement that's what a city's role is we provide security what level enforcement is the city of dentin comfortable distributing and how do we weigh that that to me is is what then that'll determine how many people are here if you enforce at a higher level less people will be here are we then talking about moving people from the park to the jail if you're asking me no you're not they're not going to stay in jail more than a day judge can correct me if i'm wrong they're going to get out and go back to the park right no they're going to go to a different community where they're not going to end up in the jail so yes you're pushing water around but there's no other where else are they going to go we are the city and the county that feels the particular way that we do so what other community can they go to yes if and this would be another good stat but my understanding people avoid the shelter because it has rules yeah and so they are not interested in going and getting three meals a day we have a jobs program they're not interested in going to work they're interested in it part is that mental health part of that's drug issues part of that's not trusting there's a number of things that lead to that but ultimately no they're the people that would be affected by stricter enforcement aren't looking to plug in the services they're looking to get through life right it's hard and so in that instance sanger is just as good as dentin it's just as good as chrome it's just as good as ponder decater all those things right so i think it it becomes a matter of just where can i be and do my thing and not have to worry about city didn't please city of little school please city of plano police that sort of thing okay can i clarify something there's three things one is i'd say 75 of the people who are on the street have mental health and substance abuse theory and you know you can believe me or not but i spent two and a half years in austin overseeing homelessness issues and had to deal with that with the homeless strategy officer and went out on the streets myself and talked to different homeless individuals and they'll tell you there's three different types of homeless groups within their own ranks so and then there's mental health issues across the nation that have been on the rise for college students for elementary students for middle school students it's happening all over and and so when our police officers go out that's why we have a hot team that's why we have these teams that have people on there that know social workers and other things the city's done a lot of things to try to help people and then try to help them get back on their feet we're really doing that the other thing is i don't want to send a message because i know this is being televised and i want to be very clear i have a great relationship with county and with all the cities around this area and i take pride in that fact and never once have i done anything to try to take away it's always been to let's do this together it's we're better together and i have a great relationship with county and a lot of respect for them and then third is this is a lot because we have 13 officers on the street at night at any given time and if anyone's on vacation or sick it's less and most of the time it's it's 10 so when one call comes in all of them are at one site that's it all we have so this isn't just about i mentioned the shelter and how we're sending a lot of staff there police and fire we have to do that but it's not enough officers on the street you correlate that with the service the the um survey we just got and it's exactly what the citizens are saying they want more officers to be visible they want them to be out there they don't want to lose people or mistreat people they want the visibility and they want to make sure they still feel safe um but the answer mayor you're right and you i mean you're both right that's what's so interesting is you're both so right about this and i'll make a commitment to you i'll do everything i can to take a regional approach to anything we can do to make the city work better and run better and save our money our dollars to put them where our citizens want them to be um but uh the mayor is also correct in that uh when you start seeing other cities literally pull up and just wait long enough for that person to get out and take off so they don't know who they are that's when we got problem and i'm going to start addressing that but i'm also giving you fair warning that i'm probably i'm going to come through the mayor and i'm certainly going to share with the council what i'm going to end up having to do to have that honest conversation and that strong conversation about hey let's work this out but you can't just drop people off and us eat the cops i'm not at all trying to defend other cities in the county who do that but my understanding is is because the shelter was facilitated in part with the count that is not correct no this was now i wasn't here when tot howman was here and i we called tot to ask him if there was an agreement with the county that they would be a part of this and run it and that was that answer was no i had the same conversation with former mayor watch that's who broke the deal and there's there's documentation nothing leads to that it just came up in documentation recently trying to document that so yeah but i've had that conversation with mayor watch just to add because those are the two todd and and our predecessors and and neither have said that was their understanding that was andy's good that was andy trying to be a good partner and was also part of a deal that we were going to work with them because they needed they wanted some space and it made sense right next to the jail and everything to to do the 4-h program which i absolutely support because it gets more kids learning about natural gardening and all the other things but um and then office for those staff but um but there was never from my understanding an agreement that said we'll give you this money and we'll be a part of this where i was going with that was if we're going to set the kind of dollars we have to have it open to the entire county but yeah i take y'all's point no problem jill yeah um two things first i think it's helpful in these types of conversations if we can remain calm and our tone of voice in a conversation tone versus the raising of the voice that makes it seem like it's a fight then that triggers that fight or flight because i do think these are the types of helpful conversations in exchange of information and ideas that can lead us in a productive path that may not be what everyone wants but probably is a you know maybe at least considerate of whatever one wants for the city or to represent um secondly i would say and some of what i was going to say has been already said in that um it's kind of like the chicken and the egg as far as um providing uh and the idea of saving money by providing certain services but they're not here to receive it if we haven't offered certain other types of services and what else i would say is what i am hearing is in my experience running for council streets and homeless and not as in let's do uh more um it's more we have a problem and that doesn't mean everyone that's homeless what i'm talking about is a criminal element in particular uh which is a part not all of which is a part as well as the addiction and mental health and then others um but what i would say is what we're seeing from the survey what i am hearing from constituents throughout the community and what our budget tells me is uh we cannot sustain or do more i think in what um in what we can do and that's a shame and i think that our state and federal government have let us down in mental health services and i am willing to go definitely on the record with that and i've spoken with legislators about that um however i don't think we're in a place to um take that on as something that the city provides as far as what our constituents want and what our financial picture is again thank you for listening and when we can't do more we have to do different right and so you know just sort of listening to this conversation and recognizing that it's it's not only a dentin problem it's a regional it's it's a national problem but if we're only looking at it through dentin's lens and not considering options or alternatives and you know i think i think suddenly i mentioned it in either one of our conversations or maybe here you know do we even know what the full breadth of services throughout the region looks like are we doing duplicative services and we really take in that holistic look at and what brian was mentioning in this sort of diversionary what is the preventative where can we connect people with care that is less than taking them to jail or whatever it is that's happening and so i i it sounds to me in this conversation that maybe we have a little little work to do and i don't know how far you all want to go with something like that but it's a priority for the community and it sounds like it's on all of your minds so vicki um i i do want to say that our our um community is known as a giving compassionate college center educated loving community and we want to do everything for everyone and we do have a problem in our community with that in that it is bringing those people that need that assistance to us and we fuss about the cost but yet we are demanding that it be done if we are going to fuss about the cost of taking care of these folks and yet we're doing our best to bring them here and accommodate them we're going to have to make sure that our community knows pretty much like what the mayor is saying i think we're kind of saying the same thing is that there's a cost associated with that i understand when we go out and clean up these places that's in these streets that there's a significant cost with that the environmental costs pulling in a you know roughly i'm going to say a little less than twenty thousand dollars that are cleaned up and that money can be going somewhere else if we can direct those people to a something but they want to be out there and then there's a cost for us as taxpayers to have to go out and clean up after these people and we're doing that you know three or four or five times a year and that's a lot of a lot of funding that's going just to clean up after them so um you know if we want to do something radical i think that we could do a better job in working with these landowners that have this unfinished land out here that could be used as infield and will get used at some point whenever they choose a sale and and we're ready to build or they're ready to build but there's a lot of people that's sleeping out in a lot of unfilled spaces and um you know and we're it sounds like we're okay with that uh you can look at the satellite and go into spaces we're in my district and just see them you know from above where they've made homes out there we're compassionate we're giving them tits we're putting water out there in you know in containers on the street so they can have water we're feeding them every day we're clothing them every day they we just have this reputation of being a place where you can come and get your needs met i don't know about the mental health part uh but we do know physically if i'm homeless and i think i've even said this before if i was homeless i wouldn't want to be in debt because i know i can get three meals a day i can have clothes in my disposal i can get medical care for free i can you know have a place to sleep even this if that's under the stars or somewhere in a in a facility or on a bench and no one's going to run me off um you know that's just a price that we're paying for being who we are we don't want to not be compassionate and seems seem like an in compassionate city such as the wealthier cities that are not providing transportation we could probably do a better job in getting that information you know transporting people to where we need for them to go uh and that's something we can definitely i don't want to start on transportation because you know but you know in fact that's all part of it so you know what's the solution um i don't know what the solution is i do know that we need more officers we do need more you know public safety we need analysts we care about our pets we found that out last year before last when we did our last fourth of july celebration um and we just need more because we have more people more paintings and there's there's no one size fits all i travel all across the country to stuff and you have everything from where austin for a time just let it rip just whatever wherever to i think it's houston that's housing people in one block area well but they also have a high rise yeah um that folks are getting you know housing you know there's there's just all different parts of the spectrum so it's not like you can just take something from one city and lay it on dent and it's going to work um but but it is certainly something that is on the minds of of your constituents and then at what cost is is the question that comes to you all as policymakers judge did you have something