So, in seeing that we have a forum, I will now call together the regular meeting of the Charter Review Committee at 532.
I'm going to take the item out of order here, our first item for consideration, item E, number TRC24-027,
consider approval of minutes number 52024, Charter Review Committee.
Commissioner Molina for? I motion to approve the minutes of September 19th for Charter Review Committee meeting.
Second from Commissioner Fike. All right, all those in favor, please raise your hand and say hi.
Hi. All those opposed, please raise your hand and say nay.
All right, we will move on to item A, number CRC24-026,
comments from members of the public who wish to speak.
The president of the meeting has sent a speaker card to the staff, liaison, privacy, and health.
Up to five speakers may speak for two minutes each on any item on the agenda.
I have two speaker cards in front of me. First, Charles Lee.
Two minutes. Yes, good evening. My name is Charles Lee.
And I wasn't here at the last meeting, I had other meetings, but I heard that there was talk about a proposal
that you're supposed to add civil unions to the city charter.
I'm saying against that, because civil unions, you can call it whatever you want, it's still gay-bound,
that's what it is, and it's against the Texas State Constitution.
So if it ever goes over to a total return, you're going to be writing a lawsuit by the state,
because, you know what I'm saying, you can call a dog a cat a cat a dog, it's still a dog, it's still a cat.
A dog wag his tail and goes, whoa, whoa, and a cat goes meow. You can call whatever you want, it's still a bite of a lawsuit by the state.
Second, I also want to say about, I want to add, right now you can't do valid initiatives on tax increases
or any kind of funding proposal. I say we need to take that out of the charter.
We need to have all tax increases, we need to go before election before people, and budget increases too.
Add that to the ballot, so if the city council, they're going on breakfast right now,
they're not trying to cut spending at all, they just keep increasing taxes and then it's terminated.
So we need to put it in the charter. All tax increases need to go before election before the people.
And the last one is, I think we also need to consider the city charter that English should be the official language,
because I'm saying, I don't even know how we can call ourselves a nation anyway.
If we can't agree that English and everybody in our nation should be speaking English, then what can we agree on?
How can we even call ourselves a nation at this point?
So I said we need to amend the charter to say English is the city, the official language of Benton,
because I don't even know how we can call ourselves on people if we're all speaking different languages.
That's pretty much all I have to say. Thank you. Everybody have a nice day.
All right. Our next speaker is another Ramsey.
Hello, my name is a Ramsey. I am on the board of ethics. I have been on the board of ethics for seven years now.
I am asking you not to modify the wording in the charter about ethics.
It was carefully crafted and background doctors all heard you next.
And I were on the last charter committee, and we were the ones that crafted that language.
I'm sorry. I was just waving at David.
So we crafted that language based on a guy named Robert Weschler, who is probably the former national expert on city ethics.
City ethics is something very different from lots of other ethical codes.
Every profession has an ethical code, but city ethics is.
So Weschler is a Columbia and Harvard law graduate who started the website.
If you really want some fun, you know, recommend this ethics in a nutshell, which is on his website is another piece that is a thousand pages long.
Then my opinion is even better. So we studied this hard. We came up with those four things.
So we were told by the chairman of the committee that they did not think the citizens would pass an ethical code.
And in fact, it passed by. So the citizens really want this.
The problems began after the code was passed, and you don't have to hear all the details.
But basically, the city decided to write the code themselves without citizen input, which was recommended by the consultant.
And it's an ethical quandary that Weschler calls bounded awareness where.
And I have just a couple of words. So anyway, it's bounded awareness.
It's like telling the football team that they don't need referees.
So that doesn't code does not address three of the four things that the citizens voted for. And that's what we're concerned about. But that's our problem to deal with, not yours.
So ethics is for the trust of constituents. It isn't to be mean or nice to just to have a set rules.
Please don't modify it. Questions must be factual matters.
I'm open to a question. Yes, go ahead.
What are you concerned about? We don't know. We saw the wording modified and we didn't understand.
But these are minimum standards that we rather watch for.
Our next speaker is David Zoltner.
You have two minutes.
I have been a resident for about 40 some years and raised a family here.
