Okay, after determining that a forum is present, the charter review committee will convene in a regular meeting on September 5th at 5.32 p.m. in conference rooms 3, 4, and 5.
I will now call the regular meeting of the charter review committee to order at 5.32 p.m.
Our first item for consideration is item A, number CRC 24-015. Received comments from members of the public, members of the public to which the seat must be present at the meeting and submit a speaker card that the staff liaison prior to the meeting being called.
Up to five speakers may speak for two minutes each on any items on the agenda. I have two cards in front of me and two other comments, just two cards in front of me.
Our first speaker is Liam Gwong-Whitefield. If you could step up to the podium at the front and make your comment.
Hello, my name is Liam Gwong-Whitefield. I'm out here to speak on several points. First one is on like the, on the stipend it's people, it's called public, being in an elected office is called public service for a reason because it's often difficult and expensive to get into.
So that limits the amount of people that can run for office because whether or not they can afford to, whether or not they win, but whether or not they can afford to be in office, because it's a job that takes a lot of time and bandwidth, like meeting with constituents, staying long, working long nights at city council meetings.
But so an increase in that would increase the amount of people that could run for office because if they win it, they'd be able to afford to be in office.
The second one, the second item I'm going to speak on is moving the elections to November. I did some work on that one earlier, but a few years ago, I think Jesse may have been still in office at that point.
But like, sadly, the post COVID bump from engagement with voters from like 40%, 44% in 2020 to 15% in 2022 and we're back down to the regular 8% now.
So I think there is, we have enough data to say that the turnout differences is major and I think that's worthy enough to move our elections to November. Thank you and I can see the rest of the time.
Thank you.
When they get up and speak to this question for you, do they say their name and address or just the name?
Just the name.
Okay, so do we know if their existence is a dent or not?
No, I don't believe so.
Our next speaker is Charles Lee.
Here.
Good evening, my name is Charles Lee. I live in council district number two. I just want to speak about a couple of things that are on the agenda.
Like I heard you guys debating about how you want to change the districts in the at large and in the district level.
I want to say this is something that the founders discussed in federal paper number 10, where they said the most efficient government is really a dictatorship.
The most inefficient government is really a pure democracy because everybody is doing their own thing and they always try to strike the balance.
That's why they came up with the Senate and the House of Representatives to strike a balance in between so everybody has a voice but still the government has enough power to do so.
I think the balance that we have currently is good and we shouldn't try to tinker with that because we could mess up the whole balance of power in the town.
I'm also split on the issue of moving the elections to November and May for the same reason, they didn't want to have one straight election.
They wanted to have a lot of little elections because they didn't want one faction to win one election and take over all the government.
That's why we have so many elections in this country between spring, fall, run-offs, all these little elections because they never wanted one faction just to win one election and it will take everything over.
You have to be very careful when you are changing the structure of this government.
After that, I heard some things about one year of residency requirement, I'm fine with that.
After that, I really don't have too much to say. People have a nice day.
All right, we will move on to item B, number CRC24016, consider approval of the minutes of the August 22nd, 2024 Charter Review Committee meeting.
Are there any additions or corrections to the meeting? Minutes?
Hearing none, I'll entertain a motion. Councilmember, or committee member Molina Ford.
I motion to approve the minutes of the August 22nd Charter Review Committee meeting.
I'll second.
Second from Commissioner Gantthoff. I have the motion and second. Let's vote. All those in favor of approval of the minutes, please raise your hand and say aye.
And for this meeting, if everybody could please hold their hands up for a little bit longer so staff can be sure to mark down everyone voting on the motions. Let's do that again.
We're voting on everybody, right?
Everyone in favor?
13-1.
All right, we are now going to move on to item C, number CRC020Review,
consider committee procedures and rules.
Can I have a report from staff recapping some of the procedural confusion from last meeting?
Whether that would be you?
So I will attempt to leave this conversation with staff to correct me when and where I might be wrong.
So at the end of the last meeting, I think there was some confusion among many members of the body, myself included.
We hit a little bit of a weird spot in Robert's rules of order.
So the charge for the committee says that in order for something to pass the committee, we have to have eight votes for that to pass.
We had a motion that came in at 7-4, and so that was not enough to pass despite the motion having a majority.
And I believe it was some people's assumption that that item would automatically be pushed to this meeting.
That is not the case. However, that item will be coming back at a later date because it did not receive a majority,
but however, it was not automatically pushed into this meeting.
Does anyone have any questions on that?
Commissioner Davis?
Yeah, so can you explain the part about it coming back and what rule of procedure will it rely on?
So my intention there is I believe that there's going to be some items that we discussed that are more contentious
and might receive six, five votes or seven, given the absence today, or any absences at this time.
And so rather than perhaps bash our heads at those every meeting, I'm going to kind of copy what happened with the 2023 bond committee
and use the procedure where the items were discussed, but those items then came back and were all kind of voted on as a slate.
Items that seem to have committee support, such as a good reminder for everyone to silence their phones.
Items that seem to have a majority of support, for example, maintaining the term limits of two years,
which received a 10-1 vote at this meeting. We'll just vote on those as they come up.
So it was the chair's discretion?
Yes.
So the chair has chosen that we will vote out a final report at the end. That's a slate of all recommendations.
Correct.
So when an item has failed to receive an affirmative vote, either recommending or not recommending one way or the other,
you know, we've had some intense 7-7 votes. Is the chair's intention to keep bringing those up until there's vote one way or the other?
My intention would be that those items that get perhaps a 7-7 vote would come back as a slate at the end.
Should the committee be unable to achieve any resolution on a 7-7, I'm not going to keep us here until the year of our Lord, 2028,
until we can achieve an 8-6 or something on those. At that point, I would give space for every commissioner to voice their thoughts and their recommendation.
And then that would go up to council to consider, because ultimately council does have a final say over what's produced by this body.
So what was presented from staff at the beginning was that we would go kind of one by one through these items.
We'd post a, you know, two, three, four, whatever per meeting, and that if something needed to come back,
that the body would be consulted in the same way that we're going to be consulted about adding to our charge.
So what was presented was if something needed to come back, that it would be a consensus basis like these additional items.
So I'm asking again, the authority you're relying on to bring back an item that the body has considered,
did not reach an affirmative or negative consensus on because of a quirk in our charge,
and that at your discretion alone, you'll be bringing those back in front of the body.
- Which one answering? Yes, first.
- Is this an addition to his question or?
- You can't answer, you don't have to follow up.
- Okay, so it is my understanding that the committee was tasked with coming out with recommendations,
and that in order to do that, we need an 8-6 or better vote.
And so we were tasked with considering and producing recommendations on items,
and so it is my intention that if we are able to do that, we should do that,
especially during meetings where perhaps the reason that we were not able to produce an 8-6 is because of absences.
There were several absences at the last meeting.
And so I believe that it is this committee's responsibility to produce recommendations where it can.
And if something did not receive an 8-6 recommendation or better, in part perhaps because of absences,
the committee should try to remedy that, and I will move that with my agenda setting powers as such.
- So the original email that came out from the city this week said that we follow the council rules,
and I asked, it's the council rules and procedure, which we would need a motion to carry,
which in this committee, you would need eight votes to pass to reconsider any one item.
So in my opinion, we don't have any documentation that shows us that we can just laterally add something back after a decision has been made.
In my opinion, another motion would have to carry on a single item to revisit that.
And I think the question is, what do you have that shows us anything different than that,
and the city has not been able to provide that, nor you have been able to provide that.
- If I'm understanding your question, you're saying that the committee has reached a decision on something and that--
- So to go make a recommendation to council of a change, it has to pass.
Okay, so the items that don't pass, those are not being carried forward.
And we've already voted on some, so to revisit those at this point,
we would all have to have a motion to revisit that single item and get eight to pass to revisit it,
is the way that I interpret the council's procedures, which is what we are to follow.
And I asked for documentation where we can just unilaterally do whatever we want.
And I didn't receive that from city staff or from listening to you, I don't know that I've understood that either.
- Would you like to chime in here?
- The resolution says that it goes by an eight, so it's eight up or down.
The resolution says it's eight that passes or fails, and it has to be by eight.
And so after that is the discretion of the chair.
And her interpretation is we didn't have eight.
- It's not passes or fails, it's passes. It's eight to pass.
- Could we allow our legal counsel to finish her thought?
- It's based strictly on the resolution and on the discretion of the chair.
- The resolution says eight.
- To pass, okay, therefore it did not pass.
- The resolution says eight to make a recommendation.
- Okay, therefore we cannot make a recommendation. We don't have eight.
So we cannot make a recommendation.
- You cannot make a recommendation because you do not have eight.
- So that's done, now we move forward.