yeah from jail perspective the the big draw on mental health and like resources of police like 20 people 15 to 20 folks they come in because they're at 7-eleven they've been told not to be there they see me i'll set bail they go to county for three weeks they're released and they come right back in like literally they're released from count from county and they go straight back to that 7-eleven where they're not supposed to be because that's home to them or whatever the person there said you're not supposed to be there so the police officer that the next day the next night bring them back to see me i see them again i normally can't talk to them i read them their rights but they're screaming at me on the camera um because no health issues they're just not able to participate in the process i still walk through with set bail they go over to county three and it's literally i could like write a list of their names and so if there were beds open for those 15 folks like it's 70 of the problem and um hot team dr clark has done a great job in the past six to nine months and finding beds and i like i celebrate and have a party every time they say can you release somebody we have a bed yes we have a bed they can go to to get help so um i think if we solve the problem of like it's not the thousands or hundreds that are out there those 15 people if we can get them treatment and and fixed then it's like 70 of the police's um call volume in response to my house box is fixed so you touch on something too and we sort of talked about when they end up in the hospital or in jail or whatever you can quantify the expense and whatever related to that but how much response is happening where it doesn't result in either of those things and you get no reimbursement of any sort from the county or you know or any of those services so how much how much funding is going toward just basic response and taking those officers or those you know emt firefighters whoever away from their available availability for other things and so we you need to capture that expense as well whatever it is because it's it's just such a big multi-layered multifaceted issue but i will i will say this because um i am and i say this probably a lot but i i mean it when i say it is we have the best situation it can possibly be for people experiencing homeless having worked in austin for two and a half years and it's just it's such a big thing to try to tackle but the way we're set up and having the hot team and having someone who who says i've got one bed i know the person needs to go to that and finding that of those beds which are not available very often but then having those conversations with those individuals to see what they need it may be socks it may be shoes it may be you know and then now we're looking at bringing dental care which i can tell you all the ones i talked to rodney he's always in our office desperately needs dental care and these are things that you mainly are are things you want to do to help your fellow people not not residents no but we are doing so much with so little and and i see why other people want to come here i do it's just that i'm also making you aware of that because when we start to see the limited dollars that we have and it's going to continue for the next few years based on everything i'm seeing you know we're going to try to find ways to partner and do everything else we're doing but i you know be irresponsible not to say what we're doing and how we're doing and then this this is not necessarily based on homelessness it's based on what i'm hearing in the community where their priorities are and what's the right thing to do when it comes to public safety and i've said this people may disagree with me but economic vitality of a city is equated to how well your public safety is working not the strong army not that kind of thing but how well you are community focused community treated community communication that's how economic development works and when you see the businesses complaining about things they're going to relate that in many cases to anymore police so homelessness is number one on the community survey results you saw some of the opinions and thoughts and and we have amy here who read every single one of them so she could probably recite them maybe we'll do that over lunch you'll do a performance but knowing knowing that and as we start to really look at the priorities and the focus areas i think this was a really important conversation to have and to understand that there are limitations to to what we have available as far as resources and so i think it's on you all to consider is there something that you feel is missing in the conversation in a resource or a tool that you would have moving forward to really start making major impacts in that area versus incremental a lot of the things that you know on the long tasking lists are sort of incremental in nature not necessarily related to homelessness or anything in specific but but is there a different look or a different way we should be as this body directing the approach to it moving forward considering some of the conversation today and i just throw that out to you as food for thought as we move into the next phase of of today's conversation but i i think that i hope that you all sort of heard and maybe this will spur some thought specifically to that issue and knowing the the financial limitations and impacts that it's having anything else on the financial picture list that that gives you pause or questions not questions are just for the city manager to know it's my understanding and credit to exactly what you said the turnout for our officers to take the civil service test and those that qualified i think so there is round numbers 130 that showed up 128 plus that that made it through that initial kind of sifting so 120 potential applicants that could be hired you know depending on how they interview is is outstanding and so uh i say to you if there's an opportunity maybe to expand hiring while we have this pool i don't know how long those applications last maybe it's a mid-year thing we look at but just to understand that i understand we had a great group of applicants and yeah if we want to seize on that in mid-year or something like that i'll be back yeah i will say i met i went there and i was the interim chief was there shaking hands visiting with all of them what a great diverse group of people women and men people of all color people a guy from new york other police departments but then there were the ones that just said i wanted to come to dent and i want to be a police officer and she's i mean it gives me chills because i've never seen she said i've never seen that many people apply wherever she's worked and these were these most of them passed that's incredible that is not the experience unbelievable what changed why why do you think this is happening well you give a new person on i've made a point and talked into giving credit that i i make it to every police thing or as many as i can i could make sure to be a banquet but i make a video and i fire as well and i i haven't said i've said to all of our employees about this priorities for public safety because i know what that does to a community been there done that go to austin and then the emphasis behind supporting a good chief who is community focused who cares about their employees and the officers are telling it these officers i can't tell me calls how many visits of i'm so glad you did what you did you've got uh i can't tell you how happy we are we love where we're working and they go out and just share it with potential people who like one of them's uh coming from one of the colleges here and they just want to work for the city because they see that there's some changes to some things that are happening other part of it is people don't want to work in the big cities anymore and you're seeing that in austin you're seeing that in dallas you're seeing it in houston and so we're pulling from those places where they can't make up their mind if they're going to support police or not they defunded police they don't make them a priority and i think that's part of it as well this council has has most of the time supported police and not on about pulling strings and trying to defund and that means a lot to the to the both the officers but also to our firefighters because you have been so supportive and that matters to those to those folks and i really believe that's what it is and of course you'll be in a new council no no applause right no please uh no okay we are going to take a quick lunch break so the food is here and then we'll come back um i'll just scarf mine down and then we'll just work through lunch if that's okay with you all um so that we can stay on on track uh throughout this there's actually a video that i'll watch uh so you're on brain dinner dinner and everything else is all right we're uh uh getting into the to the meat of the matter uh today and i wanted to start with this video this is a really old video so just bear with the the uh time frame in which it was filmed but i think it's a really good demonstration of of why we set priorities and how sticking to our priorities can be most beneficial to us in the long term versus the short term so uh enjoy see if i can get it to play it's nice it kind of looks like nicky hangers she actually started started jaws before this was uh should you need to make a quick note oh now we're talking the beetles i'd have been a singer pretty good we've become an official beetles uh support i've actually been delivered oh wow oh i went there would you go across every lane everywhere yes yes that's in london are you getting any of this the nature of your work samet consulting consulting things yes do you ever feel like your life is kind of out of balance out of whack it can be do you ever feel other knock you down yes then another one knocked you down to where it just kind of beats you up well that might be an analogous in the jar good luck i'll describe each rocks as she puts them in called q2 planning preparation right planning preparation but important right am i picking these up in any order any way you want it's not going to work am i still going yeah try to get them in there she just put down the sharpen the saw how many you ever been too busy driving to take time to get gas okay by moving the little things around you might does that count it's almost do i really put all of these in well no you can neglect a big opportunity if you want here's something that's called urgent and important it's a quadrant one thing that is blind sighting you that uh it's your biggest client that if you don't get you've given up your vacation and you have no special block of time just for yourself can take a whole different approach you have a totally fresh bowl you can work out of a different paradigm no i don't please in there okay ha ha ha what did you learn i learned if i have enough but so what something like that but i think it's important as we as we start to um as we staff has all the little green rocks all day long every day i mean they've already got fairly trying to focus in on your priorities and those bigger picture things that the focus areas which i would say are the big rocks so that they can make moves uh toward the the goals and aspirations that you'll have as a body is really important um i just want to talk a little bit about best practices related to strategic priorities um and and all the strategic prioritization literature will tell you less is more the more specific you can be in the more focused you can be on your efforts the more successful you can be so you know you all have to say that typically the recommendation depending on your organization is somewhere between three and five depending on how transformational you're trying to be cities are a broader base than that so a lot of the cities that i work with look like about six i handed that list out to you all of your current um focus areas which is the the bolded top pieces and then there are all of the priorities that have fallen underneath and so again if you take that principle and you say okay six is the right number and three to five is what you're looking for some of these have have far more than that when it comes to priority which means that the timeline gets longer the resources may not be available spend the rest of our time today doing is really as a body saying these are the things that we think are the most important that we really want to focus on in the near term and then come to some sort of consensus around where the other ones fall or lay um uh the best practices are also aligning these big rocks if you will with what the community desires so we have the recent results of the community survey and like i said ryan i promise you it's coming um we're going to compare kind of where everybody is at this moment in time so that we can see where we want to maybe maybe uh redirect some of our energy or efforts um strategic priorities strategic goals are looking toward the future they're not these uh one and done kinds of things that's not strategic strategic in and of itself implies that there