City Council served on the last term review group in 2017.
And I am a current member of the current ethics board along with several others.
So I'll be fairly quick here. But first off, I do want to offer some personal thanks to each of you for serving on this committee.
So far, I've watched every one.
I'll give you just nothing but a round of applause for the way you've handled some very critical issues. You've turned down the ones that I think should have been turned down and you kept moving the ones that I think were worthy.
So anyway, for two minutes, first of all, I draw your attention to two items on your agenda tonight.
The word modified appears in your posting as item C concerning our ethics code and chart.
This wording has confused several BOE members and citizens as well.
We're unclear whether this is a harmless or inadvertent poor choice of wording, or maybe something has happened or gone down under the radar and risks to jeopardize jeopardize our existing ethics.
Although our ethics code is in itself actionable and amendable by the City Council, charter requirements on the other hand cannot change without another charter election specifying those changes specifically.
For the record, I fully support our current charter language and strongly oppose any efforts to amend our charter on this topic, at least until our current code has been brought up.
To the state standards, it's been about six years so far.
Finally, item E on tonight's agenda seems rather unnecessary and burdensome.
Just for example of hypothetical purposes only, if John F. and Greg Abbott or Colin Allred moved to Denton, would they really need to be asked to reside for a full year being allowed to serve on the Denton City Council on this ethics board?
Modifying this proposal by adding the word Texas between one year and residency would clear this up immediately, assuming that any all residents proposals are even necessary.
So thanks again, I appreciate your time and everything that you're all doing are very worthwhile.
All right, that brings us to item C, number CRC24-025, receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction on modifying the ethics ordinance requirements.
We have three further discussion items for tonight.
Last week, or last meeting, we all got out on time. Love to do that again. Thank you, staff.
So, this is already covered by a couple of our speakers. Thank you for joining us from the Board of Ethics.
Some background on this charge, potentially modifying the ethics ordinance requirements.
The charter election of 2017 is where the ethics ordinance requirements and the ethics ordinance were created.
Following the election, the city created the Board of Ethics and charged with the creation and future revision of the ethics ordinance, ethics ordinance requirements.
The provisions stipulate the minimum requirements for the ethics ordinance and the charter committee's charge is limited to revising those provisions and not diving into the ethics ordinance itself.
The current provision is up on the board here. So, those four minimum requirements are definition of a prohibited, improper economic interest and personal gain, definition of recusal and improper participation when a potential conflict of interest is present,
avoidance of appearance of a conflict of interest, and administration and enforcement of ethics ordinance including the power to subpoena witnesses and documents coupled with strong and meaningful remedies for corrections.
As always, here's kind of our surrounding city comparisons. As you can see, they're relatively split on cities that do and do not have an ethics ordinance as well as whether those provisions are stipulated in the charter or ordinance.
And then in the comparable-sized cities, most comparable-sized cities do not have ethics ordinances, so Denton is ahead of them there. And Austin and all of the larger cities do have ethics ordinances, none of them are required for the charter vote.
So, with that, I'll turn it back to the committee chair for discussion. Any questions you may have?
All right, we'll start with questions. Mr. Pikes?
I just have one quick question. On the first table, on the city comparison, it says charter, and the next one, it says ordinance for Denton. Is it both?
Technically, yes. So, the differentiation is if it was in the charter of those other cities, it would have said charter, but in those other cities, they just have an ordinance, and there's not provisions in the charter.
Could we go to the next one? This is Denton ordinance? The last one says Denton charter?
Yeah, that's a mistake on my part. It's charter.
Any other questions? Mr. Jones?
I just didn't get a copy.
Other questions? Mr. Davis?
So, Chris, you were at the city council meeting where the different charter items were discussed, and I agree with the speakers, but I think there's some question about what kind of modifications are we supposed to be talking about, which is really broad, especially since this was something, this language was only added in our last charter election.
It was brand new, and others can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only mummified controversy in town over ethics ordinance was drafted after the charter provision passed.
So, could you help us kind of summarize what it is the council thought we might talk about today?
I can try. I was at those conversations and have gone back and watched them also a number of times and preparing for all of these meetings.