- But the chair has decided that she would like for these to come back until she has eight
one way or the other, so that she makes sure that she has a vote from everybody on the bill.
And she does have that discretion.
- Can you show me where that's written? That's what I'm asking.
And I've asked for that earlier. Where does it show that the chair has that discretion?
- That's just part, that's how boards run.
If you watch any of our council meetings, the mayor says that all the time.
The chair has the discretion.
- We have a specific statutory authority for the agenda.
Commissioner Ronski.
- Okay, I believe that I'm going to move my place to let Michelle, because she-
- No, no, no, no, no.
- Come on in, I think.
- No, no, no, go for it, go for it.
- My thoughts on this, and again, as you say, watching city council meetings and that.
If we do not give a vote up or down for, and I'm going to pick the
first item, which is changing the mix.
City council has at its discretion, the ability, if I understand correctly,
to make their decision and saying, okay, we are going to change the mix.
And put that on the vote that will go out in May.
Would it not, because of the concern that it's up to the single discretion of the chair,
be acceptable for a member of the committee to put forward a resolution or a suggestion,
depending on how it goes as to level, that a vote be taken
concerning the item number, such and such.
I don't know if it will change numbers as time progresses.
But take a vote asking how many feel
strong enough about revisiting this item that we formally put it on the agenda.
So that way you will have a record to enforce, substantiate your position as chair
to make the decision that it's going on the agenda.
Basically it's, you know, if you ask, how many of, you know, we have yet
to pass this based on the count of eight that was required.
How many of you still have, I'm trying to formulate for them, how many of you present
still have enough concerns, comments, support from your constituent.
That you want to take this to another vote, because that's basically what we would be doing.
So we're taking a vote on whether or not we want to take a vote.
And if we pass that, then that reinforces what you have been saying,
that you want to go to another vote when more people are here.
But one has to put an end at some point.
You know, looking around, we still have, I believe there's two people that are missing.
Just one today, not here.
Is it just one?
Just one, yeah.
Okay, so that is my question to you, my question to council.
So as I stated earlier, it's not my intention to run meetings at an item.
And I think that the cleanest procedure in terms of not then having odd and finite votes
about whether or not we want to call an item back, is to just say, well, these will all return.
At the end, we'll have one go at it if that fails.
I will proceed to a question about that, just for my information.
Are you saying that at some point you would vote on those items as a slate,
or you would vote on them individually?
My intent is to use the bond committee procedure where the items came back,
or in bond's case came for the first time, but have them be individual.
It's important to point out that what it actually says in our charge is that
committee recommendations will be made by a majority vote of the whole committee.
That doesn't mean that every negative vote of the committee must also be eight votes.
Parliamentary procedure, there are many ways for an item to die.
It can be tabled indefinitely, it can be voted on 50 times in a row,
and never reach whatever threshold it's supposed to get.
But these items have been considered.
They have been duly considered under every procedure we've been
charged with or that we're held to under the city code.
They've been addressed, and if you're looking at city council procedure as your precedent,
if that's the precedent you're going to use as the mayor gets to set the agenda,
well, the mayor has specific statutory authorization to set an agenda.
Has specific statutory authorization to unilaterally add items to an agenda.
And the city council procedure is that when an item dies, it dies.
Even if it's because there's abstentions,
because it doesn't reach its two-thirds threshold or whatever,
a posted item is posted, action is taken,
and if there's not affirmative action of the council, then it's done, it's over with.
So you are going outside of established procedure,
and I understand you're relying on your discretion,
but that discretion can be overridden by this body.
I think Julie just described one way in particular it can be overwritten.
I'm very confused as to your reference to the on-committee procedure,
where you're saying that there will be a slate presented,
but the slate that we're going to vote up or down on a report,
how you're going to do that if you actually intend for us
to go back through every other vote that we've taken before we can create that report.
The more regular procedure is exactly what we're doing,
which is you take items in turn, you come to a consensus,
or you find that there's no recommendation from the body because no consensus exists,
and then you have the final report that is all the affirmative eight-vote items,
and you vote on that.
That is the more usual procedure.
I think for this body, and I will say
I am leaning heavily on staff's interpretation of the guidelines here,
so I'm doing what I understand to be acceptable procedure.
I'm sure that you can have it out with staff or have a discussion with them,
and I'm sure that you will.
Should this procedure not be within the guidelines of this committee,
then I would hope that that conversation would resolve
before we reach a point where that's relevant.
If we come back in two weeks and it turns out that there was some misinterpretation
or this is not acceptable procedure, then that is a conversation
that can be had before these items return as met.
I just can't help but note that it's two votes that you found yourself in the minority on
if you choose to exercise your "discretion as chair" to bring back before the body,
the two most contentious votes that we've had
rather than moving on to the business that we can find consensus on.
And I would like to do that.
I would like to actually end this conversation here
and allow folks to have further conversation with staff about these topics.
Again, if it turns out that this is not an accepted procedure,
then that is something that we can resolve at the moment.
I would like to get the business at hand, as you yourself said.
So I would like to move on to item D at this point and discuss style.
Item D, CRC24014, Receiver Report, Hold a Discussion,
and Give Staff Direction in Modifying the Mayor and Council Stipend.
This item was posted at our last meeting pending responses to outstanding committee questions.
Staff will address those outstanding questions now and after that have discussion and entertain.
Okay, so a couple of the questions that you guys had at the last meeting regarding
mayor and council stipend. One of the questions was regarding
what reimbursements council receives outside of the stipend for their service.
And the only thing that we reimburse council for is out of town travel.
So if they go to a council conference related to their council service,
then they are reimbursed for the cost of that travel.
But otherwise the council stipend is intended to provide them whatever
they need to do their business within the city.
And then the other question that we got was the average time spent on their duties per month.
So we sent out an anonymous survey to council and while I didn't get responses from all of them,
the average amount of time per month that they submitted was 50 hours per month.
So those are the two outstanding questions that I have listed from that.
And otherwise we'll turn it back to the chair.
Real quick clarification.
Can I just ask how many council members did respond?
Five.
Some of the reimbursement for travel, that's mileage, hotel, food, everything.
Correct. The city has policies on what, you know, travel per diem,
mileage, and airfare, hotel, and they fall within those same parameters.
All right. Any further questions for staff before we begin?
All right. Discussion on stipends.
I think one of the things that was on our mind with some of the questions
and the presentation last time was that council has limited,
council has the ability to raise their stipends, but they've never done that.
They've never taken that opportunity and that they're limited in a percentage and how much they can
increase their stipend. I'd like to explore the idea with the committee of recommending a change
in that 3% to an automatic change for council in keeping with whatever cost of living increase
they give the staff. So if they're in the budget going to increase the city staff or a certain segment
of the city staff or however they do it in the budget year, instead of being just a kind of
arbitrary 3%, that it be tied to, if they don't give the staff a raise, they don't get a raise.
If they give the staff a raise, then they can have the same cost of living adjustment.
So it's tied to what they're doing for the professional staff.
Can I go back to the deal that shows the different cities and how we compare it to speaking?
Yeah, it'll take me a minute, but so if there's other comments or...
Question to Jesse. In your opinion, would that still be an item that would be
voted on like it is now? I'm just asking.
No, I could have been. I'm sorry, I could have stated that a little bit better.
I think it ought to be... I've been that seat and knowing that it's politically very difficult
to vote yourself a raise. That's why Congress doesn't get to do one for themselves right then,
but the city has never... the city council, since we've had the stipend, the city council,
it's never even come up. Nobody's even brought it up to put on the agenda to give themselves a raise.
So I think it'd be expeditious if it was an automatic... whatever the stipend is set at
in the charter, it's set there and it can change in the future, but that it would then adjust each
year based on what they do for the professional staff and maybe somebody in the county is going
to tell me why that doesn't work and too difficult to keep track of or whatever, but it just seems
like if we want them to have an increase at any point in the future, kind of have to build it in,
how those scores are not going to be... it's not politically feasible.
If they spend on average 50 hours a month, over a year that's $300, which is 15% of a full-time job.
So that just gives you a benchmark that way, okay, because you multiply the 50 times... oh no,
it's more than that, it's not six months, it's... okay, $600. Okay, so we're going to make it 30%.