is some sort of forward movement and you're trying to achieve something different than what you have uh they they have broad support meaning by the body uh so the body has agreed that these are now our strategic priorities this is what we're moving uh towards so that we can then in the cycle of governance direct staff to develop plans and bring back to us for affirmation they have a defined impact so you want to be very specific enough y'all have heard of smart goals measure we have the money and if we don't how are we going to get it so we could say we're going to build going to cost 20 million dollars we don't have the money we're just putting it on a piece be realistic about it do we have in five years will we have saved or will we have the bonding this is okay so being realistic about what our expectation as far as timeline is is really important and then sticking to that because that allows staff appropriately and deliberated them and in the way that you see fit then how great these items and issues is best practiced um and this is this is in budget yeah you've got a few mechanisms you could add a fee here you could do this over here to make some so that we can fund whatever the the demand is that's in public safety that's the that's so if it's truly a priority it should dictate that it needs the resources and we should be able to defend that publicly and they're not normal course of business so you've got your your green rocks you've got tons of normal that they have to get done um that are regulatory their uh policy that that you all find value and that you want to see accomplished over time and and so we can't reasonably accomplish maybe some of the things have changed since we looked at it last survey information information i received from you so back to kind of we're in that priorities to the city moving forward so this was the list and i'll give you the full list here in a second oh let me hand these to the members for me probably were sort of flip-flopped um and and the first two have the numbers i have it hold on so i i consider those pretty pretty close together um in the ranking from the from the community and then you know transportation system probably it's just vernacular in your community if infrastructure is also if they building a new road or a water tower or in whatever or if they consider growth infrastructure so this side um the the rest of the list was community amenities um so quality of life the next one and the reason that i dropped this down and it's three each is the council um public safety was next uh with three that seemed to rank higher on your list as a body correlate pretty well with what the community says is their priority so now let's look at it this way you said we should be making 100 year decisions we weren't asking the community what are the hundred year priorities it's what's the priority now which is very important it's like urgent and important right but then there are things that come under students going to be some things that are on you know council list because we're not answering the same question the same or are we looking at construction of the roads because we talking with you all i think it was a broader concept of the road system the road network the condition of the road some people were very specific about the condition um but i do think i think it could translate to to infrastructure as well with the publicness and and so we had a broad discussion related to that to be as a long-term strategy for the success of a tax base and jobs and all of that sort of stuff and development organizational excellence and now i will say that that was not asked at 69 um but that was not asked of them and so that is fit in and as i suspect you all are supportive of the general public doesn't understand uh things or health insurance costs and recruiting for certain specific positions that sort of stuff and so i do think that's a that's a uh a disconnect with some of the information that the the public gave us but that is foundational meaning that we don't have people we can't offer services and i would think that that is the perception there probably move into these other parts um i think they're fairly well aligned so for your key focus areas i i in my estimation with the other information that i've seen think that they're pretty well on track but now is your opportunity to tell us do you think these are still all encompassing do you see something missing do you think that some of them should be together separated go ahead sorry as um sorry as the new person um when these were created where would we say um you know looking at what the citizens have said about homelessness where does that fit in these is that quality of life is that what uh support health and safety like what is that the is that a public safety issue is that where would that land it is on it's it's in part of it around affordability and quality of life okay and then you've got mental health services like there are pieces in parts of it okay i just don't see any subsection or sub item that seems to represent what the was the number one concern of the citizens and that's when this is developed go ahead this is this may be my own perspective from previous years but we were we were tackling the the not the global concept of homelessness but more so we were in this list we were saying these are the sources of this category and that's why they went into the strategic priorities and and others pleased category is actually the stalt of many problems yeah so but i guess the question if i might again it's the because that hits a lot of people's buttons whether it's public safety or health or sympathy or the environment or all kinds of things right then a lot of people could say oh yeah homelessness boom but then if they come to it from a different then we can say clearly there's a there's an overlap of interest in in solving this combined problem but how do you get there because and that's one of those devil in the details kind of things you know this is those that we rank up and down i guess is the question i'm submitting yeah i think this is the way it was asked um to what degree if at all is homelessness a problem in this a broad issue in the community and you all recognize that there are these multi-facets does that need does homelessness based on the key focus area with with pieces and parts underneath it so that the public to re-prioritize or reframe pieces and parts as they exist now i guess that's a picture that we can but i think that our now economic development um and i think that we from this individual um because we need it we need more more community quality of life things happening for us but i also want us to enjoy our own as well that we can you know certain folks can afford like so moving up on respect to my things since that well that this is coming from the you know you know the main mainstream respondents say too many apartments i mean do you hear it oh yeah so that's what i what i'm reading the tea leaves is to be homeless people i see and the roads yeah and the roads i is this a framing issue um we catch a scientific term you're like uh me and shaggy in school and and and if that works and it makes the understanding better if the education outreach and training better are better great then we've we've achieved more responsible government without action than ever planning well i'll tell you and absolutely i have zero opinion regarding what is right for your community y'all y'all decide for you but i will tell you that communities often will put things like how can i hope um and again i'm just going on a sample which we some of the public want us to treat it and um i'm not seeing those addressed in our current strategies and that's all yeah yeah no i i agree to your to your point an example about your previous community and just not openly stating what it is right so i think that people are going to look forward to and that's a great if we leverage uh jill as a resource to say what is the person that hadn't been at the dais for the last one two three four five years think i hear her words to say i looked at this your priority list and i didn't see what what people are looking for right you can put stones and you ask people to walk across the grass on the pump they're not going to do that you put the stones where the grass is worn out because that's where people walk and so where is there you're not doing it right so i would lean towards adding it but i also say it should add some detail and this is i have my notes on everything but just are the shelter and the city's goals are not really aligned i'll take that too far but what i'm saying is the shelter is a low barrier shelter you can go take advantage of the shelter if you've been in it for one day no days months years you can take advantage of it you can show up you're not expected to work you're not expected to take advantage of the programs you're not you don't have to do anything you can show up there sit all and so then we have a community of the same i think help people get back on their feet right so i think from a priority i say there should be our conversations internally with our shelter provider and say either we're okay with the status quo or we're not but we got to be because that when i look at that and i think holistically there's middle-class families that are struggling and we spent 14 million dollars on the shelter we spent no money per se on middle-class families right on people that are having to buy $20 used tires or all those things right like struggling with the utility bills we have how much was probably less than a million dollars we give for people struggling with utility bills but we've been 14 million on this group that doesn't have to work and doesn't have to do anything people that are working have families doing things and struggling with your utilities we'll give you a million over here 14 minutes right so there so i think those priorities do need detail under what we expect and messaging so someone's i thought about it the other day i'm walking to crow where someone's let's say someone's there panhandling um i don't have any cash i wish i could give it to you but how basic needs can be met at this facility other side of town goes on and get you there people to redirect and so now we go to the citizens we say get on brand get on message we're all i think that's really the key is we got to at least flush out what we have we and i think we should um have a hard conversation with our shelter provider and make sure our goals are aligned that hey here's how you can help people india we're you know uh forums or whatever you don't need to be able to respond this is how i look at it uh and i'm not quite sure it tells me where to characterize it but just kind of sorry this is taking me a little while to lay out but part of it is we had this turned off duty cops we knew where the homeless people were we're out trying to help them get it get property and some of that mental illness illness in fact what we're seeing in the square i don't know i honestly know if there are people who are at our daily bread but these are the people who won't go to our daily bread but 350 places for them to go if they're you know more phobic and that's in a lot that's going to make the fact that hey there are all these people around who are probably making it harder to rent out i have a follow-up to that so that i can understand the the problems or issues because you said being around people really right you mean your own little space yes i mean so it's all right am i wrong well you know but they don't i'm just telling you they don't and their crops and say they don't i'm not i'm not trying to say it if they do i'm trying to understand the difference i'm asking you to articulate the difference in life experience 24 hours a day not maybe they shouldn't but you know i think our people who deal with the homeless population we tell you some don't feel safe and and and maybe they're right uh structured in a room full of people they're not related to and what else faced with this choice we might say my locker totally meets my need to keep my stuff no i'm not i'm trying to get you to list the things that are different from the village to the shelter we've got to sleep in the pets in with them in their structure versus uh whatever they call you know they're kind of cages or carriers uh it's amazing did they change the shelter i guess right i think i think just went around yeah they did just feelings of security and stability and includes uh uh yeah i think that that would cover the love of it all those things that prevent people from being more successful is when they don't have an action you know if they're looking for a job you can certainly have a place for your information but i do think that we are taking homelessness obviously very seriously here and didn't but i don't want that to be our consumption i don't want to be consumed by that as a resident i don't want to be consumed by that as a city council member which i obviously am not going to be for the rest of my life but i do want to make sure i want my number one priority right now as compared