The conversation that council had on this charge specifically was very brief.
It was brought up in, maybe we need to look at modifying those. The subtext that I understood was really more of like, are there other, is there something we're not doing, is there a new standard practice, are there new best practices since 2017 that we should implement through this provision?
I have not been made aware of any of those. The board of ethics committee members have communicated with our staff that they don't, you know, see any of those as well.
Unfortunately, the direction from council wasn't as clear as I would have liked it to be.
One more.
I'm good.
It was my understanding, because it's been voiced, that things are a little bit, how do we interpret it, and so therefore with my interpretation, the ethics ordinance is a requirement now.
And we have it in the charter as such that those who are running for office should follow.
And that we were to recommend or suggest that the ethics committee in and of itself would review if things were to come up.
Because it was saying to me when it says the charter committee is limited to revising the charter provision, not the ethics ordinance itself.
So that means do we say that yes, there will be an ethics ordinance, there will be a board of ethics, and that they are in control of coming up with any modifications.
Now once they come up with modifications, Amanda, does that mean it would go to the vote of the people if they're, you know, just like anything that we do here as the charter committee, and we come up with the suggestions, it goes to council, and then council takes it for a vote.
So since the, you know, I don't recall offhand the wording when the ethics was on the vote, whether it was should we have an ethics committee established and having an ethics committee and the rules thereof.
Or, because I don't recall that we were privy to what they were going to totally come up with.
So, how does this work?
Yeah, as I recall, and certainly somebody may remember better, let me know. So the, what's in the charter now is what was on 2017 ballot. The citizens voted and put this in place, and then that triggered the folks who make ordinances, which is the city council, to be required to adopt an ethics ordinance.
There were a series of committee meetings and public meetings, and there were half a dozen, I see that shaking around, there were half a dozen public meetings and conversations, and it was in the paper, and we came up with a consultant-driven, homegrown ethics code, and there's been some controversy since then that should we have just adopted the model code that exists, or should we now abandon the code we have and go to the model code?
All of those conversations are independent of the charter. The charter is the minimum requirements to have an ethics ordinance. So, that's why I was so confused about why this is here, what needs to change about the charter. We can have all of those other conversations about code at the city council level. If they've got to change it, they can change it.
Commissioner Danahal?
I make a motion not to modify it.
Second from Commissioner Pikes.
Any further discussion?
Would anybody be in favor of modifying it that would want to speak before I move for a vote?
All right. We have a motion and a second to recommend not modifying the ethics provision in the charter. All those in favor, please raise your hand and say aye.
Aye.
All those opposed, please raise your hand and say nay.
All right. We will now move on to item D, number C. Thank you to our speakers who came on that item. Item D, number CRC 24-028. Receive a report to hold a discussion and give staff direction on implementing the trigger amendment stating that the day of marriage is struck down in the courts and left not protected by the state taxes and civil reunions will receive all the same benefits and restrictions currently applied to marriages in the city code.
Thank you.
So before we jump into these next few items, I'd like to just offer a couple considerations. We've reviewed the items that council set forth to the committee and now we're turning and looking into the items that the committee is interested and has independently chosen to review.
So each of these new introduction, it would introduce new provisions into the charter, which by state law can be amended only once every two years, though lots of cities in Denton is commonly common to hold a charter election at five year intervals or longer.
So the charter serves as the city's foundational legal document and as such is typically reserved for high priority long term governance matters.
As you review these items, you may want to assess whether a charter amendment is the most appropriate mechanism or the issue could be addressed through another available policy option like a resolution ordinance or other regulatory change.
The different types of these policy decisions each carry their own recommendations and levels of flexibility. So I just wanted to kind of preface the next five independently brought items.
So, diving into considerations for discharge, implementing a trigger amendment.
So, at this time I could not find any other cities that have adopted or considered a similar provision through their charter current city employee benefits, which are mentioned in the charge extend currently spouses regardless of gender or identity.
There's documentation required for that. And then some other considerations is the other areas of city code where marriage is defined in the ethics ordinance or relative is defined as family member related to a city official.