Prior to having that information, if we had looked just at the way the charter was written,
if they had done their increases, if you went the seven years, which was from the charter in 2017
to 2014, based on simple interest, the $750 a month would go to $907 a month, the $1,000
for the mayor would go to $1,210. Okay, I'm just giving you some numbers so we can all look up. If
you did it as compound interest, because that was really what would happen if they added 3% per year,
that $750 goes to $922.40, which is almost $20 more than simple interest, and the $1,000 goes
to $1,229, which is again $29.30 versus simple interest. As this was initially brought up and
discussed at some of the council meetings, it was suggested to take the council members double
without the mayor to $2,750 a month. So I'm throwing these numbers out for providing them
because I know when I first saw going from $750 to $2,750 a month, it's like, oh my gosh,
I'm sure nobody who works for the city gets a jump that much. So going through and calculating
that reinforced for me as if they had done the 3% per year. In order to take care of, I totally
am in agreement with Jesse's suggestion about putting a stipulation in that pay raises will be
tied to staff raises. Rationale on that is if staff gets, as Jesse says, an automatic pay raise
in a specific year, the council will get it. If not, due to whatever stipulations in the budget
that they do not give one to, and when I'm saying staff, I'm not meaning just the staff that works
directly. I mean those who are out there picking up the trash, the water department,
and that because I believe they're all, if one gets it, I believe they all do, but I could be
a error on that. If you put it with an automatic increase that way, no one on the council has to
be concerned that they're going to be a devil's advocate and suggest a pay raise. The way it's
worded in the present charter is although they bring it up for a pay raise, the pay raise would
not take effect until those who were on council that vote for it leave office or in case the next
cycle were there. I'm not totally sure how that works, so I would like to make the subject,
the motion that we look to tying members of the council all seven different, so that it includes
the mayor, that they would get a yearly increase which is tied to that of the City of Denton
employees. All right, we have a motion on the floor that the increase in the stipend be tied to
the cost of living increase automatically, that is, or be automatically tied to the cost of living
increase that the council may or may not choose to get to city employees on any day.
Well, just a clarification on that before we get into a motion, but I think something that we're
not missing may be the wrong terminology, but what we're looking at when we're talking about these
pay increases for staff and that and those percentages. Hey, before we get to this,
doesn't there need to be a second before we have discussion? Well, I just want to clarify, though,
that there needs to be a second before discussion.
Yeah, once there's a motion, we need to either get a second or
not, and then we can open up for discussion. There was a motion made by
Commissioner Remski regarding tying the stipend increase to cost of living increase for employees.
Commissioner Kirkpatrick wanted to discuss that before anyone else added a motion.
Commissioner Bikes is asking if that's appropriate.
That was discussion has to have a motion and a second, and there's a discussion on the motion.
So question. So we're asking if there needs to be a second. There is a second, though. Did you just
second? No, okay, sorry. Do I hear a second? I second it. Discussion. I think we're over our
quota for procedures now, but I like it. So my question, though, is this as we're talking
about these pay increases, I see more as we've got numbers here which either leave it into something
where they've got this small stipend, or are we going to reimburse them as a true staff member?
I mean, even if you do the annual increase that's tied to other staff members, that leaves them by
getting $1,200, $1,300 a month for the mayor or closer to $1,000 for the council. What I've seen
that these numbers are interesting to me, too, because when I look at Denton, we're comparable
population-wise. One question I have on that is growth, where we're going to be, too, because I
think, and I could be wrong, but looking at those comparison cities, none of them are at the growth
rate that we're at, or probably even close. Could be wrong. And so that's one thing. And then the
other, some of the diligence that I've done on that, that's kind of my question, is are we going
to just, I don't want to use the wrong terminology, but just kind of throw a little pit and step
stipend at them, or have the real talk also, too, of should we be more of a real, this is a job,
for lack of a job, or something where you have a financial in it, and you could say, you know what,
instead of working two, three jobs, maybe I can do this and do 60, 80 hours like a staff member
would do. That's where I see more of the crux, instead of, okay, well, we'll give them 3% or tie
that in. Now, if you were getting them to where they were getting paid, maybe in time or something
of that nature, and tying it into the staff, I see that more of that discussion there. But I mean,
I see it more right now as, are we still just going to just throw a little bit at them, or are
we going to try to make it something where people from all walks have a little bit more chance to,
you know what, I could step up and do this from any kind of position. So that's how I see it.
I would like to, second Commissioner Kirkpatrick, not formally second, but colloquially second Kirkpatrick's
thoughts on that. When I think of Denton, I think of jobs, like being a teacher at Denton ISD,
I think of working the floor at Peterbilt. I think of being a bartender, or being somebody who works
in the service industry. And so I went out and I spoke with folks in those lines of work. So I
spoke with folks who weren't lying at Peterbilt. And I said, Hey, here is kind of the schedule of
council. You need to be available these times for formal meetings. And I asked a city counselor or
two, and they just described the events that they attended in the last week as constituent services.
And when we talked about term length, we said that we wanted to keep it at two, because that would
encourage our city counselors to be more active, to be more involved, because they would have more
frequent elections. And so I think that if we want to have more active city counselors, and we want
to have a city council where you can be somebody who is working as a bartender and then step up,
or be somebody who is working as a teacher, and without having to retire, without having to have
hit that retirement threshold, be able to advocate for yourself or your community, be able to represent
folks like you. I think from speaking with folks, if you're a bartender who's working 70 hours a week
to make rent, getting 750 a month or 1200, or 100, sorry, 1000, what was the number you came up with?
It would be 600.
Approximately 1000 does not enable you to serve on city council. If you are working the line
at Peterbilt, I spoke with folks, they said I would lose my job if I tried to attend these meetings,
or spoke with teachers, they said yes, that would not work. I would not be able to take
those days and those times off. And so for me, this is about representation. Do we give folks
who are like the heart of Denton the ability to represent themselves and our community on council?
So I agree with Commissioner Kirkpatrick, I would like to see something more in line
with the pay that you would receive from HR.
Commissioner Romsky. If I could clarify some of the items on my motion.
I was addressing the motion as to the way it would get written in the charter for the yearly
increases, number one. It did not address whether or not we would tell, because I don't know that
this needs to be in the charter, and this would be where I need legal on it, in order to bring
their salary up to where it would have been consistent if they had that 3% per year,
or even if we had that 3% over three and a half years versus the seventh, so that you're getting
that. We would bring their present salary up to what would be their salary had they voted on it.
So that's your baseline. And then from there on, you're increasing it based on the salary
increases that go to the city. And the way that I heard your statements, Commissioner Kirkpatrick,
is that you feel that if it was tied in to what pay was going to the staff of the city,
that the city was not paying their staff appropriately.
No. Okay, so I thank you for clarifying that. But if they were using the cost of living,
which is basically what every company uses to a certain degree, and ties that in, they increase
base pays of anyone based on that. So if I am making, even if I'm working 2,000 hours a year
as an RN with critical care experience, etc., and I am getting $30 an hour, I'm just throwing out
numbers, okay? And the cost of living is 5%. That 5% would be taken on top of, you know, based on
what is 5% increase from $30 an hour. So, you know, the other thing is when you're looking at salaries
for people who are working at places like Peterbilt, a smaller company like a pharmacy,
or anyplace else, there are all sorts of other hidden expenses to the employer.
He's paying out the Social Security. He's paying the health benefits. He's paying into matching,
perhaps, on a retirement fund or that. You do not have those expenses as a council member.
And if I, and perhaps I'm the weirdest person on earth on this, but if I were running for,
and I was on a council, I would look toward the fact that I was doing a civic duty
and providing for my community, and whatever renumeration that I got was sort of great.
Commissioner Dannel? Maybe a question for staff. I'm just looking to kind of put some of this in
perspective because of the numbers in the survey. 50 hours a month is $15 an hour, right?
So, $20 an hour for the mayor. I'm just thinking about how to maybe make this equitable and tie it
to something besides necessarily saying, "Well, I'm going to give the whole staff a 10% raise
so I can give myself a 10% raise." That's the guardrail, right? So, I'm just looking at some
jobs in Denton's website. So, an electrician maintenance technician makes $23 an hour.
A detention officer makes $20 an hour. I'm just, the reason I ask that is what's the median
of your, we call non-exempt, salaried people that work for the city of Denton? It seems like it's
probably $18 to $20 an hour. That should probably be the same rate that the $50 an hour these public
servants make. And if they put 50 hours a week, that's roughly $1,000 for a council member and,
you know, more for the mayor. We can talk about that. But that way, you can tie that to
people in the city who make an hourly wage. If you're going to give them a raise and we're
prospering as a city where you can do that, then you match that median income of those
particular employees to an hourly rate to the city council. It's just kind of a way to make it where
if we're prospering, everybody prospers. If we have to control the costs, everyone's just flat,
whatever. But it's kind of tied to a number that we can all, again, audit to, right? And say,
this is what it's based on. It's based on the median hourly wage of my city employees. So it's
just another idea, a way to systematize this where it doesn't get super political or anything else
as far as because the first thing is going to happen. I know this is what Jesse was talking
about is if I say, hey, let's give myself a 3% raise, well, then the opponent's going to go,
hey, this guy gave himself a raise when the next year comes up, right? That's why they haven't done
it. So that's why. These are good points. One thing I see the concern is we're still kind of either
half in or half out with it. And to your point, if you're making 50 to 20 an hour,
but those people aren't surviving off 50 hours a month, they're going to be working
hundreds of hours a month to make that work. So then you're kind of in or out. So it's once again,
back to your point, I've had similar conversations, teachers, professors, bartenders,
service workers, anybody and everybody I can talk to in a number of different fields. Not enough.
