WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.280
 In seeing that we have a quorum, I will now call to order the regular meeting of the Charter

00:00:07.280 --> 00:00:14.080
 Review Committee at 5.32 p.m. As a reminder to everyone here and all speakers, we are

00:00:14.080 --> 00:00:20.840
 using the overhead mics, so please speak up when you talk. We will show on to our items

00:00:20.840 --> 00:00:28.320
 for consideration. Item A, number CRC 24-030, receive comments from members of the public,

00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:32.960
 who wish to speak, must be present at the meeting and submit a speaker card to staff.

00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:36.720
 The staff liaison prior to the item being called. Up to five speakers may speak for

00:00:36.720 --> 00:00:41.520
 two minutes each on any items on the agenda. It does not look like we have any speakers

00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:50.080
 who wish to speak. We will move on to item B, number CRC 24-031, consider approval of

00:00:50.080 --> 00:00:54.680
 the minutes of October 3, 2024 to our review committee meeting. Is there a motion to approve

00:00:54.680 --> 00:01:04.520
 minutes? Motion by Commissioner Molina-Ford. Do I have a second? Commissioner Trevino, I

00:01:04.520 --> 00:01:15.000
 seconded. All those in favor of approving the minutes, please raise your right hand and

00:01:15.000 --> 00:01:19.960
 say aye. And as a reminder, please keep your hands up long enough for staff to note. That's

00:01:19.960 --> 00:01:31.480
 unanimous. Thank you, everyone. That brings us to item C, number CRC 24-033, my apologies,

00:01:31.480 --> 00:01:37.680
 CRC 24-033, receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction on adding language

00:01:37.680 --> 00:01:42.680
 to the charter regarding the increase in rates or fees on citizens or businesses.

00:01:42.680 --> 00:01:50.080
 Okay, thank you. So the next three items that we have that were brought to us from Weaver,

00:01:50.080 --> 00:01:55.800
 unfortunately he's not here to hear them. And if there had been more wiggle room in

00:01:55.800 --> 00:02:01.120
 the schedule, I would have made room for him to do that. But I'll go through the slides

00:02:01.120 --> 00:02:07.400
 for each of these items. As you have questions, I did ask for backup on this because I am

00:02:07.400 --> 00:02:14.600
 not a city finance guru. So at the back of the room we have our finance A team. Matt

00:02:14.600 --> 00:02:21.480
 is our budget manager, Viz is our deputy director of finance, and Terrence is our new grants

00:02:21.480 --> 00:02:29.080
 administrator. So we're prepared to get into the weeds with you on it if you so choose.

00:02:29.080 --> 00:02:36.880
 So with that, this charge brought to you by the committee yourselves, consider adding

00:02:36.880 --> 00:02:41.960
 language regarding the increase in rates or fees on citizens or businesses. The proposed

00:02:41.960 --> 00:02:47.880
 language that was submitted was, "Any increase in rates or fees on citizens or businesses

00:02:47.880 --> 00:02:53.480
 to retire a debt or obligation of the city shall be discontinued when debt or obligation

00:02:53.480 --> 00:02:59.400
 is paid in full. When and if any increase in rate or fee to retire a debt will have

00:02:59.400 --> 00:03:07.200
 estimated end date recorded on any invoice or statement where rate increase or fee is

00:03:07.200 --> 00:03:12.240
 charged. 100% of the increase in rates or fees referenced above shall be used to pay

00:03:12.240 --> 00:03:21.880
 off the reference debt." So some kind of basics on municipal debt. The city utilizes long-term

00:03:21.880 --> 00:03:28.120
 debt to finance non-operating expenses, which can include equipment, facilities, and acquisition

00:03:28.120 --> 00:03:34.000
 of land. And all debt issued by the city must be approved by the Texas attorney general's

00:03:34.000 --> 00:03:40.100
 office prior to the final sale of the debt. There are two types of long-term debt that

00:03:40.100 --> 00:03:48.640
 the city uses, general obligation debt, which includes COs and GOs. GOs are what you typically

00:03:48.640 --> 00:03:56.200
 call a bond. They are approved by the voters and have the financial maturity of 20 years

00:03:56.200 --> 00:04:04.960
 or less. And then COs, certificates of obligation, do not require voter approval. And some examples

00:04:04.960 --> 00:04:11.440
 of the pledge revenue that backs those are electric, water, wastewater, and they strive

00:04:11.440 --> 00:04:18.960
 to have a final maturity of 30 years or less. And then there's also revenue bond debt, which

00:04:18.960 --> 00:04:28.520
 is secured by pledge, typically of the city's utility system. And those strive to have a

00:04:28.520 --> 00:04:35.920
 final maturity of 30 years or less as well. Some of the relevant statutes, state statutes

00:04:35.920 --> 00:04:45.680
 that apply to municipal debt. The Texas Constitution has a section that covers truth and taxation.