Within the third degree of affinity which is marriage or letter adoption, which is a state law definition, as well as property maintenance code and the development code.
So those are just some considerations.
We did get a question on this item, a couple of weeks ago when it was considered the cost difference between benefit plans between a single individual and someone who has a partner currently a spouse and those plans, the coverage would range changing coverage.
So, with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.
Obviously this would, as no other cities have taken this up.
Deton would be trailblazing on this item but trailblazing does include some pitfalls and legal action and target on our backs to the state and other entities so I think that's also what considering so with that I'll turn it over to the chair.
My first question would be legal spouses, is that a term that it would be inclusive of civil marriages and therefore, the item would have no point or is that a term that it's exclusive of civil unions.
There would have to be currently there had there's documentation.
A marriage license or something, and that's correct. So, with civil union be or something.
We do not know.
I think that's my question to you know, because you, as you know, the legality of it so if, if the state did strike down the ability for gay marriage, would there be something in our current documentation that said also unions or even that sort would be protected.
That's kind of a concern because I may be misunderstanding but like a better just that it does come down from our state government that anyone who is outside of the whatever traditionally defined is going to have issues.
That's how I see it.
That's the question we have anything on that would protect everybody.
This time not that I know.
Okay.
Can it be accomplished through an ordinance or a policy.
When it says you have to have some sort of documentation. Yes.
And that's a current policy.
Yes. So you could accomplish.
Yes. Yes.
Sure.
Two questions when you call it the financial difference between a single employee employee.
Children, was the value that you were quoting, what the city chips in toward it or what the individual chips in towards.
What I had was what the individual payment that the individual pays but I can get what the city would pay.
Okay, well, that was where I was trying to because regardless of what's going you know other things.
Consider say my husband and I we've gone through he's gone through one single single plus one which was the spouse, then family, and now that the kids are gone. We're back to just single plus.
So, that isn't in our purview to worry about the cost. Okay, because that's going to go through HR and everything else.
The key word on here is extended to legal spouses, and at present, a civil age is in my thought process was one that was done in a city hall, justice of the peace, or that versus one that was done in the religious setting.
So that may be an incorrect interpretation. But I would imagine that should anything one of the state level change in regard to legal spouses as those three, a civil ceremony that those that have already gone through the process or grandfathered it.
And so it would be just those that are wanting to start the whole process over again of where we are now.
Because, you know, earlier, they were not considered legal and they were not included so they're going to have to start the battle of the hill again. And then again, unless the federal government changes it.
Because when you look at the hierarchy in rules, you've got the federal government, the state can always be stricter, but it can't be more lenient.
The county, the same aspect of strictness of that. So, you would have to add here you're looking at all of the equal opportunity, equal this and that comes out from the federal government.
So, looking at this is somewhat a new point in regard to every city of Devon.
Further questions for staff before we enter the discussion? Yes, that that word that says in accordance with state law. Does that mean that everything in this has to be in accordance with state law? Is that the whole statement or just that last little part, blood and adoption?
Where are you on the considerations?
That whole statement in accordance with state law? Yes.
So, if state law changes that I believe so. That's the point.
Thank you, Mr. Davis. I'm going to respond to that really, really, really quickly and then I have my question. So, I think in that part of the ethics code, I'm looking over your head. I think in that part of the ethics code, it's saying the definition of relative is referencing state law that also defines a relative as someone from the third degree of identity or consanguinity.
That's a really common definition of family or relative, excuse me. So, I think that little in accordance with state law is just for that little chunk of the ethics code.
My question is, the second bullet about employee benefits, is that a, that's in city policy, right? Which is put out by the city manager and she informs the city council and stuff, but that's a city manager document, right? They make the policies for the city.
And in the three sub bullets, are those the only places in our country where marriage is referenced at all? Let the record show she is not.
And then my last question is, and I'm generally asking because there's other probably smarter lawyers in the room, the term civil unions.
In my opinion, I don't think we have such a, such a thing in Texas. I think civil unions were proposed and put in place in places that weren't ready to take this to same sex marriages as kind of a halfway marriage like thing, as a contractual property law kind of a thing.