I'd love to do everybody. But that's kind of the concern too. And I ask those questions and say,
well, you've got great ideas. Would you ever think about Staten River City? I can't afford to. Well,
why not? Do you even know how much they make? I know it's not much. Discuss it. They're like,
absolutely. I'm out because I have to be earning to make a living here, to keep the roof over their
heads. So I see it more as to is also as Denton's growing. And you know, finding that number, that
sweet spot, you know, part of it would be, and I'd ask the city, because the median income in Denton
is 71 K as household, from my understanding, looking at the Census Bureau. But I would be
more interested to, you know, kind of what median income is for one person. And short with me,
it's the opportunity for people to step up in this community that don't have to. I'm all about
civic service too, but it becomes very prevalent in our, okay, we look at our city council, how
many are retired? How many are more than good financially to step up and do it? How about those
people who are not financially good, do want to step up and have the civic, give back civically,
but look, I'm, you know, I'm surviving. I can't take the time to do it. So that's where I have
the crux of it, that we make it something where we can have people who can step up from all kinds
of financial backgrounds. And, you know, 15 to 20 an hour, I get that, but those people are working
numerous and numerous hours, much more hours to make a living in that. So, and in other cities,
I know, I don't mean to be verbose. I know a lot of people taking a lot of time. What I will say
too, is as I looked at some other cities that are larger than us, they very much are basing theirs
on, let's have it a median income. And then it's become very interesting charters. And there are
larger cities, I'll give you San Antonio and Dallas, very much trying to find, okay, let's get to that
median and then start to pay these people. Because these cities are looking at the future too and
didn't. It's very, we're growing so rapidly. You know, well, look, we are, we're, we aren't these
cities and I'm a proponent of this growing rapidly and I'll see you back. - Commissioner Johnson.
- Temple of points. First, you know, I think we are Round Rock, certainly not any different than
Round Rock, is 130,000 people and it's rapidly growing. It's a suburb of Austin and it's going
to be comparable to Denton and they're right in line with what we do. So, I also, if you look at
Mesquite, Mesquite's growing. It's an area, it's a suburb, it's also in the Metroplex and growing.
So, we are those areas. Frisco, one of the most rapidly growing places in the Metroplex. We don't
have their data, but I looked it up. Their mayor gets 850 and their council people are growing.
700. Okay. So, we are some of these cities that are growing rapidly and then I'd like to see the
other screens of the cities that have the full-time employees, full-time compensation. They're all at
a million people other than El Paso. I mean, you're talking about a million and a half in San Antonio
and they're making 61 grand. Austin is right at a million and it's a dynamic growing city,
but it's 116,000 council members. Pardon me. So, I don't think we're at that level and I don't
think we're justified and foot worth. Almost a million people, their mayor gets $30,000 and their
council members get $25,000. That's not sustainable. I mean, for your only job is a full-time job. So,
and this isn't a full-time job. That's the other thing I'm pointing out. The council members
said they spend 50 hours a month on average. That's not a full-time job and it is $15 to
$20 an hour at a thousand bucks a month. Until we reach those levels, I can't see how you would
justify paying a full-time wage to anyone. And then I ask you, do you have any empirical data
that shows that you're going to attract the people you're mentioning that are excluded?
Because I don't see it. County commissioners are paying a very high sum to serve as a county
commissioner. You don't see teachers. You don't see any different. We have a much more diverse
and representative council right now than you do at the county commissioner's level. And you have
certainly not the representation that you're talking about. So, I think our council is very
diverse and it represents people. And I think what we're talking about, the increase in stipend,
that may make sense. But I don't think you have any data other than it's your opinion and talking to
you, bringing us saying that you talk to people. You don't have any data that shows
that by increasing it to that wage level, you're going to change the demographics over what we
already have, that we have good representation. So, I don't think you have the data to show that
it's going to make a difference. Commissioner Brewer-Ysma? One point that I'd like to consider,
and kind of back on that other slide, that Round Rock offers a vehicle stipend. One of the other
big costs that would be incurred for me if I was to run for city council is child care. Because all
of these 50 hours worth of activity that our city council members are doing are happening outside of
school hours. They're happening in evenings and they're happening on weekends. And so, if I'm
having to pay a babysitter $15 an hour and my stipend is $15 an hour, I'm now out. That puts
a person in a position where they're not able to do this kind of community service because they
actually can't afford to do it. Because now I have to pay my babysitter my entire stipend and I have
to spot the gas and the wear and tear on my car and all of those things in order to be able to
participate in constituent service and participate in meetings. Commissioner McClure?
Julie, would you entertain changing your motion to leaving it at what it is now with a city rate,
would you raise the employees if they get a raise and cap it at like 5%? Because that way it keeps
somebody from, let's say you get a different city council and they want, okay, let's raise everybody
10%. That gives me 10%. And I think the people, I mean we're talking about people
that, you know, we're a large company against the city as a massive business. And you need people
that are intelligent on running a business so that we don't just waste the citizens money
and we're going to have to raise taxes and all that stuff. So I would like to leave it the same
thing. You can see if you would modify that. Hold on, wait, before that cap, because I was saying the
same thing. Commissioner Rumsky, would you like to accept that motion or that amendment?
You need me to explain it again? Let me hear from Commissioner Fikes because he has a comment
reverting the suggestion and then... Okay, certainly. Commissioner Fikes, just a reminder that the chair
is supposed to call on folks. Okay, we deferred to her so she deferred to me so that's why I went.
Commissioner Rumsky does not have the power to defer. Commissioner Fikes, please go ahead. I'm
sorry, I'm just trying to prevent people talking over. I'm not, I'm just trying to prevent. So
the only thing, I mean, and I agree that's an issue that we probably need to address in this.
My immediate thought was cap it to the prior year CPI as a cap for that. So they can't go to
this step, but I'm fine with either way we go. Yeah, but I do think it limits them from saying,
we'll give everybody 10% so I can get 10%. Commissioner Rumsky, would you accept that
amendment? Either the amendment proposed by Mr. Fikes or the amendment proposed by Commissioner
Rumsky. I accept. I appreciate your comment about the prior year CPI. I don't see
where a council, city council was being fiduciary and responsible. That's what's going on. Side note.
Would say that they want a 10% raise so therefore they would give it to the city
employees so that they could get it. I think tying it in to the prior year's
CPS is a very good idea. It doesn't give a specific number that we are tying anybody to.
It's being tied to the overcoming of events, so to speak, of whatever happened in the year prior.
So as to wording the motion, since you had suggested the CPS, if I may withdraw my motion
and Commissioner Fikes, if you would like to word it, or Commissioner McClure,
I mean I will withdraw mine as stated. You want to just change it
to what we talked about and keep the motion, but it's already been seconded.
Oh okay. So therefore, okay, I put forth a change by previous motion
to tying in the council's stipend to being based on the previous year's CPS.
And I guess that's all that I'd have to say on it if I'm using that, correct?
I think the motion she can confirm is that we are keeping the current compensation where it's at
with the future increases will be based on the average of city staff with a cap of prior year
CPI. The motion, as I understand it, put forward by Commissioner Oromsky, would be that we keep
the current stipend at $750,000 and $1,000 and that we make it so that future
cost of living increases given to staff also automatically apply to the council's stipend
with a cap. So say a city council were to double everyone's pay as an
extreme hypothetical, that would not double their stipend. Their stipend increase would be capped
at the CPI of the previous. That was my understanding. Does that reflect your
understanding of the motion as well? I think so, but if we're writing this in the charter,
since the charter is looking to the future, do we really need to include the fact that we keep
the salary at $750,000 and $1,000? Could it not just be worded that
city council members will receive pay increases based on the previous year's
CPI? Recommended council, so the recommendation to keep or recommendation to not keep or
recommendation to change or no recommendations. I think you have to say.
Yeah, I think because it's the motion is really it's not to change the charters to make a
recommendation to city council that a charter amendment be placed on the ballot. So I think
the language of keeping, not keeping, changing, I think that language is appropriate for the motion.
Okay, I make a motion that future city council members stipend
receive a yearly increase that is based on the previous year's CPI. Does that cover all those?
It changed the motion. Your initial motion was that it be tied to the cost of living
adjustments provided by staff. The amendment proposed by Commissioner Fikes was that it
would stay like that except there was a cap tied to the previous CPI and your restatement of the
motion just now you removed the attachment to the cost of living increase given to staff and instead
automatically tied into the CPI. Would you prefer that the cost of living partnership was in the
motion or that it was cost of living staff adjustment was in the motion or that it was
purely the CPI? Tying it in the previous year's CPI not to exceed is probably what it would be.