to last year because we've been working on it and we've been doing a great job and we're going forward uh i just want my um quality of life school level uh you know council member bird we don't have enough to do in our town we don't we don't have anything in our town what do we do as as teenagers well we've got to go to other cities to go to a skating rink we have to go other places to enjoy ourselves so how are we going to accommodate that as well and i think we can do that through economic development and quality of life we are building homes we got 10 000 11 000 homes coming up here pretty soon so all of those we're a small business community we love it we love buying local uh what about our larger you know businesses that can um that can employ you know 50 60 70 80 90 100 people how are we accommodating those folks as well yeah so that um i want to change it up a little bit when you look at economic opportunity and affordability i suspect that's where economic development sits um and so i feel like that the community captured there does that is that broad enough does it need to be economic development came out pretty strongly in the survey it was a surprise to me and i don't think it's we're talking about what they feel and they feel that's in need yeah would that be would that fit under mobility transportation and thank you i just wanted to make sure and i heard you tell you if there's internal synergies and those internal synergies align then you're considering what we've talked about or if there are areas that some of the uh small area plans those kinds of things involved in it a blue card but i want to be something has come up and i want to have almost like a digital or the usual processes but then also i'd like to see a process that's already in focus on i talk about it in every talk i give it says for pro if i miss an email i may not get that same understanding to someone that saw the email i think that has an increase in our priority and our focus to get that then that's that's a tricky part you're not going to eradicate that but the more as yes no maybe perfect right because you can look at that you can say okay 50 people versus send me all the emails you got i gotta do open records requests get everyone's email read them reconcile them and an account for them so i i think i priority needs thoughts about that particular are we are we going through our prayer i mean i'm just trying to keep with that right now what i'm trying to get through but but please this is your meeting is is to make a little bit with some of the discussion we've had about whether or not those still look appropriate and encapsulate all we need to get my apologies i'll get to the details later but i do have a that has the that has to be narrow because if not i can say it's safety i can make it a health and safety so i just can go under different buckets and it seems to me that that's gotta be that that's that's the the presumptive first place concern as passionate as i am about streets quite frankly i'm more passionate about being safe in my family feel that is clear enough for your purposes or are you understanding that means and it's not nearly high enough as far as i'm concerned that's that's a middle okay and but also we're working on roads they're complaining about us working on roads um you know they get they upset because the roads need to be fixed they get upset when we're fixing the roads so those things are ongoing we're we're we're working very diligently i think that we need to now put a little bit more concentration for us to for me to think that we are still still a priority rep regardless of whether or not i'm you know putting on health and safety of our community that that that it's it's the first place thing without even being the first place thing it's like we got air you know it's of course we got air of course we got public safety right right yeah i think one of the categories are right they are just the focal areas so it's not number one number two number three this is where 80 of the you know effort should go it's not but think about if you're the general public and you pick this up and it's just reordering so i'm hearing i'm listening everybody it sounds like of the of the of the staff and and sarah just has to do her job and parse that hard and then we can move ahead and get into the priorities yeah i mean honestly that that's kind of where i wanted to start with are these i just want to be very very clear because i i won't waste so i'm not we're not delivering on that all i'm asking for is to modify this to say something municipal on municipal property on public falls and and hit your big toe we're not we're not community that the city's not going to address so if you look at it to come out and fix the water line on my side of the property right that's private property versus a we're responsible for your private property safety what if what if it was public safety i'm just trying to get people i just said it's not what if it's support public safety and you're not gonna be your doctor anything like that but it is literally the purpose of you know to your point it doesn't mean you make sure there's aspirin in everybody's medicine chest you know it's okay well and i appreciate the mayor's comments uh i think one of the the topics are correct but if we're not if there's things it's my water you're gonna fix my electric meter when the tree falls on it and the city's not going to do that that's not what i meant so then city sending good water it's getting corrupted on my property and kind of switch you got but i want i want them i want the clean electricity to come to your switch i have the clapper you're on your own at that point okay so am i hearing that we would be okay with with clarifying that one a little bit and making it public safety and public health would be okay okay so these are your six key focus areas in in the creation of those key focus areas you for public safety and then just to cover one more in terms of foster economic opportunity affordability you said that was broden's economic vitality support of our local economy support events and programs that encourage tourism you then also said that for you means promote housing affordability and family stability and in that you've indicated that that means create and preserve affordable rental and home ownership increase economic stability and address issues of homelessness in the community so there is a layer of specificity that that you all were able to define right but hayley's asking for the broad categories and if i take if i reverse engineer that all those things a lot of those things touch on homelessness but we agreed that we need to have a category that says homelessness because people aren't reading all the details they're reading top line issues and so we agreed that top line issues homelessness needs to be a key focus area so that people can see it similarly if i if i if i adopt that the people going to read those top line categories to have a category that that is not clear my my words not yours uh then we should we should amend that so that people don't have to read into the details because precious few are going to read into the details i did not hear consensus on putting homelessness as its own category did we have a feeling of adding it somewhere and i took off all the ones of them that we're already doing that we're already addressing that we're focused not that we're going to add homelessness and then add 67 more things correct i think that was my question to the group that's what i i think that we need to do that just so that it can sorry i was going to say i think we need to do that so we can it can appear to be a central priority i don't disagree at all the uh but if i'm not got new eyes and saying hey i don't see alignment between this list and what the people said so uh so i think that's right to give in spoke yesterday doing the normal jobs if you don't think we should be doing anything different then and okay don't put on there but this list of things that need need new and additional attention we should cross up the things we're already doing this is on rearranging whole homelessness and coming up with the right category language um and moving the things that that belong there as a focus area was addressed our needs um we did not talk about sustainability and the environment i know there are issues related to that that are specific um is i assume that needs to remain its own piece okay like you all still have focused efforts that would belong in that category i don't think they preclude each other from being true by by in the same way that we have when we are going to rank order those data here's what the list looks like now then do that that's actually all the council members are going to get this and sarah you said you've already checked some things off so that will actually help i'll get it to you you are doing that and if you know your same benefits you're also saying reaffirm mercy in every man and that's a big focus for us we're already doing that and uh we already have it on our radar for uh providing employee friendly amenities so with moms and some uh healing rooms kitchen areas all that we hired a chief communications officer which i will tell you probably has improved our uh education and communication by at least 50 percent so number six i'm a superintendent who's retiring but but so we have those partnerships and relationships my phone tracking uh you're correct to say you don't need anything that's in that focus area what i'm saying is we're already doing that and continue to focus on so it doesn't need to be on the list of here's the new things for so so if it is the question is has it become normal course of business yes so all of those things are zeros all of those things are normal courses of business and is my expectations okay and then on infrastructure and mobility uh 2022 that it's actually the dissatisfaction has decreased and opportunities to ease travel you might want to keep that one on there and then construct a new city hall i think that switched a little bit that is a focus for us to look at a place that is all encompassing and we have less buildings and better infrastructure okay opportunity economic opportunity affordability uh we have a new economic development director who's fabulous who will be focusing and focusing on that but i do think that's something that you need we already are doing is the toolkit which will you're going to get an update on here coming up and what's an ongoing effort with the development code but it's something on our radar we're going to continue to do to bring back to you and we feel there's needs to be changes okay on quality of life we are trying our best we have made i don't know how many different visits with both ventures right i'm sorry sorry you're you speak faster than i can hear right and i just tell which ones are done it does help if you call off okay okay i'm sorry you say everything from 14 to 20 like already you know you know kind of or did i miss something so 14 to 9 at 14 to 19 uh well let me start to say okay uh and we'll never stop doing them as long as it's a priority because it's the right thing to do so until we figure out a way to get land for we're going to continue to do that and you don't need to make that a priority we are doing it so those things you can take off because we got our fingers on the radar however if there is a difference of opinion meaning staff feels that they are fulfilling that need but you don't think it is fulfilled enough right that's not uh we'll continue to stay on your radar because that's something that's important to you and uh different ones have different feelings about strategic approach to land acquisition on support we unless it's a regional approach we don't have an opportunity to bolster mental health we do the best we can and we are focusing on that is an ongoing thing of um and then on sustainability um and on the large-scale energy policy i think we're looking at that you still want to stay on your radar because i think it's an ever-changing uh most for uh things and not you know so i i'm not going to say to take them off because different ones like for instance um southeast you know downtown's in the works but but you know no we're doing this because we're still working on the ones we did last year all that can't see things in there but i think you're like we really need you know so much dcrc well you kind of do create a regional collaboration i understand but there is no financial funding currently nor and that is uh consistent with what i said not not a but that's an end and it's because yeah because i mean if you want to talk about brass tax where should it end up probably in nobody's city probably in the county but but the steps are we don't have enough money nobody that's here i got you sorry i don't mention this topic again through our old priorities i went through the the dashboard and i tried to find some places where it was synergistic between this the 36 categories and you know how we do and i know it didn't score very highly on the list but how we administration utilities parks green space housing