But that civil unions never, there's not such a thing in Texas that civil unions don't exist anywhere in Texas law. Because we have, because now we have same sex marriage after they overfell.
That may have been, I think, perhaps on this wording on my part, having looked into it that I think that your assessment there is correct. I think the wordings that I would like to have gone back and switch that would be perhaps like recognize marriages from other states or
something where it acknowledges that in the event that a marriage with LB Hodges was overturned at, for example, California is likely not going to exit the business of giving out gay marriage licenses.
And so, just like prior to a marriage of LB Hodges, lots of gay couples would go to other states where they could receive a marriage that recognized them. I imagine that that might be the future at that point and in which case, perhaps a slight alteration to say,
No, just ensuring that we recognize all ages.
I don't have a list of that I can ask our HR.
I mean, what employer would not recognize a marriage license from another state? I mean, if you come to work somewhere, you're not going to say, well, sorry, you're gonna have to read your marriage in Texas. I mean, that's not your reality.
I would note that that situation sounds absurd, but that is the history of what gay couples dealt with before LB Hodges and interracial couples prior to those relevant decisions as well.
Mr. Davis, would you like to fill out a case law for me?
As far as city policy.
I think it's extended, recognize the marriage licenses from other states.
Would that bring less of a target on the city's back?
City can have whatever policies they wanted.
Kind of depends on if that policy is going to change.
It's easier to change a policy than change the charter for.
And I think a lot of this would be resolved at the state level.
If I can ask the question, what do you mean by?
You have a civil union in the city.
Start multiplying that out.
It's going to be a cost now.
Citizens, and I say, yeah, that's fine.
So your concern is that the city would spend money on gay couples the same way that it would on straight couples.
I think it is.
I'm just going to take my opinion, I think this should be handled through an ordinance or through a policy.
There's large companies like Packard are going to protect marriages.
Like large employers are and small employers might.
I know the universities probably will if they can.
I just think it should be handled through a policy or an ordinance.
I think it's just cleaner.
It's cleaner for not getting the city.
I just think it's clean.
I think and I think it accomplishes the exact same.
I guess I think you can almost find the regular extended benefits for a longer period of time.
You can see if you did a policy change, whereas if you have in the charter and you're trying to be the poor client, it seems like you're going to be sued sooner, and which could result in it not being legal under the state law.
Whereas if you just do it by policy ordinance, you can see the difference in the law.
So what we're talking about policy ordinance versus charter, clarity on that for me is missing a little bit.
And on the second hand, I just kind of I guess a statement for me, you know, I've heard Target worried about money and things of that nature.
For me, protecting however you want to phrase it.
So unions, marriage and 20 anybody.
I think we should be able to if we have a state government or an attorney general that's going to play politics with it.
I don't have a problem with that.
But I don't have a problem with us being a, you know, to your term, being a trailblazer and being ahead of the curve.
It's really dumb.
One thing I can say about this, say that I definitely learned people feel comfortable here, all walks of life, some way or another.
But I can say definitely to I don't want to over speak.
But I can tell you that in the surrounding areas, the LGBTQ community feels a lot more comfortable here than they do in other places.
And I'm all about tripling down.
I want everybody to feel like home here.
And sometimes I know people want to think, well, does it matter?
The state government hasn't kind of yet been with that nature, but we have seen recently some things being peeled back off.
And I think we're all very cognitive of what those things are.
So I am for this.
And, you know, unless there is further discussion that we have, I would like to make a motion as well.
Motion in favor.
In favor of what? In favor of this charge here, considered implementing the Charter Amendment statement of gay marriage is struck down the courts and left not protected all the way through.
Do I have a second?
Not much more seconds.
Mr. Davis.
Sure.
I have a few issues.
I'll list kind of three.
And none of them have anything to do with really the what Gabe just said about protecting gay marriages or protecting gay couples or being a welcoming place.
So I think we can do all of those things and then without this particular language in the Charter.
My issues are first, I teach the overspill opinion.
It was a very conservative, conservative Supreme Court, United States Supreme Court, Texas Supreme Court.
There are plenty of places like Texas that didn't like the opinion and said that marriage cannot be limited in the United States of America to between a man and a woman.