Not to exceed any cost of living increase given to city staff.
Okay, Commissioner Brewer did you have thoughts? No. Any further discussion?
Commissioner Molino-Florn. What does that look like? I'm going to go to you. What does that look like
because we're using real numbers right? If we did the CPI based on last year what would the stipend
be instead of 750 now? It's four percent. So CPI is not a terminal that's not in my wheelhouse
unfortunately. Consumer price index so it's the cost of your basket of goods what that increases
over a year is the economic definition I think but obviously last year with inflation where it was
that cap would be much higher and the reason I said prior year is because the city has a calendar
year from like September to September so if they're making decision in August we're not
going to have 2024 CPI yet we're going to have to go off 2023 CPI for that but you know I think
what the city council gives the entire staff is an indication of the health of the city
and how the city is doing so let's say CPI is four percent and they give all of the city staff
raises of two percent because performance has not been good then in my opinion the average would be
two percent in that case now let's flip the flip the switch a little bit if the the increase was
six percent or eight percent to the entire staff they would be limited to you know they wouldn't
be limited to anything other than eight percent if CPI was greater than that CPI being an eight
percent is unlikely just from a historical standpoint is unlikely however in high inflation
years that is the case so that might be a reason why city council gives the entire staff a larger
raise and then they would not be limited because CPI would be higher so their threshold would be
higher in those years so I just think it's a fair to kind of have a two-piece deal because it does
bring in the the factor of the performance of the city if it is less than CPI then they would benefit
that or be penalized less than the CPI would be in that case does anyone feel that they have an
understanding of the motion and the technicalities thereof that is adequate to vote off does anyone
have any the motion is that the council stipend remain for the moment at 750 that it be in the
future automatically tied to increases and the cost of living adjustment provided to staff i.e.
if staff receives a three percent cost of living raise then the stipend would increase by three
percent and the the increase cannot exceed CPI the inflation uh what's closely called inflation
inflation just just a comment so for 2022 2023 just to give everyone guidance on what that number
was 3.4 i think that was a question so when would when would the ordinance uh or when would this
portion of charter take effect would this be uh tied to the date that passes or would it be retroactive
that is something for for staff and legal but it would be my inference that you've got the vote
taking place in may of 25 they go through the process of validating and accepting just like
they did on the bond and i think from that point on it goes into effect so if you're doing it in
say may june and as was referenced that the budgeting process takes place july august
based on the quote previous year it would then go into effect at that time do do we have a valid
fully formed function at this time i just need to i just need to understand exactly what this body
wants so that we can formulate valid language around all of your thoughts and expressions and
make sure that we can get the ballot language down your intent is met so what i'm understanding is
y'all are wanting to leave it the same
but providing increases based on the cpi
is it based on the cpi based on the average increase for the employees cost of living
adjustment annual cost of living adjustment to employees with a cap of the prior year cpi
so the max i could give is a cpi the cap of the prior year's cpi
and is it in its effective well to me you'd have to get passed by a vote and then at the next
raise that is being considered for the employees that's when it would be in effect for the city
council and budget cycle i'm sorry there's an annual budget cycle right it would go with it
after it's approved then it would be the next budget cycle be part of and this will go in effect
for the next budget cycle all right so we have a valid function i'm going to call for a vote on it
all those in favor of the motion to provide that the stipend remain for the moment as it is but at
the next budget cycle after the item is passed by the voters that it would be tied to the cost of
living increase for the staff but capped by the cpi of the prior year all those in favor please
raise your hand and say aye all right uh that's 10 by my count all those opposed say nay and
raise your right hand all right the ayes have it uh 10 to 3 that motion passes we will now continue
on to item e number crc 24-017 receive a report hold a discussion into staff's record requiring
a statement less than two word words on the grounds of removal for recall petitions
okay so charge h is um the recall petition and committee of petitioners section of the charter
so what uh the charge is specifically is require consider requiring a statement less than 200 words
on the grounds of removal for recall petitions so the current provision basically broken down
there's a clear and concise statement of grounds for removal and then all of the petitions require
the name and addresses of five electors who are responsible for circulating and filing the petition
each signer includes their name place of residence and the date signed they need to be signed in pin
or indelible pencil signatures over 45 days old are not valid and then signatures do not have to
be included on the same paper but each paper must include an affidavit of the circulator who's
responsible for validating those signatures some of the considerations for this the national civic
leagues model charter petition should include a statement not to exceed 200 words of the reasons
for the recall and grounds of removal should relate to and affect the administration of the
official's office and be of substantial nature directly affecting the rights and interests of
the public a 2023 university of houston study found that 36 percent of texas city charters
included justification for the grounds for recall most lists the terms and competency misconduct
or not feesence in office and then we found a handful of cities require a hearing before the
city council to discuss the allegations before submitting to voters and there would be some
legal considerations with the type of language and the specific language proposed by this committee
that amanda can give as the conversation happens um some surrounding city comparisons that we found
some of these carolton frisco and lewisville prosper all include those language those words
and competency misconduct or malfeasance irving and arlington both include no grounds required
for removal and then adison requires general grounds and if it's more than one in competency
misconduct or malfeasance specify each some comparable cities a lot of them have just
general grounds similar to our language where it just asks for a statement of the grounds for removal
um and then i have a star on mcallan 2024 so they have actually no recall provision in their
charter but they are holding an election this november and that is one of the ballot initiatives
for them to include petition and recall and then the large city comparison all just include general
grounds so with that i will i'm having to take any questions that you all have on this but
can turn it over to the chair for discussion can you bring it back to the first slide please
all right any questions for staff commissioner mcclarke again clarify which slide you wanted to
see okay oh sorry go to the next slide that's not there the last bullet point what is that exactly
so it's just it's kind of a clerical thing um signatures don't have to be all on the same paper
there can be a packet of uh 25 you know with lined names and everything it doesn't all have to be on
one piece of paper does that make sense petition they're signing they don't have to sign no they
still have to sign another piece of paper that's not related to the petition no each page is
identical and then there's spots for people to fill in their name residence and everything
that's required and their signature okay i just had a question on what's the number of people
a number of signatures forgive me that's a great question and i have that i think it is um 25 percent
of um the people who voted in the election in that race to be clear that's 25 percent of the
previous election and that is purely the number not you have to get 25 percent of the exact same
people who voted correct 25 percent of the total of the total number of people who voted in that
election that specific election okay so if they didn't vote in the election you could still
they could still sign it that's just the number threshold there should have to be a registered
voter i believe so yes yes so for example four thousand people voted in that precinct for that
person you'd need a thousand if uh if hypothetically in a district one thousand people had voted in the
previous year uh or previous elections you would need 250 voters uh and it might be the case that
of those 250 voters zero of them had voted in the prior election i'm just saying just for example
when i use four thousand use a thousand oh i'm sorry i'm sorry if there were four thousand that
voted then you'd need a thousand to recall and for a thousand 250 okay uh did you have a specific
numbers um there wasn't that matters so take these in the grain of salt but for d1 384 is
their recall number which would make sense for district two 546 district three 763 district four
1199 place five the at-large 2751 place six 2777 and then the mayor 2632 that's from the
debt and Facebook groups of grain of salt but those kind of jobs based on those numbers jive
with what you least sent out approximately earlier so i just have clarification you're saying
the prior election and she's saying the election at which that person was voted in that which one
is it my intention would be that those would be the same thing um the recalls are um
sorry that that was core wording on my part it would be the election at which
the person was elected was elected yeah that was just for warning
any further commissioner can you clarify for us why the specific charge or
maybe not why but you understand i'm saying so we have a specific charge having to do with the 200
word statement and we have a lot of information on the current provision and things that are
different in other cities what what is it that got specifically that 200 word statement in front of us
uh and is there any what's the question behind the question like where does that 200 word thing come
from yeah the 200 word in the conversation with council this spring whenever we were
discussing sections of the charter that they wanted to bring forth through the charges
the 200 word um specifically that language came from the national civic league's recommendation
that uh petitions should include a statement not to exceed 200 words so that's exactly where that
information came from commissioner ramsky okay a question on that then is i know we had two recalls
recently was there not a rationale for the recalls listed so i'm just that you know i'm trying to put
into visualization you got the form it says i want to recall julie remski position 92 for malfeasance
and that's less than 200 words but does it require that if it's malfeasance then i do
have some statement as to what the people specifically feel was my malfeasance or if i
say being non uh fiduciarily responsible because she voted for every tax increase in that right so
as it's written now they're required to include clear and concise uh statement on grounds for
removal that's obviously open to interpretation and i think that some of the legal consideration
as well on adding items like malfeasance and competence that those are oftentimes open to
interpretation but to answer your question directly on the last two uh recalls they would
have had to include something on the grounds for removal because that's required through the charter