economic development historical preservation if there's one thing i've heard over the last three-ish years is that well i i don't that we are understaffed to fulfill the service requests cross-department you know again inspection development grants police fire sustainability ems admin all had vacant the other one that was cross-cutting was one that paul alluded to which was the dbc set the code that it affects many departments you know you know the large-scale energy policy economic development green preservation historical preservation that have less downstream impact i was going to suggest land management staffing and development code as like prior type priorities just in terms of actionable items across the 36 however you and it happens to be that two of those staffing is number one uh dbc is 20 land acquisition is uh 29 so it just happens to be there are already three priorities but those three broadly hit most of the 30 not maybe all the 36 but you know 20 of them or so um and and so and i'm actually not going to ask for any new priorities this year i think i'm not saying i'm not going to ask you for things large-scale priorities yelling council party those are your did you get the score sheet okay so what is the correlation please i'm so sorry explain it to me so you the each category has its own scoring numbers so in the first row two four six eight based on these that are on your list council priority does that make sense do you have that sheet then the next one is zero two four six eight and it is a based on community priority point system uh and then you move down to individual that that's how to determine the downstream effects well if we do this when it affects these that you know down the list so really it's a chance for you all through this mechanism to give a little bit more direction in specificity things that are related to all of these items that are on this list plus their daily jobs where we have capacity and where we're maxed out six thank you uh in economic development is here this support economic development and not in ink yes and then here i think we can't do it sounds like a serious review for me i'm not sure i guess shapeshifting that the city manager has done an excellent job and we're walking us through this page and as we are going we're going through this page what i did was i just have um suggested to her and cassie because it just worked from there and we can just shuffle these priorities around as to which ones we think uh should detail detail some of these things so that's not our job it's detailed that stuff right now i don't want to spend it's important you're saying uh the objective was to get to assure you're like you know from uh arguably the most cantankerous counselor i'm just doing that rhetorical dive uh you know i accept if there is a consensus that you're okay with refining time other than what we've talked about here we need to do this today because here's the problem we have you're not here wouldn't it be better to come back together with that revised list we come back to look at the revised list could it be 15 minutes from now like do we have the technology that takes like 10 bros i mean i could delete some i do i have a file so well if she's working on this we might as well go ahead and do it yeah let's go ahead let's go be nice try and get you all out of here okay oh okay we're sharing with you our recommendation on a new tune that's a redesign are we to do both work on this and listen to that they're not working on that i'm rising if they want to they can but but just tell them they need to listen to you right now do you want me to tell them you know well i'm revising this list for you are it will where our goal for this is a it's an engaged conversation so if you want i got a little lost we're not doing this exercise here wait i am revising the big list so that it can be looked at in its new format i obviously didn't hear that oh and they're going to do this while i put your pencils down yeah thank you test is over time is over so follow okay second best to council priorities is the two-minute pitch so before we get started we just improved the two-minute pitch process so cassie and i will present it uh these are suggested improvements for discussion so we'll have the opportunity to talk about do we want to change it do we love the way it is what are your thoughts amendment to the process in 2021 um which changed it from a one minute or work session or in that 2023 to an immediate action if there's not consensus there's kind of a snapshot of the time that's involved um and because these are out of the time that we're currently taking um in reviews receive it in the cmo inbox we've placed it on an agenda for the next tuesday uh consensus to move forward the department that's impacted or requested to review the item for the agenda um we go through what we call a dry run so when looking at what opportunities do we want to bring forward to you for potential enhancements we had a couple goals that we're guiding on what we're going to utilize our council subcommittees to gather diverse opinions on the pitch and then when there is no funding how do we align this with the budget process next on the subject so we'd be looking at uh what's the department's existing work and then we it could flow through the subcommittee process if there is funding or not funding like you've seen this year with uh funding with it if funding is aligned with it then it goes okay problem but suffice to say and once and then in the um congress did this weird thing of like only an isr was requested or only a work session you know how about like yes there's interest in this topic and then can we have like you give us good advice i was going to stay on and there's a timing you know one or two minute pitches come in if you submit it on a wednesday it's going to be on that person because that person is this or that right you can't that that that will be immediately the next thing it's like well how come mine always have to go through even steven is the only way to go i appreciate this because i have to chair the meetings and i have to call balls and strides all infant babies are born healthy and the mom when we're you know have that initial conversation yes we think that's good okay here's how much yes cost then we start getting into the deep end and giving a because how many stop if you heard this i'm surprised i mean versus giving an appearance that it's going to be done in a weekend so thanks no no it works better if you do it this would be incredibly helpful because sometimes with the pitches they seem you know it more due diligence before voting yes or no tracked what is going to come out of the budget to then put this in you know kind of having that global context i think would be helpful so and i think this would be very helpful you're overly worried the the issue i have is the two-minute pitch was to filter a million requests to a doable number of requests by judging interest all right so there's interest or not the vetting is generally what happens we y'all come and do a a report you give a presentation you include the budget information you know we decide hey look this is low priority or several puts like i can't even get to this to kind of move it up and down and the agenda committee just kind of massage it if if the priorities slip a little bit or whatever but but then that vetting is typically done in the work session with all that information y'all you'll come up with a preliminary assessment in in whatever time frame it takes you is when you kind of you know don the 50,000 foot view check and and the detailed street level check is in the work session so you know now you spend a ton more time doing it than if you just did the work session in the first place kathy made that point as we were working on it i like to play devil's advocate i absolutely made this point it's not to save staff time it's a better vetting item it's to make sure that we are considering all angles before we bring it to council because we have brought two minute pitches where we thought oh did we think about that component because of the time component right now we're trying to meet whatever we've promised to council so if we said we're going to bring it back in the month we're trying very hard to bring it back in a month and we don't always consider all have time to consider all the angles so we're trying and we're trying to utilize utilize those subcommittees that maybe have more expertise in those areas than the staff do i mean they're making obviously presented by staff but we're trying to get that those different opinions and see where things can be improved versus it just being staff driven i think one other piece for council might consider is that sometimes i think in practice right now any two minute pitch we're assuming you're going to hear back about it in a work session so then our work sessions are primarily driven by two minute pitch leaving less time if we want to give an update on affordable housing or have a discussion on just informational topics so that's a council decision we're going either way but that's where we're seeing so on the example of narcan staff would have done an informal staff report shown what's going on provided that back and it may have satisfied your request not needing to take up a work session spot so we're we are good either way just the thought is right now and automatically with consensus the next time you're going to hear back is a work session versus some opportunities for us to look at and say here's other things to consider here's what might be going on already is this what you were looking for well and with the narcan example you know we when we were going through this process we thought about we may have missed an opportunity to go through the community partnership committee where they are promoting festivals that's what they're doing they're working with those organizers and providing funding and providing incentives for them to to do the hold those festivals in town we didn't get their input so those are the that's the committee that works closely with those organizers and we bypassed that committee not by not intentionally but we missed a step and considering how we could promote that um in in the city so the we're not saying this is going to take less time it's going to take more time absolutely well in time if i wasn't clear before i'm in favor of loosening up the conversation so that council has you know indicates interest consensus on working on that topic but that but that we can then hear uh you know recommended set of next steps and it's it's it's not everything is going to need to go to you know community services committee give me some i'm totally open to the idea that that that might even might be better ideas than what i asked for you know for that particular topic so that's that's how i would approach it is to say let's make what the pitch accomplishes is uh you know yes there's consensus for staff to work on this issue but then let's hear staff suggest a way forward and get to agreement on that i i i'm not for saying everything must go through uh subcommittee it might you know if that's if that would be helpful that's what i'm not and i want to i'll clarify on that we're saying rather to agenda committee and agenda committee decide if there's an applicable subcommittee there may be too many pitch items that come up that don't fit into any so it's not a requirement it's just is there any other committees we need to think about that's a good one to consider yes no and that one clarifying question on the opportunity to have the discussion are you envisioning that in the moment when the pitch is made i think there's a time constraint issue from our perspective if especially if the pitch is coming in the week before the council meeting that we're not going to have as much information i'm not suggesting that you have more information i'm suggesting that you have an idea about where you would okay yes okay yeah i heard you said before i didn't ask you to do anymore okay just what path yeah this is something where you know we have questions about a b and g so we would suggest you know since you all like this area focus this is the path we'd like to recommend to you i like that too because that may help guide like in our current practice we are going straight to the work session yes that's all we have okay do you so trying to see do you have direction i think i'd like to hear from all the council members yeah please i i'm very happy with the too many pitch the way it sits i think it's i think it's quick it gets to the meat of the topic and you get a consensus immediately i i could understand if you'd like to have at least one council meeting before we actually hear the pitch so you're not limited to you could you could have as many as three weeks to work on it and at least and no less than two but but otherwise i like it i like the way it sits so i would like to ask though at least that when you do your two minute pitch that you're looking at priorities the strategic priorities and making sure that they're following these i'm just going to be frank because