That is the law of the land.
And I do not see, regardless of what happens on November, if you look concerned about that, I don't see a way for that to be overturned in our lifetimes.
Secondly, when you look at the considerations that we have on the screen there, those are all the places the word marriage is in the city code.
The city doesn't do marriage. It's just not we don't issue marriage license. We don't require proof of marriage, except for to show that you're going to get benefits in the city manager.
For some reason, outside possibility, not all marriages are recognized in Texas.
The city manager can still make a change to city policy and say, I will recognize same sex couples.
That was part of the conversation going on before the overspill opinion said that Texas had to recognize gay marriages.
There were people receiving city benefits in same sex relationships.
It's just a weird, a weird norm around you have to do because you don't have a quote unquote legal spouse.
But we just don't, marriages are not what we do in the city code. It's not part of what the city business is.
And then the last thing is, and this may be kind of sensitive for some folks, we talked about the non-discrimination ordinance in them.
I met with lots and lots of people and one noted local trans rights activist told me, I said, is this really a city council thing or don't you think we ought to put this on the ballot?
Don't you think city, I remember this is when all the bathroom bill stuff was going on. And I said, don't you think maybe this is something that people just ought to vote on, you know, whether we have this non-discrimination ordinance.
Specifically, we already have one dealing with race and sex. We didn't have one dealing with the other issues we talked about.
And this person said to me, in this climate, the worst thing you could do for either side of this issue is to put it on the ballot.
You've seen the news crew showing up at school board meetings about books, and you've seen the circus that descends upon communities when stuff like this goes on the ballot, because now all of a sudden you're the flashpoint.
And even though you are a happy, welcoming, supporting, affirming place, now all of a sudden you've got the worst aspects of both sides of any kind of conversation shown up in your town.
And it's not a friendly conversation among friends. Now it is every news outlet, you can think of every cable news network from MSNBC all the way over to One America.
And that is not what we need for something that is not really even what the city code does, much less something that belongs in the constitution of the city, the very basic law of the city.
There's a better way to handle this if it happens.
Mr. Jones, do you still wish to speak?
Any further discussion?
All right, all those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye.
Thank you, thank you.
The motion was to recommend to council that the city implement a trigger amendment within the charter, stating that gay marriage is struck down in the courts and must not protect the state of Texas and civil unions to receive all the benefits and restrictions currently applied to marriages in the city.
All right, all those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye.
All those opposed, please raise your right hand and say nay.
The motion does not pass.
Do I hear any other motions.
All right, we will move on to item E, number CRC 24-029, receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction on implementing one-year residency requirements for individuals serving on a citizen board, committee, or commission appointed by council.
And I will make a note based off of previous comments that this is a separate topic from the residency for council.
Yes, so this charge is only for, as it's written, only would apply to council appointed boards, committees, and commissions.
Council already has a one-year residency requirement but currently there are not any residency requirements besides you must live here as president for serving on board.
So here are the current provisions.
This first section is literally everything that is in the charter on boards and commissions.
It basically just says that members of boards and commissions serve at the pleasure of council and can be removed by council for cause after being given notice.
And then what stipulates the current requirements for who is eligible to serve on boards and commissions is the city code ordinances, where we have this language, each member of the board commission.
In addition to qualifications prescribed by the federal state law or ordinance shall be a resident of the city who is 18 years of age or older, so that is currently, those are the only requirements required at this point.
Background and considerations, we spoke about this briefly at our last meeting in 2022, council amended the code of ordinances to change the requirement from being a registered voter in the city to being a resident of the city.
And historically there has not been a time specific residency requirement for service on boards, commissions, or committees appointed by council.
The Planning and Zoning Committee, Zoning Board of Adjustment, and Public Utilities Board are three separate committees listed in the charter, so they have their own kind of governance in the charter, separate from other boards and commissions.
And the POB is the only one required by the charter to have the same qualifications as council, which is a one year residency.
Some committees do have special requirements for service, but none require a time frame for residency. Those are specific to industry or different issue areas or that sort of thing to ensure diversity of thought and opinion on each of the boards.
And then another consideration has been a topic of conversation in the last several years.