00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:52.080
 Like the federal government, cities are not able to, cities have to have debt be funded.

00:04:52.080 --> 00:05:00.640
 They can't have unfunded debt. And then additionally, the Texas Tax Code requires that municipalities

00:05:00.640 --> 00:05:08.000
 collect a portion of CO debt paid for by taxes each year, and the county is required to verify

00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:13.920
 that amount. So there's some accountability within the city and the county there as well.

00:05:13.920 --> 00:05:21.840
 Texas Government Code has a couple of sections. One requires reporting for debt obligations.

00:05:21.840 --> 00:05:28.640
 Those posts have to be described in newspaper at least 30 days before, and they have to

00:05:28.640 --> 00:05:35.200
 describe the purpose, amount, method of repayment, and what the city council vote on those items

00:05:35.200 --> 00:05:42.600
 was. And then the other one defines what COs can be issued for, which is typically Public

00:05:42.600 --> 00:05:53.200
 Works related items, construction, buildings, plans, rights of way. And then just some considerations

00:05:53.200 --> 00:05:59.520
 on this item. COs are most commonly used for long-term, large-scale projects, which have

00:05:59.520 --> 00:06:07.760
 a debt service span of up to 30 years. So when we're looking at potentially having a

00:06:07.760 --> 00:06:14.880
 debt issued and a rate increased, that debt will not be paid off for 30 years. The cost

00:06:14.880 --> 00:06:21.120
 of that debt looks differently in 30 years, right? And our finance team can speak more

00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:27.920
 to that more eloquently than I can. State laws and existing city policies require transparency

00:06:27.920 --> 00:06:35.320
 and truth in taxation and promote accountability to taxpayers. And the city's website provides

00:06:35.320 --> 00:06:40.040
 information regarding the city's budget and budget process, including debt obligations.

00:06:40.040 --> 00:06:52.280
 And I can show y'all. So this is on the city website, and it has all sorts of information

00:06:52.280 --> 00:06:58.120
 and links about our historical bond projects, all of the different debt reports that were

00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:08.440
 required to have by state law, as well as some tables on what our debt looks like. So

00:07:08.440 --> 00:07:16.040
 with that, I will take any questions you have and bring up our finance.

00:07:16.040 --> 00:07:21.080
 Commissioner Davis. So I really don't want to drag us too far in the weeds of city finance,

00:07:21.080 --> 00:07:30.520
 but I think it'd be helpful for us to know, because the language is taxes and rates. So

00:07:30.520 --> 00:07:37.600
 could we get a little bit of information about the difference between the M&O tax rate and

00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:42.480
 the debt service tax rate, that our tax rate has different components to it, that it's

00:07:42.480 --> 00:07:48.480
 not just every year you have a set amount. Anyway, some information on that. And then

00:07:48.480 --> 00:07:55.080
 also, I think in fact, it's mentioned, if you can scroll up just a little bit on this,

00:07:55.080 --> 00:08:01.560
 the difference between debt that we are paying off as taxpayers, and debt that we're paying

00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:08.360
 off as ratepayers to the utilities, the utility debt, and how those are a little different

00:08:08.360 --> 00:08:12.040
 from each other and might be impacted differently by something like this.

00:08:12.040 --> 00:08:25.720
 One of you guys want to come up and join us? I mean, you came all this way.

00:08:25.720 --> 00:08:31.240
 Well, good evening, Matt Hamilton, budget manager for the city. I appreciate the question.

00:08:31.240 --> 00:08:39.400
 It's a great question. So there's two components to the property tax rate. One component of

00:08:39.400 --> 00:08:44.000
 it is called the M&O, the maintenance and operation rate. And the other component is

00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:51.640
 called the INS or debt rate, which stands for interest in sinking fund. So the M&O side

00:08:51.640 --> 00:08:58.760
 of the rate funds daily operations. This is personnel, this is materials and supplies.