i'm at the point in my life in my career where i have to be the willy-nilly ones that we are pulling off the table and spending a million amount of staff time is killing us and they are willy-nilly they are not priorities for the city they are not things that you've listed as priorities they are things that you believe are your priorities and this is what we're having a meeting today is to bring you together to say these are our priorities but some of these things we're spending an enormous amount of time on we have a chart we can show you and and it is it takes away from the roads it takes away from anything else we have to do because all the departments and there's a slide in there it shows you all the departments that have to touch something it goes to the city attorney's office who has to look at it in different ways in different angles might go to the police department if even if it's a road situation because we have to look at make sure we're not violating a law it's it's it is it's not following your strategic priorities you're one-offing and i'm all i ask is if you're going to put a two-minute pitch in that it it ties to our strategic priorities not because your neighbor told you you needed to do it or others and i'm just being honest because it you know i'm speaking for the people who have to spend all their time doing it and it's not me it is not me i get to see the final product they get to see and review it for a few hours it's the staff down in the front line in the middle line and the directors that are doing all the work at the same time they're doing the small area plans they're trying to maintain the roads and the streets and all the other things they're trying to do those are the ones that are doing it not me not her and and certainly not i mean they're not they're not doing it all i ask is if they're going to go this route then you stick with council priorities and not these things that someone's told you need to be doing that should come up during the during the council retreat with all due respect thank you sorry sorry i need a clarification sorry i can think by the way judge did i hear you right you said add a few weeks when no sir i said i said have one council meeting between the time it was turned in and the time it's perfect in the time that it was made okay so i don't think that's possible but go i think the ordinance says it comes back straight away okay okay sorry go ahead yeah you know that the whole point is if even if it is really nearly one off not part of things not part of that set priorities you you will only move forward if a majority of elected officials want it and i think that's just some things come up things come up that you know that time passes where there's going to be there's going to be new information that's just that's just true uh you know and i think that's just part of representative government that and but i totally why the process exists first of all it didn't always exist no it used to be yeah you could have a council member who as an individual council member would bring you know 10 20 items up there you probably remember this matter like in closing i closing concluding remarks it'd be i want to work so this will work so i don't go off 15 minutes so so the filter is you're only asked to move on anything if the majority of council wants it so so that i get that it is still adding up but it's still only you know you can only do one council member can only do one uh per session and and it only moves forward other than to get on the agenda for that discussion if if there's no consensus i agree i hear what you're saying but it's also tied to priorities when you're doing these these are coming from i mean i'm i'm sorry i'm not a council member i never want to be one but at the end of the day you have a responsibility when you have constituents bring these ideas of anything up to you to talk about you have a strategic plan you have things you're working on you remember that when we when you all do a work session we're just reading your stuff we don't get to chime in i don't get to say well wait a minute we don't here's the thing is if you put this on our plate i don't get to say that during the work session during the work session when you're doing your two minute pitch we have to come back and say it that's what we're spending all the time saying no you don't want to do this here's this and this and this that's why we want to give you the information up front which you're saying we can do that but it takes us time to gather that information i actually don't i don't want to mislead you uh i'm not saying give me the information up front i'm saying advice on what the pattern is i i think it's correct that we should get to say what we want to talk about when we decide we want to talk about it you 100 should be able to come back from work session and go this is stupid nicely said for the following reasons but i think we get to say if we want to i think it's more of you you you are sitting in a room here today and you're prioritizing what's most important to the council hopefully listening to your constituents when you do your two-minute pitches that's awesome there's some of those two-minute pitches that have been absolutely valuable there are others that we've spent an enormous amount of staff time that don't matter of hila beans to anybody and i've been asked by citizens about it and i just say well that was the request of council you won't get your votes because you have one side or the other that feels that way or there's some that are interested in it and sometimes the vote the statement is well i could i could hear a work session on that it's not that they support it it's i could hear it the other side of it though you're hearing the work session that we have done the work on and then you decide whether you like it or not we've already done the work that's the point is some of you are saying i could hear it on that but no one's saying not four of you are saying i absolutely agree we need to do that it's well i could go with that but don't you think that's what we don't conclude whether we want to do it or not it is all i'm saying is though okay just just leave it like it is then all i'm just going to say is if you're talking about priorities and you're focusing on what's most important in this city then the the two-minute pitch process needs to be focused on what's best for the city as a whole and the only reason the staff worked on this was to you all talk about how do we engage our boards and commissions more this is your opportunity this is your opportunity to see if your suggestion is valued by the citizens so so and and and thanks so that's why i'm saying i'm totally open to hearing once you hear like yeah council's interested in hearing about this issue the suggestion that it follow you know i'm totally open to hearing staff thinks this ought to go through this committee whatever the path might be that would bet it i got no issue with that at all okay okay okay so i i want to see what consensus is because if that's consensus i'm telling you staff do it this way and just don't tell them i'm just you know i mean like because you have carte blanche to evaluate it the way you want to evaluate it and just evaluate it the way you've lined out here and you know go on you i mean the the past few have come from one person one came from a newspaper article and have all this and then there's one that went all the way through had support got voted down reintroduced worked up again then voted for all the gamesmanship and if you're telling me there's not gamesmanship so really my ask is simple from from a meeting standpoint just management standpoint if uh if if if you know anyone if you know you have an idea and you've rallied i'm a fan as old as you only talk to three people and you've rallied three people to support your idea i just ask that you communicate that the staff let's not go through the rigmarole of acting like it's going to be fairly considered let's just go through and say hey there's three people they're going to pick up one along the way and let's just get it out of the way right like that's i'm i'm in my phase of my career where i'm like let's not waste a bunch of time feigning as though we're interested in listening to a bunch of different people let's just admit hey there's support for three elected officials and potentially they're going to pick up a fort let's get it expedited get it out of the way so we can get back to normal stuff that that i mean that's my that's just my ass just communicate hey look i city manager will shoot you straight i don't think we should do it hey i have three people that'll be her cue to know hey let's just let's just put it on the we can just vote for it just put it on put it on willing network session just put it on a public hearing and and be done with it just hey here's three for support people can come out and talk they want uh and let's be done with it that that's really my i i just if anything comes out of this i want to speed up our meetings i don't want to have people having to work two jobs at the city of denny because they come to work at eight in the morning they work till two to the work session then we tack on another seven hours so we have some number of city of workers at the city that don't get to see their kids every tuesday don't get to put their kids to bed every other tuesday and that to me it you don't get that time back i'm just in a phase where i don't want to faint as though if the if the three or four people just want to move something through let's just move it through and and get back to our regularly scheduled program so if y'all would do me a solid and just communicate that to her when you're talking to her in private she says i don't think we should do it you give her the hey i have three people that support it i've already talked to them she'll know put it on a public hearing we'll put we'll slate it and and be done with it we can skip the work session skip all those things just let's just go right let's just not have people working two jobs at the city of denton and and let's get home and put our kids to bed and netflix and chill but but if there's but yeah if there's if there's a consensus is there a consensus what paul proposed that city staff gets to decide how it goes is there a consensus for that well what he said i don't want to put words in his mouth what he said is there a consensus or better said is there anyone against that perfect there you go y'all do it the way y'all want you see fit you can watch the video again and get a feel for it but there you go all right you did your print new prints yes okay so i i just lined through i removed one that was complete so it's no longer on the list but i just lined through all those that sarah indicated were either now part of of regular processes or were well underway okay that was christy who did me a quick favor and put this thing together okay so um this what this does is it makes 12 um i changed the focus areas on the back is um homelessness i think we still need to to figure out what the appropriate language is for that and then move whatever um pieces around that would more what did i do wrong so i did it on the fly so to correct whatever you need to correct i kind of heard 33 34 35 are still sarah saying keep them on there but yeah i made so if that is correct that's fine i i misunderstood is that is that right sarah you're right so all 32 through 36 are all still yes okay i i read the notes wrong i think it was backwards yeah sorry oh i'll make it get that one's that were on going i thought that the ones that had become either normal course of business or were complete and i think i read her notes backwards so tell let's go through the list and say what's still on the list sarah so under focus area pursue organizational excellence it should be grant management should stay okay so that's number six and implement three one one system should stay because we're in the process of okay okay that's it and i'll be honest with you one two three four five should be a value and should be something that council expects of me yeah i actually heard you say none of these need to stay so that's yeah i was on infrastructure mobility um prioritize street maintenance and roadway funding is something that we're doing but shoes ongoing it's ongoing right uh i believe i said opportunities to ease travel through the city needs to stay i read your less room i am so sorry um we're already working on some issues related to city hall and space stays you can stay but that's um something we're working on under the other one starting with 14 got to stay 14 stays 15 stays 16 stays 17 stays 18 stays 19 goes because we're already doing that totally read it backwards i saw check marks and i thought the tiny home collaboration we're working on and that's what they're visiting so that's crazy that that could stay or but it's underway um affordable housing toolkits already there and we're implementing we're coming but probably needs to stay as ongoing master plan is almost complete and then on the review and so stay or go uh it should it should go it's it's almost done