We currently have an estimate of 14 vacancies on all of the city's boards and commissions, so there is sometimes a struggle to find willing and qualified folks on our boards and commissions.
So, some of the surrounding cities, most of them just require current residency. Carrollton does require a 12 month residency, and it is ordained by the charter.
And Frisco also ordinance theirs through the charter and all of the other surrounding cities do that through ordinance. All of the comparable size cities listed here have a current residency requirement and do that through the ordinance.
And then Dallas is the outlier of the big cities. They have a six months residency requirement, and all of those large cities do this through ordinance as well.
With that, I will answer any questions and turn it over to the chair. I'll start off. The 14 estimated vacancies, there are some positions where they are currently occupied by somebody who is termed out, but they continue to hold that position until replacement is found. Does the 14 include those folks? No.
The 14 vacancies are true vacancies where no one is in that seat. It does not include any committee members who are in holdover status, which basically means that they're turned out and are continuing to serve until they're appointing council member appoint someone else.
Mr. McClick.
How many appointments are there?
Like members on board.
So what I'm hearing is that everybody on this committee needs to go out.
Further questions for staff, Mr. Davis.
I want to make sure I'm reading the slide correctly. So public utility board is a statutorily required board. We have to have one.
And because we have a utility, several of them, and that has a state law requirement to run your residency, correct?
Charter requirement. So excuse me, I'm confusing my two questions. So that one has a charter requirement. The other kind of quasi-judicial boards, PNC and ZBA, they have a, we're required to have them by state law, but they do not have a residency requirement under state law.
We just have to have them. And then do we have any other, other than say the board of ethics, do we have any other city boards, committees or commissions that are kind of quasi-judicial, kind of rulemaking or all the rest?
And they make recommendations to city council. They don't have their own power. They're all the rest are advisory.
That includes this is advisory.
Commissioner Gantt-Hall. Yeah.
This answered my question. I was the one who put this on here.
It's my concern with some of those committees, like planning and zoning. Some of the ones that have like some pretty big T. I was more talking about those than just advisory committees.
That maybe I can either amend that to include one of your residency requirements or those big boards or just, but that's, that's the kind of boards I was talking about.
That should probably be. I appreciated your, your bringing it up because I think it's an important question.
I think, I think also the minimum of those ones, those quasi-judicial boards, and to make up an example, but let's say we had a big, big development dispute about something P&D is going to have to decide.
And some council member happened to have a vacancy available and they decided to appoint somebody, you know, in the pocket of some developer.
They could put that person on P&D and developers, you know, but then they make the utility districts and stuff.
I'll go park a guy on a trailer so he could be the one elector in that district, you know, and create the district.
So I think we kind of have a hole in the, hole in the charter now by not requiring one year for those, those particular boards.
I'm open to discussion about the other boards too, but I think at a minimum, those, those have teeth that have power and can do stuff.
Do we have the charter language on P&D, ZVA, and Pup board or doesn't there separate charter provisions?
You should in your binders as well.
Okay.
And planning and zoning does have a one year requirement.
7.2 planning and zoning commission seven members who during their respective terms of office and what at least one year prior to beginning there shall be residents of the city.
The board of adjustment is page 25 section 10.07.
There is not a requirement residency requirement listed members shall have the qualifications, powers and duties and serve for the terms provided by council and an ordinance creating the board.
Page 20 at the bottom.
Please speak up.
Any further questions?
It wasn't, it wasn't really a question, but I think I heard Brian say that he'll be willing to reword this consideration to maybe just include those three boards that have actual power in the city and maybe adopting the language out of that.
That's, that's the main concern is the ones that have.
Correct.
Board of adjustments together to already have it. Is that, is that would be my understanding.
I'm sure it is similar.
If they do stuff, they make decisions.
So it sounds like there would be appetite for a motion suggesting a one year residency requirement for members.
That's the only point I was considering.
As the person who has to reconcile code and charter all the time and make them work together.
If we made a recommendation to city council that all judicial and quasi judicial boards of the city have a one year residency requirement or like sub C on the TV have requirements that mirror the council.
Is that workable?