00:08:58.760 --> 00:09:05.640
 The other piece of the rate, that INS rate, funds what's called the debt service. And

00:09:05.640 --> 00:09:17.200
 debt service is the payment that we make for the debt that we have financed. So the INS

00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:25.520
 rate is determined by all the outstanding debt, both GOs and COs, that the city has

00:09:25.520 --> 00:09:30.480
 issued in the prior fiscal year, because in that next fiscal year is when that debt service

00:09:30.480 --> 00:09:41.000
 starts. So the debt service side of the rates cannot be used for any kind of operational

00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:48.880
 expense and vice versa. So there's really two components to that total tax rate that

00:09:48.880 --> 00:09:55.760
 you see on your property tax bill. Now, what that rate does not pay for are revenue bonds

00:09:55.760 --> 00:10:05.040
 and revenue bonds are issued by the utility to fund utility projects. And revenue bonds

00:10:05.040 --> 00:10:13.720
 are secured by that specific revenue stream of the utility. Now, what you'll see is that

00:10:13.720 --> 00:10:22.080
 in CO issuance, the utilities are included. What happens internally within the city is

00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:28.680
 that the utilities make a transfer to pay that debt service. So it is the utilities

00:10:28.680 --> 00:10:36.520
 who are paying all the debt service associated with their utility projects that is not calculated

00:10:36.520 --> 00:10:42.200
 into that INS. So when we do the calculation with the county for the INS portion of the

00:10:42.200 --> 00:10:47.840
 tax rate, the debt portion of the tax rate, we exclude everything that is determined to

00:10:47.840 --> 00:10:59.580
 be self-supporting, which is the utility component of that. So all that is part of the property

00:10:59.580 --> 00:11:10.960
 tax bill calculation is only the general government CEOs and NGOs. There's not a utility component

00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:16.120
 associated with it. Yeah. So I just want to dive straight into the charge of this and

00:11:16.120 --> 00:11:24.000
 find out how it affects our budgeting process. So I have two questions. One, when we retire

00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:31.480
 these debts or obligations, does it ever really happen that we would leave that rate there

00:11:31.480 --> 00:11:38.080
 for an obligation that no longer exists? And two, what would be the substantive effect

00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:45.280
 on our budgeting process of implementing something like this? Yep. So that's a great question.

00:11:45.280 --> 00:11:52.560
 And just to back up a little bit, when we budget, let's just say utility, but it could

00:11:52.560 --> 00:11:59.200
 be any funder department, there's really two sides to it. One is the revenue side and one

00:11:59.200 --> 00:12:08.920
 is the expenditure side. And what we determine based on all the components, all the lines

00:12:08.920 --> 00:12:17.220
 in those two groups is what revenue would be required to meet our obligations and that

00:12:17.220 --> 00:12:29.040
 level of service. So what that means is that when a debt matures, and as you saw on the

00:12:29.040 --> 00:12:36.960
 slide, we usually issue debt for 10 to 20 years. So if a debt matured, let's say this

00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:48.640
 coming fiscal year in 2025, it was probably issued in 2005 or 2015, let's say. So all

00:12:48.640 --> 00:12:56.920
 else being equal, that rate would go lower because assuming no change in the revenue

00:12:56.920 --> 00:13:02.520
 and no change in any other expenditures. In other words, that's already happening. Like

00:13:02.520 --> 00:13:08.440
 it's going down if the obligations met. It would, yes. And the reason is because the

00:13:08.440 --> 00:13:16.200
 utilities do not budget it to make a profit and neither does the city. And so we budget

00:13:16.200 --> 00:13:27.120
 to have revenues equal expenditures and that's it. So there's a lot of pieces in there that

00:13:27.120 --> 00:13:39.360
 move. So a debt could mature and maybe revenues are higher outside of rate revenue. Maybe

00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:47.400
 it's interest income, for example, that adds a little bit more revenue. So in addition

00:13:47.400 --> 00:13:53.840
 to the debt maturing, you also have this other increase in revenue as well that helps rates.