the content of that i don't have that information make sure it's awesome can you go forward a little
bit on one of the slides so what is the difference between clearing concise grounds versus general
ground didn't doesn't have the general grounds does it no so that just general grounds just
means that they just require you to include grants and they don't say specifically in what
they don't describe them with anything else other than include counts for removal
mr davis i have a motion to make because i have questions i want to jump on this
okay moving on to motions and discussions i move that we the committee recommend
no change to the charter on this item second uh motion by commissioner davis for uh recommending
and should we have this motion uh without the negative
as in we recommend uh that the current wording be maintained
i to answer your question commissioner pikes i've just been on other committees where
staff had asked us to reformat motions to an affirmative yeah okay but uh that is a sufficient
motion for this committee uh commissioner davis sure and i'll speak to that briefly too that
my my motion technically lawyer uh is in the affirmative it's recommending no change so i
think that's why one of the reasons why it's appropriate um can we go back to the table that
mr johnson was asking about because i think i think nate let us write to it uh one one more
back please because it has more as a practical matter the citizens and then have a right to
recall their elected officials and they have a right to do that for whatever reason they
come up with if they want to say incompetency means you know where's the wrong color shirts
on tuesdays they're allowed to do that that's how that's how recalls work there's no practical
difference between clearance and concise grounds for general grounds uh putting little guardrails
on it like incompetency official misconduct or malfeasance that the citizens are free to
interpret in whatever way they choose to interpret it and adding the you know not more than 200 words
i suppose it saves some space on the paper but there's not a practical difference there if if
a committee of people wants to put together a 500 word you know soliloquy on why somebody ought to
be recalled i mean they're citizens they have a right to do that so that's why i'm moving that
we make no recommendation for change because they don't think either what we've been charged to do
to look at or any of the other options from comparable cities really make a practical
difference in how the recall is exercised we've got decent provision now commissioner johnson
well hypothetically right some people just don't like a particular council the way he's moving
and he's been doing our right by other constituents but a particular set just doesn't like it right
easy to happen and they without any ground rules can actually have him recall
and put out of that seat just because they didn't like him so i think that having some type of
guardrails some type of grounds would be not only fair to the constituents that voted for
but to the councillor that's actually doing what he believes is right for his constituent he's not
going to please everybody all the time but just because somebody is dissatisfied doesn't really
add up to why you would want to be called that individual and remove them for the seat
commissioner danahoff i saw your hand first i just yeah there's control in there for that it's not
that they're going to get recalled if 25 it goes to an election so for example if 75 percent of
people like you and 25 percent know you're still going to theoretically not get recalled because
you're going to go to an election so there's still a guardrail there as well i just this is the point
of discussion the recall it's not really a recall it's a petition to hold a recall election does that
make sense it's not actually a recall it says i mean i might be i'm not a lawyer but it it says
in here that they can resign within seven days or if they don't it goes to a recall election
and commissioner mcclar i know this is not in the motion but i would like them to define these
things like the university councilman saying you know the things that you can get recalled for
what are they and define that way you know because that way you can't just make something up and go
to a bunch of people and have an election that costs the city more expenses to do a recall it's
not going to that's all i got to say commissioner my question just now would be what you know to
make sure how you define those two what would be the wording because i think to your point you know
as you look and you go clearly concise well may seize this as an example hypothetically i see this
is clear and concise then i go that's not clear and concise to me so i don't that's that's an
interesting question right how do we get to what those guardrails should be but i also feel the
impact too if you don't want to just i think it was to your point color shirts right something
that is completely problematic and then maybe hoping that in a turnout that people don't turn
out and that small minority ends up winning the day because and you know historically you do have
some situations like that where all of a sudden there's a recount or there's that extra election
where the voice of the majority was heard and then that next election i didn't even know there was
election so i back to you for my part um i would say i have to agree with commissioner davis on
reasons um i i don't feel confident that if we were to sit down and kind of hammer out a list of
reasons that are and are not appropriate for the recall of somebody then give it 10 15 years under
the charter and all of a sudden there's a politician doing something and we're like we forgot to list
that one we can't recall because he's doing something we don't like and we think should be
recallable we forgot to list that one so i don't want something like that to happen um i i do think
that 200 words to me seems like a reasonable limit for conciseness i you know i've read
50 page research papers that were hailed as very concise explanations of things
so 200 to me seems reasonable but commissioner johnson well i'm kind of i wanted to follow up on
mr johnson's um question there and could you could somebody staff or somebody explain exactly the
recall process so i understand what you're saying you get 25 signatures and that then triggers they
either resign or there's a recall election when is that held held and then when is the new seat
filled how does that filter through is it at the next election or mr Davis so the the process to
answer questions also fill in a couple important blanks so the the petition has a timeline it can't
be uh it can't be within the first six months of a council member's term um and then it has to be
within just because of election deadlines the deadlines to call elections it has to be with
in a certain time frame of the next city election so one of the requirements was 45 days so it has
to meet certain timelines there for when the signatures are collected so you basically have
within 45 days counting backwards from the deadline to call an election the city of denton
always calls an election on the general election date for may so you basically work backwards from
the date last date they can call that election for may then that petition if it meets all the
criteria the city secretary certifies to the city council that these signatures have been collected
they all appear to be uh registered voters in the city of denton it appears to be the right number
it appears that the affidavit is the same on every page that the name of the circulators is
the same on every page you know just zero off the page is right so that's usually okay um and that
all these signatures appear to be in order when those results are certified to the city council
the city council then if that city council member has not resigned within that seven days of
certification that the city council then votes to call that election so that's where your question
and nate's question go together if there's definitions of things if the city council
doesn't call that election the only grounds the city council has for not calling the recount
election is a failure of the petition so if the city council says well that doesn't meet our
definition of incompetency they could in theory vote to not put that on the ballot if they say
well that doesn't meet our definition of clear and concise grounds well they could vote to not put
that on the ballot and then it's a hue and cry you know and then it's well the city council has
decided what the meaning of the word clear and concise is and all that kind of stuff which is
kind of a worse situation than when the city secretary says that signature is not an adequate
signature that person seems to not live in dentin at all so the council's role could almost be seen
as ministerial it's a little more than ministerial in that they have they have discretion but it's
very very limited so the more you add to it the more it's things that the council could in theory
disagree with and say well it's 201 words or it's not very clear to me what that means but ultimately
that's where any of these terms whether they have a definition or not that's the only place they
would ever come into play is when the city council is voting to call that election or not
i guess in theory if the city secretary didn't certify because it wasn't clear enough or something
but it's not likely commissioner jenna free time moment we are at seven o'clock i just have a
clarification question on that so then that vote they vote to recall do they elect somebody in
their place in that same election or do they have a special then after that there's a special unless
it's on cycle for a regular so if it's in the first the first year of a two-year term and if
it's early enough it could be a special election in the off cycle in the odd year you know that
person was elected an even year if the recall is in the odd year and that person was elected an
even year well there's not a special there's only the next regular which kind of ties into one of
the things that we brought up earlier denton's elections by law are stuck in may it'll it'll
always be next the cities can't after 2000 and i forget 16 16 can't can't move to november so
it's just always going to be a may cycle it'll be an even odd cycle so it could in theory and it's
happened seat sticks stays vacant for the better part of a year to give historical context here
we've had two recent recalls during one there was a period where it was a six-person council
we got some three three votes that had to just kind of be punted until the seat was filled
and then another one the person was recalled during what would have or what was also their
election and so that proceeded with no interruption in the number of counselors
so just for clarity if a recall goes before city council then they will determine by their own
language whether it's clear and concise grounds and whether it was incompetency they have their
own way of judging that themselves even though the people have voted to recall so they still are the
last people to get that determined um recalls going forward yeah and they could i mean let's
say somebody turns into absolute gothic i mean by any objective measure it doesn't make any kind of
sense right it just is not clear or concise a thousand words of nonsense and let's say that
somehow got the right number of signatures in district one got 300 signatures well the
city council could they could say this does not meet the criteria of the charter we just cannot
put this on the ballot because this this petition doesn't meet the criteria the likelihood of that
happening is very very low because one 300 people at the low low end have to sign that gobbledygook
petition um two the city secretary has to say those are all these people who signed in crayon
and agreed with the gobbledygook all these people are are registered voters and it meets those
criteria um and then i mean that's just not it's not very likely i can tell you the last two
recent recalls the last three recalls that met the signature uh requirements
met the kind of ministerial technical grounds the people subject to recall all voted in favor of
calling the election um because if it gets to that point it's going to check all the boxes