we're coming to see you guys in another month or so so that's going but it's ongoing yeah one clear uh 14 through 18 stay do 19 through 23 go no 20 stays so this is easier right this is what we're doing this has been the first one where it was clear i'm just making sure it's my mistake i lined i read her noticing correctly and did it the opposite so that is totally on me i'm using the original there you go there you go totally on me so where are we 23 23 stay and you've got it right for 24 24 through 29 on the next one with 30 uh those are both we're working on not so much mental health but something that when you talk about regional stay and then 32 through 36 keep um stay 32 stay 33 uh ongoing and actually 33 is ongoing just so you know ongoing stay and 35 ongoing and 36 stay so 32 to 36 stay 34 goes does it not well it's been completed but it's something that council cares about so i'm just gonna tell you it's complete how about just say go policies in line with it no no we have been okay so and it stays yeah stay stay all right sarah call out just so that we're all clear call out the ones that remained on the list you want me to have highlight yeah if you did sure all right and please correct me if i'm wrong i have under uh pursue organizational excellence and collaborative and respectful leadership staying i have six and seven okay agree under if there was a question about eight we had some discussion about that being ongoing and maybe some improvements to the way people could register support yeah we're gonna work on that from a city i've got the city state are we looking okay that's fine focus area enhance infrastructure and mobility i have 10 staying because it's ongoing and 11 um staying and 12 i've got is just ongoing but i was unclear if it should stay or not to be honest well it's complete right well no we're still looking at it's not oh y'all are looking at the other list yeah 11 12 okay i had to start over so under foster economic opportunity and because it's underway oh there's no 13 there is no 13 oh i don't have it because it's unlucky yeah are we not doing 13 i know but she verbally said it twice on an hour ago and now just five minutes ago i don't know what happened to 13 so public safety only space partnership with retail yes yes so you're working on the old list they're working on the new list number 13 is the number 12 is gone on the old list yes public safety facility what stays is constructed city 12 got deleted 12 got deleted because it's done yeah this new list 12 is 13 yeah exactly yes 12 is the 13th so just scratch out 12 and put 13 that way all the lists are consistent okay economic opportunity and affordability okay so um enhance infrastructure mobility we have 10 staying 11 staying and then uh 12 the old 12 is now 13 and that is constructing a city hall with potential for retail and partnership focus sorry um foster economic opportunity and affordability plan i have 14 through 18 staying i have 21 staying i have 23 staying strengthen community and quality of life i have 24 28 and 29 staying yeah under support public health and safety uh 30 is kind of a maybe because it's not really a city it didn't however it's something we're going to continue to explore regionally does it stay stay stay down uh 31 stays and actually the rest stay well no sorry 32 and 33 stay 34 is gone 35 and 36 stay no no 34 stays because we have the plan but we haven't so 34 is gone it's back it's gone no it's back it's back on it's back and it's mad this time so so from focus area one pursue organizational excellence numbers one through five sarah suggested should be her responsibility and you should delegate that to her in some way is everyone okay with believing that the city manager should be bringing these things forward to you and ensuring that they are happening yes yes as course of business yes okay so then we uh in that category does anyone have any heartburn with taking off eight or nine no no brian yeah in general i i've always argued and i would love to hear the input of that we need to just do this as background if it's the intent of staff to to allocate a certain amount of just community outreach in general then yeah no i don't know that it needs to be a thing if it's all if it's a built into the system it's kind of joe's point everything is health and safety everything is communicating back with the public too so um as long as we're going to do that as an ongoing i don't have heartburn you are okay so now in the next one infrastructure mobility um everything stayed so there was no other than the one that was complete the next one economic opportunities anyone have trouble with sponsorships tiny homes or downtown master plan okay community and quality of life vulcan materials regional gaps in services and strategic approach to land acquisition does anybody need empower neighborhoods seventh through 12th graders or family friendly events to remain on the list same reason like just making sure we're going to keep doing it it's not that we're going to not do it right just making sure nobody had a particular inclination that wanted it there the next year one was done uh climate action and adaptation plan goals do we feel we're on track there and don't need to have it keep it on because you have oh that's right i'm sorry i didn't look at my my notes these are the opposites it is something else and then we have a new area of addressing homelessness or whatever that becomes and then some of these items may move and we'll do we'll do we'll do a rework of it add the homelessness as a topic and put things under that that currently we're working on things that aren't listed here as several council members mentioned that don't give the impression that we're working on it so we'll tweak it okay so that is that leaves 22 staff do you have any concerns related to what's left on the list no because i'll just i mean you got 20 uh kind of like the others we're going to continue to prioritize street maintenance motorway funding to make sure that we're taking care of our roads and you know we'll have to work with text dot and other entities like the county but we want to make sure that people are able to get through city and then of course the city hall yes that's important to all of us to work on if you just go down the list yes these are all things we're going to continue to work on as a part of our job okay council oh sorry most of the stuff i see that the and i can just get with the city manager and individually not to take up people's time but it's just they're they're too broad right if we're talking example offer more family-friendly events and activities well but here's here's the here's the next layer that we're not considering because we're just trying to focus in on the priorities themselves is that there are tasks and items that fall under those categories so offer more community events if the will of the council is we want there to be more for people to do in our community staff then comes back to you and says we think that if we added this festival or we added this amenity or we added this whatever that that would meet that that's what that's why we're bringing this to you as we think it would fill that need and then it's to you to approve or deny whatever that is right but if we're here to build consensus and give clear direction you have to have clear measure how what's your your definition of what uh family friendly because that's an absolute loaded term is going to be different in mine right so i'm saying if if when that comes back what's the measurable for that right like like while we're that's what i'm saying while you're and it's not what i'm doing today is 306 but my point is where we missed an opportunity is if we would have just gone the way i believe we lost a lot of time but anyway the fact of the matter is now what we're left with is we don't have an agreed upon measure to hold people accountable to say you said this is what was important to you this is what we delivered on here's how it's weighted per your request now it's just seven people weighing things seven different ways and we're we're riding square one so that's that's my that's my as i lament that's that's that's one of the things so this is intended to be policy directive vision sort of level from here you should be handing it to staff and if staff feels like they don't have the amount of information that they need or that they need to consult you or the committee that does whatever thing to say this is the plan we want to build that we think starts to move the needle in that direction that that's where the dividing line is that doesn't mean that council's not going to say hey i talked to you know this segment of the community and they think a new whatever would be useful well then staff has to go and say well does that align does that not align is it you know is that something that we could work into our plans do we already have plans in motion um and so that that is how a strategic plan is supposed to work i think what we have to get to here is an understanding of process of and expectation of what those task level items are and how they come and who's responsible for them well i'll take you at your word what is what is the task level for family friendly by your definition it's not a list on there just so you know the summer of the 22 i'm just using but if it was okay okay so i just i'm not we're not getting into it we don't have time i'm just using an example i grab one so if it's family friendly activity i would say you know who does that is my parks and rec department or whoever the right of those things and so they're going to come back to you and say based on the community survey based on uh what we're hearing from others based on this you know area of town we think having these four events this year is the right plan and we're going to try to budget for that so there's the next layer that says this is what moves forward as as the measure of and you all get to approve whether or not you think four events is fine or if you think six is fine for the year you're going to have to choose where to take money from to put that right but using your example they've done the work then they bring it back for approval wouldn't it be better to understand before you do the work how you're going to be graded right because ultimately you said it comes back to council that's what i was hoping to give them clear a taped environment of what council a consensus of council said is family friendly on point what we're looking for so then to the city manager's point you get in front of doing all this work only to come back and get a failing grade then you got to go do it all over again versus having a consensus that says here's what we're looking for in this space now the parks apartment goes and does that work with a clear direction clear goals versus i hope this is what they're hoping for we'll see when i do all the work and bring it back to that that starts to get into a business plan and a budget it's these other processes that start to support what the objective is if council is the body that looks at we are going to have seven t-ball teams this year instead of four council is not doing its job council is doing staff's job well then that's where we are and so i've never i've never heard anyone say we shouldn't do it because of budget i've heard some people say i heard from this segment of the community this is what we need to do so it's exactly if you're saying that's what we're not supposed to be that's exactly where we are yeah i if i recall quickly when amy and amy please correct me if i'm saying the wrong thing but uh just as earlier you defined certain terms i think on since we haven't had the discussion of adding anything to here all of these are defined and with definitions and and and so amy has a functional definition of of what each one means and we may have accomplished or are they ongoing but there's measurables because i i saw something on the dashboard that made me think we've had certain progress on x y and z of them so um it maybe would be helpful for anyone that is concerned or doesn't understand what it means maybe amy could tell us what that meant because she already has metrics for i mean that's just a suggestion let me just say this before you do because i think what what we're going to do is go back and take these and i'm going to say okay park has street maintenance and roadway funding if you recall we came back to you all without a roadway funding or overlay funding we're going to we're going to take those and we're going to identify bullets under that of some action items we're going to do which means probably come back to council maybe again with the roadway funding strategy same thing with i'm going to have the new economic development director hit every one of those items to start talking about some of her new ideas 380 agreements all those things you know same thing with michael what he's doing in in uh sustainability to list the things he's doing the things he hasn't done yet or hasn't worked through and those will be our bullet points of things that we need to attack then we'll give those back to you all to get