00:13:53.840 --> 00:14:03.760
 Conversely, if there was a new expenditure need, maybe a change in regulation, something

00:14:03.760 --> 00:14:11.360
 that was different from the prior year, that debt could mature, but there would be a need

00:14:11.360 --> 00:14:22.080
 either operationally or the need to issue debt for a new project or infrastructure that's

00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:31.760
 needed. So as an example, it might be the case that Dent Municipal Electric has some

00:14:31.760 --> 00:14:37.600
 CEO roll off their balance sheet, they paid it off. But then the state comes and says,

00:14:37.600 --> 00:14:43.400
 oh, our transmission costs have gone up. And DME looks at its books and says, well, we

00:14:43.400 --> 00:14:48.200
 weren't paying $2 million a year on that CEO. And the state has just told us our transmission

00:14:48.200 --> 00:14:54.040
 costs are going to be $2 million higher. So even though the rate might not go down, there

00:14:54.040 --> 00:14:59.880
 would be, in effect, $2 million in savings because had that CEO not been retired at that

00:14:59.880 --> 00:15:11.320
 time, they would have had to pass that cost on. So there may be no apparent change in

00:15:11.320 --> 00:15:18.080
 the rate or the tax to the consumer. I say, oh, my bill has not changed and the debt went

00:15:18.080 --> 00:15:22.720
 off the books, so why hasn't my bill dropped? But the reason for that might be that there

00:15:22.720 --> 00:15:27.640
 are new costs. And so I'm still saving money versus the scenario where the debt didn't

00:15:27.640 --> 00:15:32.280
 roll off the books and they would have had to add that additional charge.

00:15:32.280 --> 00:15:43.640
 So just, I guess, specifically to the details that you provided, there's a couple of different

00:15:43.640 --> 00:15:57.460
 rates within DME. The TCRF and the ECA would be calculated differently than base rates.

00:15:57.460 --> 00:16:04.760
 So all else being equal, the maturity of debt and not having to pay that debt service anymore

00:16:04.760 --> 00:16:12.960
 would impact the base rates. And there would not be a need to increase rates and the potential

00:16:12.960 --> 00:16:17.920
 to lower rates. Commissioner Dix?

00:16:17.920 --> 00:16:25.120
 So on the tax rate side, on the property tax side, it's pretty straightforward when council

00:16:25.120 --> 00:16:30.280
 approves a new tax rate. There's usually a historical graph provided and we could see,

00:16:30.280 --> 00:16:35.560
 well, our INS or debt service rate has been this for the last however many years and our

00:16:35.560 --> 00:16:41.480
 M&O rate, the park council is usually, you know, debating over and budgeting on, is the

00:16:41.480 --> 00:16:47.840
 other side of the rate. And I'm going to kind of leave aside for a second, the council taking

00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:52.920
 the opportunity to fill the rate, like when the debt service rate goes down, saying, oh,

00:16:52.920 --> 00:16:57.120
 well, folks are used to a 59 cent tax, well, then we can fill the rest of that rate with

00:16:57.120 --> 00:17:03.040
 M&O and it's not really going to hurt anybody. It's really transparent when that takes place,

00:17:03.040 --> 00:17:09.160
 when they do just like find some costs to, to necessitate filling the rest of that rate,

00:17:09.160 --> 00:17:15.120
 even though the debt service rate came down. If I'm worried about that on the utility side,

00:17:15.120 --> 00:17:20.160
 where it's not so straightforward, where I can't just find one council's slide presentation

00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:25.560
 and kind of see what those rates are, how do I as a citizen figure out what part of

00:17:25.560 --> 00:17:30.800
 my, you know, so DMH is talking about a rate increase, right? How do I know what part of

00:17:30.800 --> 00:17:36.320
 that rate increase is debt service? What part of that is, hey, we got a little wiggle room

00:17:36.320 --> 00:17:40.360
 in the rate because our debt service went down this year. We can take a little more,

00:17:40.360 --> 00:17:46.320
 you can fill that rate just a little bit with some other stuff. How do I watch that and

00:17:46.320 --> 00:17:58.320
 how is that made transparent to citizens? Yeah. So, you know, we don't have a comparable

00:17:58.320 --> 00:18:09.320
 slide, I guess, or chart. The data is there, you know, to break out the debt service. And

00:18:09.320 --> 00:18:15.240
 we do show, you know, that through the budgeting process as it goes through PUB and then, and

00:18:15.240 --> 00:18:23.520
 then council and then in the budget book. So, you know, the debt service would be that

00:18:23.520 --> 00:18:30.360
 proportional component of the total budget. And in the case of DME, we would need to exclude