I mean, that, that, that's not, that's a legal term judicial and quasi judicial. Is that specific enough that it would be clear to anybody making appointments to those boards later on this category needs to mirror city council.
Well, from the list that she read out, I think that's probably 80% of boards commissions in there.
Would it not be just easier to say that anyone that is appointed to the boards of the commission have a one year residency.
It very specific and nobody has to double check.
Either of the person who says, oh, yeah, I got this qualification and I'm going to do this qualification so I think I'm going to see if I can get on the zoning board.
Only to find out that because I didn't read something a one year requirement by that same token.
I know personally and I heard that everybody else on this committee, when my name was put in before it went to city council, there was a lack of, we put a background check to be sure what my residency was, whether or not I was a registered voter, whether or not I owed any back taxes or that to the city.
So, to add in that there is, you know, a one year residency requirement gets it right out there.
One of the concerns that we had the discussion prior to passing this board for this meeting was trying to get, you know, more people to volunteer.
Forgive me for saying this, but there have been two instances where somebody has volunteered to be on a commission or a board.
And because of the political structure, they have been denied that. So here we have tried to make it so that more people would perhaps like to be on boards and that.
But the city council is the final say.
So putting on a stipulation of just being a one year amount of residency shouldn't be that difficult.
That's my opinion, my estimation. I would like to see them put back in if they'd be a registered voter. And, you know, that was taken out. And if there are 14 openings, and that was taken out in 2022, that was two years ago.
Can anybody tell me whether or not they saw an uptick in applications for people to be on commissions or that? And putting it in there really opened it up that people were flooding it, even if they weren't registered voters, you still got 14 openings.
Do you have an answer for that?
Not really.
There has been, I would say, in the last year to two years, there's been a concerted effort by the city secretary's office to proactively be filling these vacancies and I would say that they would likely tell you that it is easier to get them filled.
And in the last year we've gone from closer to upwards of 30 vacancies to now being at 14 and causation doesn't, you know, equal everything, but there has been, there's also been other outside forces that have created that.
So there are about 20 boards and commissions, give or take, and six or seven of them are quasi-judicial. So that, okay, I was in favor of, but in the sake of compromise, I would second, I don't know if Jesse actually made the motion, but if there's a motion on the floor to just make quasi-judicial follow city council requirements, I would either make that motion or second in the sake of compromise.
You know, those have teeth, I think they're probably residents of a car park to find. I don't think it'd be public art oversight committee. We need to worry about a residency requirement, right?
Commissioner Danhoff, actually, is that a formal motion? Yeah, I'm going to make the motion that quasi-judicial, that we recommend that quasi-judicial and quasi-judicial boards mirror the city council residence requirements.
Yeah, I agree. You know, I had some things happen in the past month that kind of swayed me a little bit on these advisory boards. I think they're good for Denton. Peterbilt gets asked a lot, I don't like to bring my job into this, but we have a lot of specific expertise.
For example, we got asked for a person to be on the sustainability advisory board, right? Because we do a lot of things for sustainability. We've got some expertise in that. It's good for Denton. The best person to do that doesn't live in Denton.
That's a whole different topic, but I've got, you know, we're not getting necessarily the best advisors. Advisors and people who can make laws are two different things, so that's just to say I second the motion.
I'll say my first board of commission was purely advisory, and I got on it within a year of moving to the city. I don't think I screwed up traffic safety too bad.
You see the cones? I don't know. I haven't seen the screens. It's a little known fact that the members of traffic safety are each individually responsible for counting the streets. That is a joke.
Commissioner Bikes? The way that she has proposed the motion would not affect that, is that correct? Because that's an advisory capacity? Correct. Thank you.
Any further discussion?
All right.
Let us vote on recommending that council implement or add that we add language to the charter, implementing a one year residency requirement for judicial and pseudo judicial boards and committees within the city of Denton.
All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye.
Aye.
All right. We bet everybody but Commissioner Ramsey. All those opposed, please raise your hand and say nay.
On that note, we will move on now to concluding items. Does the committee have any other business to discuss?
All right. With no other business, I will now adjourn the meeting at six forty one p.m.