your you know here's what we're looking at doing here's the things the checkpoints and go from there and amy will have those once they're that you've seen them and those will be where we report every every quarter we report on the action items so now staff is trying to marry what they've been hearing from you all and the the suggestions and input that they've received from you and also what they're receiving from staff so that they can create the taskings or the objectives that that support those layers and so you've now kind of refined that list in a way and potentially kind of reordered a few things but now it's to them to bring back to you this is what we've heard you say and this is what we think you mean by that and then it is to you to look at that and say yes you're on target or no you're not because ultimately you need to give them the surety that says that we agree with this moving forward we've talked about it we have funded it with the budget that's another one of those approvals and then let staff charge out and then report back to you on their their progress or non-progress if you think back to that cycle you know y'all are doing kind of a bigger picture work now let them fill in the details and you get to affirm it or change it or whatever but once it's affirmed and once they're charging forward it's also to you to honor the system and to do what you can to make sure that you are not getting outside of the loop getting outside of the plan that you're relating if you do have those items that come up throughout the year back to the plan and allowing Sarah to give her input appropriately toward whether that is possible or not but it has to be your plan it has to be your adopted assessment of where you think the city should be going and so I think if you all are comfortable with the work that we've done today with narrowing it down somewhat and massaging the the placement of items now Sarah and her staff will go back and look at the items that remained under some of those categories and start marrying that together and maybe some of the things that she sees coming up in the next year or so and making sure that you all are all on on board with the plan that she's going to expect her staff to carry on moving forward I'm seeing like consternation on folks faces I think that's a great idea I was filling out the form she's working on the form I thought we were just filling out the form and I think I think they sort of went at it I miss the I miss the interpretation of all this it's on your uh there's a sheet that tells you how to fill it out but at this point you don't even need to we've done the group work we did the group work yeah but if you wanted to use that and just determine sort of you know I really think that this was more important than than we gave it credit for you saying you just have to be we have to be at the high level thinking right now and just give a general overview of what we we're thinking and let the staff do their job and if we can just help them and give them a a roadway a map to go with then we can just satisfy our area of responsibility and let them go to work I think as long as we stick to that and don't I think they're afraid to go up on tangents throughout the year and rabbit holes it's all the green and the staff is the one that has to keep Sarah's the one that has to keep us in mind she's got to say guys we have to listen to her and we have to listen to her she listens to us so we have to listen and I hope everybody knows please understand when I talk about the staff and and trying to make things better and this I want to say this our assistant city managers worked very hard with our two assistant twos on this opportunity for the two-minute pitch and it was their idea their work they spent hours hours Matt got to say to work he got involved he gave us two cents and they revised it and revised it and worked so hard on it not because it was saving time for us this was not an attempt to give us a relief this was to do the things that you said before like I'd like to why don't we get more people involved in boards and commissions why don't we get our people into all right maybe wait until they're done so that you I'm sorry I'm sorry well I think that's where some people are getting lost I'm done I'm just done I'm so sorry yeah it's really weird I'm done that is weird that's very weird sorry we can probably wrap up yeah we're good if y'all if then y'all can talk go ahead go ahead with anything else for I'm gonna adjourn and then we can we can be done anything else just apparently before we adjourn do you want to have that sidebar out the the thing that I uh there was a sidebar related to discussion at the time is often and and this is what Hillary and I were talking about was the the whole point of elections is the constituency does or does not agree with the policy decisions we have made and people are rousted out of office because of that or they're inducted into office because of that and and often the the citizens as a body because they are such a large body change their mind and as the constituency as the population changes the decision changes as the demographics and characteristics of the city changes it change it just changes and when that happens then the priorities of the people that they put in office that said these are my priorities please elect me if those are the people that are elected then you actually do your voters a disservice to overly unduly uh follow uh tightly now you can't have you can't have staffs swishing back and forth because that abrogates your fiduciary responsibility the voters and taxpayers but it is government is not a company government is government and we are responsible to the voters and the voters tell us by elections how how to initiate policy and so policies just have variability in government we can and should be allowed to have one-off ideas everything that an individual council member does does not have to be on this list as he said that is literally democracy we should do the best we can as council members to adhere to the list but if i don't want to i don't have to because the majority of those people out there who showed up gave me the power to do that or not do that and those of us who are deciding in the pitch process whether or not something moves forward that person makes an individual decision as to hey this idea that this person has wants to explore it it is either okay that it does or does not fit in the narrow box and that's okay we as elected officials we get to do that so i just want to be clear and say that we should do the best that we can but we don't want to if we don't have to and that's okay two things can be true okay anything else i want to say that um i agree with councilmember Mckee in in in certain regard that if our constituent ask us to take a look at something then that's our job is to bring it back but i also agree that if we're going to be spending time on something that's not going to go anywhere we should have some consultation with the city first to see if it fits in and where it's going to go in regards to it fitting into what we have established here so uh that's my point is that when if i want to pitch if i'm going to pitch something or and desire to pick something i am going to go to the city first and have them to um consult with me on whether or not this is something that is feasible and if it is let's work on it and bring it back to everyone so we can assure that we already have as much information as we possibly can let me pitch it they're going to be ready to talk about it at that time that's what i that's what i would prefer and then we can spend time saying yes or no at that time so um i'm not necessarily comfortable with the way that it stands right now um i want to be able to have all of my information and give the information to the rest of my peers and be ready to have some dialogue and conversation at that time to see whether or not this is something that we actually want to do instead of just having them to just go out and work on it then we come back and he might be sitting and then we come back and then they say okay do you want a b or c and we're him hauling around saying well i think we should do it kind of this way and then we have to do it kind of this way and maybe y'all can go back and do it that's too much um and i haven't really been comfortable with that but i was good with it so that's where i am on that part of the pitch the other thing for me is um giving them an opportunity to do their jobs and um you know proceed forward they are obviously doing a great job they're hiring at the highest level i'm highly respectful i don't know how many times i've said that of the employees that are hired they're way more qualified and i'm always appreciative of that um and so i trust them i trust them to help us continue to grow uh in the way the citizens are thinking that we're growing they are appreciative of our safety efforts they are appreciative of the homeless things that we're doing for these homeless folks they are appreciative of just wanting to be here and then we have a certain genus like why about us that is attracting people to us the high end people in the other folks you know and people in between so there are some things that are going on and i don't want to leave this space without our staff knowing that we appreciate them and we care about them and they are doing things to help us they're helping us they're helping guide us and i want somebody to help guide me into my thinking so uh with that being said i wish the pitch would have turned out a little bit different um but you know it is what it is and we'll maybe we'll talk get a chance to talk about it again thank you i have a question about the pitch process cassie is the intention of the pitch better governance or reduction of staff time this was not an attempt to reduce staff time whatsoever this was not an attempt to railroad count uh the council this was an attempt because you all have asked me on many occasions aren't we getting better people to run to go and volunteer to be on your boards and commissions and and so our staff the three assistant city managers and the two a twos came up with a suggestion we worked it through our our team mac was in the room we we tweaked it and tweaked it and tweaked it put some backup to it to give you a little more picture and then we brought forth something that actually is longer takes longer but it involves commissions and committees that could give you their perspective on it like whether it was a sustainable framework committee or environmental whether it was parks and recreation it would go to those different boards or committees to get some feedback from the very people that you put on these committees and then you're getting more public quite frankly you might they may say add more do this add do it do something else in addition to this we know this could be even a bigger deal but the bottom line was this is what good governance looks like with community involvement it was not please understand this was not an attempt to give us less time other than what it gives us is more time at the staff level to get the right information like the narcan thing to go to that community development board to get their feedback which might have said yeah this is a priority for us we want to put more money into that it's just a way that they i mean i again we'll do whatever you ask us to do i'm fine with it i'm always going to give you my opinion which may be painful but the truth is we'll do what you ask us to do and we'll do it well i want to recognize them because they spent hours on this and they spent hours on this and um you know it just i'm it's important that i recognize them i don't want to get the part where what we agreed to is that 100 yes you get to say what path you suggest we go through exactly that i got the i got that i just wanted to make sure you know i'm in opposition to no i'm just saying i want you to know how hard they worked on it and it wasn't to be reduced it was to do good things and to do the right thing perhaps we should bring this up again during the work session and have a more innovative conversation about this i didn't really give direction um i would like to i don't want to lose the company staff hours you all put it i mean it's okay that's i mean at the end of the day that's our job is to give you and i've always told you this it is painful it is sometimes for me or anyone else to give you the truth to do our due diligence and tell you the facts and even to tell you things you might not want to hear so you can make an informed decision i don't ever want to not give you the whole picture the whole enchilada and then you go why didn't you tell me in this case we thought this is pretty good we want to come across i hope they did come across this this is i think cassie said no this is going to be less time but uh we can always bring it back i think i think we got some direction and we'll move forward the way it is and um i just want all i want to do is tell you how hard they worked on it and to give them kudos okay anything else at 327 we're adjourned here to 1870