it's it's ready for the ballot if it if it gets to that point
back to that slide with the current language is the incompetency misconduct malfeasance language
in our charter apparently i didn't think it was okay that's what i remembered but i thought i
misremembered it's all in section 4.13 a b and c i didn't bring my book and i think
i just think clear and concise is vague it's very vague i mean it's never this question of
anybody to choose to say hey let's just get this person out of that seat so i think there should be
guardrails you know implemented just to you know keep it fair and keep it you know right for the
person who's doing the job in that seat and for these constituents that trusted him versus the
people that voted for you know what you're saying is right that the people that didn't vote for an
individual can come back and vote in the recall correct you did not have to vote in the election
the person was voted in on the council in in order to sign a recall petition
yeah i totally agree with you it's very vague and i think it's intentionally vague and that's a good
idea because what we're talking about in an act of recall is an act of democracy where there are a
group of people within a district who say i don't like the way this is going for their reasons they
write that up and then they find 25 percent of their neighbors to agree with them and and then
we go through a process and then there's an effort if if they collect all those signatures then it
goes to a vote and then the voters get to decide again so i think the vagueness is actually part of
what makes it really democratic is that it gives the recallers the opportunity to outline their
argument and say this is why we have a problem with this member of the council and find those who
agree with them commissioner damo yeah i just back in what angela's saying is um the alternative
unfortunately when you get into legalese as you have to specifically say something like
was convicted of a felony or was so that that's that's the problem with the other
other side of it from a from a legal like if you try to define it too much you have to actually give
like that's the one example you have to ask just our you know was convicted of embezzling money or
was convicted of this or that you have to almost list them out like from a legalese standpoint so
it's very hard to not have it be vague so it's like well it's nothing's ideal it's kind of like
in my opinion the best approach to if you're going to have a recall in your charter
it's like the best of what you can do well i was going to ask if we should bring the motion up to
a vote because i feel like we've all given our but i see commissioner rumsky so i don't want to do
that because if i do that that's okay i just wanted to reassure commissioner johnson that
if something is off the wall say i don't like the fact that someone continually votes down
all presentations for additional building in such an area okay
i decide to start a petition i have to give four other people who will agree
the first thing i have to do is get four other people to agree with me that that's a very logical
rationale okay because it's if they can't build in our area that we are losing
you know they they talk about food desks because there's no stores around okay so they constantly
throw out anything that has to do with bringing in an agv and albertsons or that okay we are
running away true yeah i tried but the first thing i have to do is get five people four other
people to agree with me then the five of us have got to go around and get a total of
300 or so people to sign it and if other people if you can't get that 300 people to do it
to meet that threshold and it's always good to get a lot more than that because you never know
who's going to get kicked out when they look at the signature so if you don't get that number
no matter how much i'm upset with that person it's not going to go any further
and then if it does go further they're going to put it on a regular election cycle they will not
put it on a special election and then that allows everybody else who lives in that district
or in the whole city if it should be a that large individual to put in their vote yay or nay
so you've got you know kind of like your your dams at different places to raise the water to drop it
i understand the process but what i've seen from council itself and from outside forces
with council i've seen things trying to be manipulated from outside forces so the recall
is being used against or can be used against certain council members to say if you don't do
these things we'll recall you so there needs to be guardrails in place not only to protect
the constituents but to protect the councilman who's doing this job so i just but that's a threat
but it happens we have a motion already we have a motion to keep the language the same
i'm going to call the motion now all those in favor of keeping recommending no change to the
language in the charter as promotes proposed by commissioner davis please raise your we have a
motion in the side sorry yes please raise your right hand and say aye i see 11 all those opposed
please raise your right hand say nay i think uh two eleven two motion carries um now we're going to read
uh we're going to read the list of additional items that were submitted for review by members
this is merely uh reading these into the record um and we will discuss next week whether we want
to bring any forward that's official recommendations so the list is as follows uh item one consider
implementing a trigger amendment stating that if gay marriage is struck down in courts and left not
contacted by the state of texas then civil unions will receive the same benefits of restrictions
currently applied to marriages from the city's codes ordinance in the charter two consider
implementing a one-year residency requirement for individuals serving on a citizen board committee
or commission appointed by council three consider moving municipal elections from may to november
this was submitted by two commissioners consider modifying the total years allowed for residents
to serve on council i believe that would be term limits submitted by three commissioners five
consider modifying the eligibility for holding elected office and appointments to city boards
proposed language is all dentin residents who are registered voters in the city except youth
representatives who hold no publicly elected office are eligible for appointment or reappointment to
a board or commission any potential applicant who is in arrears on any amount in the payment of taxes
or other liability due to the city may be disqualified from consideration residents eligible
to vote if he or she is a united states citizen who is a resident of the state of texas that has
resided in the city of denton for at least six months is at least 18 years of age is mentally
competent and it's not been convicted of a felony all dentin residents who will hold for uh are
running for a publicly elected office shall be registered voters in the city of denton any
registered voter may appoint sorry may be appointed and serve on a maximum of two non-elected boards per year
up to the same time as a city council member's term must wait the same length of time before
serving again on non-elected boards six consider adding language increasing the regarding the
increase in rates or fees on citizens or businesses proposed language any increase in rates or fees on
citizens or businesses to retire a debt or obligation of the city city shall be discontinued
when debt or obligation is paid full when and if any increase in rate or fee to retire a debt will
have estimated and they recorded on any invoice or statement where rate increase or fee is charged
100 percent of the increase in rates of fees referenced above shall be used to pay off the
reference debt seven consider adding language regarding the cost of new regulations proposed
language if the city council votes to add or change any regulations it will post the increased
cost to the taxpayers of such regulations when the agenda is posted for discussion of
these new or changed regulations costs shall mean any increase or decrease that shall include all
cost including staff time consultants legal etc h consider adding language that requires posting
the amounts if any of adequate contributions to fund pensions or retirement plans for cities
city employees including fire and police nine consider adding language that requires reporting
the amount of unfunded mandate incurred by the city with information regarding the name of the
mandate and cost of the city to comply i know we're going to address these next next time
can i ask a clarification question on what it's saying here just so i can think about it over the
next week um yes and if the member who submitted the proposed item at this moment so question
okay no it's on number five the second bullet point it says except youth representatives but
they're talking about registered voters so what would a youth representative that is a registered
voter be if you get somebody on a committee and you want to have to use like high school kids or
something on the committee they're not going to be rich voters or 17 or less the city maintains a
youth council um i believe they may be eligible for appointments to certain committees we can
get back on that next week okay that's fine and the other one is uh the last bullet point of that
same five section uh it says must wait the same length of time before serving again on non-elected
boards now what that is is like you see i'm semi-retired so i could probably anybody that can
like get to put me to boards i could be on the board i could get on like yeah for me for me to
serve on all those boards you know it might be an undue influence of maybe the way i want things to
go so i need a length of time i need to sit out for a while so i'm not always on boards all the
time trying to influence all the boards okay so if you're on two boards simultaneously for two years
two years okay so do you have to sit out two years or four years i could be on two boards one year
two different boards the next year are the same boards and then i gotta wait out two years before
i can start serving again on the board that's my opinion because i don't think all right the same
person needs to be we're gonna have further discussion of this uh we can have further
discussion okay yeah okay thank you for the point uh commissioner i have a question about
process next time um kind of to the gentleman's point are we going to kind of go down the list
one by one or is there could we do something like a general discussion ask questions you speak up
for whatever your your suggestion was and then like a survey you have to be recorded for open
meetings some kind of you know check sheet or something that stays part of the record
but is there maybe a way to expedite just a little bit to see if there's any kind of
consensus before we go through each and every one your intention is that between this meeting
and next meeting uh there would be one of the poll that we received we would uh express interest in
the items and that way we could run a faster meeting next time i personally found that i was
suggesting that the poll could be just a check sheet at the next meeting in case there's more
questions in case people are sitting with the list for a week and have more questions um because i
feel like if we did the survey in the interim between the next now and the next meeting people
could end up with more questions and not really be ready for the poll yet um but maybe a quick poll
i'm just kind of brainstorming ways that we could expedite the next meeting if something
has really only got one person's support and we need to spend a lot of time debating it
that something's even got you know a handful so then that's probably that's you know worth our
time to debate so you'd just like to see members receive a sheet at the beginning of the next
meeting and just take off i might be interested in further discussions so sure maybe after another
opportunity for discussion or questions or whatever yeah sure quick quick show of hands who would be
interested in that method the method would be that at the beginning of the next meeting we would
receive a sheet with each of these uh listed out and we would just take i would be interested in
discussing this further and then we can collect those and proceed from there with that information
show hands support of course can we just can we get that like email to us and tell that same fact
and that way they can say okay there's nobody really wants to talk about this but one person
we don't even bring it up or what i'm really fine either way i i thought when i brought it up that
people wouldn't want to do that just because they might want more time to spitball and ask questions
like we just did i'm really fine either way i i know what i like but i don't want to cut off anybody's
opportunity to learn more about a suggestion just because i've made my mind up or know what i like
okay whatever um and i think at the next meeting we'll just do a quick vote rundown of not not an
official vote but just a i would be interested in hearing more about this um and that it'll be
a couple of these things we've already taken a vote on like number four modifying the 12 years
allowed for residents to serve on the council it's my understanding that's more related to term
limits not term limits correct so commissioner just real quick but i think that's why we need
to have a little discussion just to make sure on each of these this is what the intent is
because i i mean i would just say i was one of the three who put that forth and it's about term
limits something we haven't talked about totality of how long you can serve we will discuss these
items at our next meeting uh we is this regarding process or yes okay okay i'd like to
go back to the review and consider the procedures and rules the process of this committee
briefly and it because i think we were given an agenda and we were given a process that we were
to follow from the beginning and so i'd like to make a motion to revisit the vote on keeping the
charter i mean the at-large and single-member districts the same and go ahead and move that
we keep that the same and revisit that today just like we did when we kept voting for the chair
we carried that over and so i i make a motion to keep the mix of single-member districts and at
large the same we can we can put it on the next agenda because we're not posted so the public would
want to know all the things that we're going to work on the day we don't have that carried over the
chair vote each time yeah the chair was so i don't know either so yeah i don't know how we're going
to move this on or it either should go away or you can vote on it again it just has to be on the next
isn't that what you just did she's making a motion she's making a suggestion
would that be put on the next meeting agenda i'm going to close item um uh crc 24-09 um move on
to the concluding items in the concluding item would you like to suggest that next meeting we
consider a motion to reconsider uh the mix and number of districts yeah
all right uh does anyone have any other
do we need a second
did we have a motion the motion ruled out or is it how i heard that
i my my intent there was that we were still on the
receive a report and give staff direction on additional sections of charters submitted for
review and that legal was indicating that that motion regarding uh reconsideration would be
more appropriate including items and so i closed the uh uh discussion of additional items and moved
on to concluding items so that we would be within posting and wanted to give miss jones the
opportunity to discuss that so that we would be within
made a motion for today i don't want to make it to add it to the agenda next time
and so it is legal's opinion that making that motion today would be with would be off posting
correct was so the question i have is when the second meeting was the chair posted on the second
meeting to vote on that a second time no i believe yeah it was um on our what is this one our second
august 8th 2024 meeting item received nominations and hold election of a chair
so it was on the agenda so there was a decision made not to complete it on this agenda
or the single member correct um there was some confusion um that was being addressed fairly
when that was discovered and procedures were being worked out
would you would you like to suggest a motion for you for the next i would like that we take a vote
on the procedures we're going to go forward on because i think it says review and consider
committed procedures and rules and i don't think we've done that i don't think we've brought forward
a procedure on how we're going to go through the agenda or if we did we already voted on it
previously that we would follow staff's recommendation of going through each in fact
i think do we vote on that we we discussed it that we looked at what the staff and we said
we talked about we go through each one take a vote go to the next one take a vote and we had
that discussion and that was the process that we were going through and we're revising that
and if we're going to revise the procedures we need to discuss that and have a vote
because i mean that's what the
item agenda was reviewing consider committee procedures and rules i don't think we considered
so i guess i could move under item c that we follow the original plan
of this committee to go through each topic and take a vote and move to the next and not have
ending vote or re-vote on all the topics at the end of the committee i'll second that
second from thanks
my question just says that i'll chew the book on ones where we didn't reach the eight
we should be going back to is my contingent on that on anything now i understand if you're
i'm just trying to be clear about what you're asking so like today we had a few that went
forgive me if i got these wrong 10 3 11 2 what have you but you're not i'll just be clear on
what you're asking i'll be happy to be clear so what i'm asking is that when we all met at
first meeting and we were going through the items it was presented to all of us i believe
that we would take each item in turn and take a vote and then move to the next item and we've
moved on from each item that we've taken a vote on we went to the next item i do not think we spent
a lot of time discussing and having discussion and argument about each item i think once that
vote is concluded it's concluded whether you don't have to in every vote reach the majority
either way can fail to pass i think that's what happened and i don't and i think that was the
procedure we laid out and that we were following and i don't think at the end of the day in december
or november or whenever this is that we should then rehash and re-argue all of the motions i mean
all of our agenda items that we've already voted on whether they passed or failed so i think that's
what i'm asking is that each agenda item that has already been discussed and voted on we've moved
to the next and i would like to keep that procedure in place and that's my motion
apologies i'm reviewing the procedure or the procedure as presented in the first meeting
so what i see in the initial meeting is not i do not call that we've had a vote during the first
meeting regarding the procedures this week we have a presentation and i do not see that it is
specifically listed at each meeting well i don't even think that it has to be at each meeting i
think that it needs to once the vote has occurred my motion is that the procedures we take up and go
forward with is that once you've discussed an item that's been on the agenda and there has been a vote
taken that we move to the next and when we move to the next we don't go backwards to prior agenda
items that we discussed and voted on the way that i intend to run these meetings is that we do not achieve
a uh at a meeting we will have to do so i understand i'm making a motion under the procedures
and rules for the committee that we take each item in turn and once we've concluded our discussion
and how to vote we move to the next and not revisit that's my motion under our rules and procedures
yes so just to be clear just to be clear yes you're saying that we don't have to reach the eight
and you just want to move on but what does it say that we have to reach the eight in order for a
recommendation it has to be eight okay okay to make a recommendation i'm saying if we don't have eight
okay to make a recommendation i'm saying if we don't have eight we don't make a recommendation on
that item and what does the chair say it is my intention that the items be brought back
at a later date is that lining up with protocol and with the procedures and all that is that lining up
point of order i think i can make the motion i'm just asking the chair is it lining up what you
said that's my understanding can i speak yeah commissioner fights so that is her understanding
but that is not the rules and procedures of council which is what we are to abide by once
they vote on something if it does not pass then they move on is that correct it just doesn't pass
i'm sorry then it doesn't pass and you move on you don't keep rehashing you know the item over and
over and over to be clear that's the rules of council but not the rules of this chart but this
charter is to follow the rules of council and then the the email that we corresponds we got earlier
in the week said that uh that we could deviate and do whatever but they have not been able to
give us any rules that allow us to deviate from that correct i've asked for that earlier in the
week and i didn't i don't think anything precludes a motion and for this body as a as a whole as a
yeah based on this item for consideration crc 24-020 she can make that motion for that
and then if it can't if it passes then we as a committee decide that that's the rules going
forward um i i will hear that motion i will call that motion uh does everyone understand the motion
that we are we are voting uh whether point of order uh does commissioner jones have standing
to call for a reconsideration it's not a recommendation it's not a reconsideration
it's just a motion under item c of today's agenda okay i mean under d sorry could you please restate
your motion it's under uh item c the committee procedures and rules i'm making a motion
that we continue forward as we have been that we take each charge that we were given as a committee
in turn discuss it have a vote and whether it passes or fails we move on
to the next and we do not revisit prior items that we have spent you know two hours discussing
each all right um i'm and i had a second yes so just gonna restate your motion uh your motion is
that we uh do not revisit items uh that have been both on um and that that does
that would not preclude a motion for reconsideration
i would because there's no prevailing side when it fails motion for reconsideration is only from
the prevailing side so when something fails that's kind of the flaw in logic in this whole
reconsideration idea that you brought up is that when something fails it fails whether because it
doesn't meet date that doesn't mean that it wasn't properly rejected it means the item failed it was
it's my understanding that um those who voted in opposition to the motion made were considered to
be on the prevailing side of the motion that's not correct i didn't mean to speak up for you i
apologize that that it confused me too i i asked legal and that's that's what i was um
i don't want to remove the ability for reconsideration um okay so the motion is
that we would not reconsider uh items that have already been discussed
all those in favor please raise your right hand and say aye all those opposed raise your hand
seven six all right does anyone have any further point of inquiry is the chair's opinion that that
motion failed it did not pass is it the chair's opinion that that motion failed is my opinion that
motion did not pass okay we're going to move on including items or sorry we're going to continue
with concluding items does anyone have any concluding items birthdays holidays anniversaries deaths
memorials i'm sorry uh concluding items birthdays holidays etc the things i listed under concluding
items i heard birthday over here but i'm not going to repeat the number i will i'm proud i
turned 50 last week thank you all right um i hope everyone had a good labor day that's my concluding
item um on that we will now adjourn this meeting at 7 37