00:18:30.360 --> 00:18:36.720
 the other revenues. So, you know, the information is there. There may be an opportunity for

00:18:36.720 --> 00:18:43.480
 us to put together, you know, a graphic and some information to share with the public

00:18:43.480 --> 00:18:50.680
 on, you know, what piece of the, you know, utility rate goes kind of to what function

00:18:50.680 --> 00:18:56.160
 of that utility. That's something we could look at. It sounds like right now the best

00:18:56.160 --> 00:19:02.800
 information available is, you know, that massive proforma that DME presents during the budgeting

00:19:02.800 --> 00:19:07.560
 process with all the little breakouts and things. But there might be an opportunity

00:19:07.560 --> 00:19:13.680
 in the future to, you know, and they do a good job explaining the basic breakdown rate,

00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:18.680
 but there might be an opportunity in the future to kind of make that more transparent. Yeah.

00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:28.840
 And something that is not as detailed as the proforma that's shared is the budget book

00:19:28.840 --> 00:19:34.920
 that's produced. And that does, you know, have the various lines that are a little easier

00:19:34.920 --> 00:19:43.960
 to, it's more reader friendly, I think. But something in terms of a, you know, just kind

00:19:43.960 --> 00:19:52.440
 of a one page here's, you know, where the dollars go, that's something we could look

00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:53.440
 at.

00:19:53.440 --> 00:19:54.440
 Mr. Ransky.

00:19:54.440 --> 00:19:58.440
 Okay, if I'm understanding this correctly, and I'm going to use some numbers, I know

00:19:58.440 --> 00:20:12.320
 they don't have any accuracy, but say my bill is 95 cents a kilowatt hour. Out that 95 cents,

00:20:12.320 --> 00:20:23.080
 50 cents goes to the actual generation and function in that for my receiving my electricity.

00:20:23.080 --> 00:20:35.080
 The other 45 cents is going in for debt reduction. At the, I think what this proposal suggestion

00:20:35.080 --> 00:20:43.080
 is, is there be a mechanism on the billing to assist people to realize that when they're

00:20:43.080 --> 00:20:54.880
 paying 95 cents, 50 cents is going to the day to day, 45 cents is going for debt reduction.

00:20:54.880 --> 00:21:06.280
 It might be then depending on how many bonds or that they're recovering to break that out

00:21:06.280 --> 00:21:16.920
 as to when said debt would be retired. Then if I hear correctly, if 20 cents of that 45

00:21:16.920 --> 00:21:29.760
 cents is retired, one can then transfer that over to help pick up that the fact that that

00:21:29.760 --> 00:21:39.720
 50 cents no longer covers the generation. And if that's the case, is that not inappropriate

00:21:39.720 --> 00:21:49.840
 because you're taking what had been utilized to pay off a debt and you're reassigning it

00:21:49.840 --> 00:22:00.840
 to your day to day operations. And my understanding is that the quote, "two shall not mix like

00:22:00.840 --> 00:22:12.560
 oil and water" unless residents are notified and whatever other legal processes have to

00:22:12.560 --> 00:22:25.000
 be taken care of. And I would infer that the same would apply to managing the cities day

00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:34.640
 to day versus paying off a debt.

00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:48.440
 So a couple of things. The rate that the utilities charge is not unlike on the property tax side

00:22:48.440 --> 00:22:58.720
 where there is a specific INS and O&M or M&O rate. And those dollars do not get mixed.

00:22:58.720 --> 00:23:09.080
 On the utility side, there is not an INS portion of your utility bill. As a resident when you

00:23:09.080 --> 00:23:16.940
 receive a bill and let's say it's $10, you're absolutely right. Some portion of that is

00:23:16.940 --> 00:23:24.640
 and you'll see it on the bill for the transmission cost recovery and the ECA and then your base

00:23:24.640 --> 00:23:32.760
 rates. So outside of the transmission and energy charges, that base rate is going to

00:23:32.760 --> 00:23:41.400
 cover all the operational expenses, which includes debt service of the utility. So personnel

00:23:41.400 --> 00:23:51.760
 materials and supplies, the debt service, the payments that are made for services within

00:23:51.760 --> 00:24:06.480
 the city or technology, for example. So when the utility issues debt, and let's say it's

00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:17.680
 for a large project, there's not a specific fee associated with that project that would

00:24:17.680 --> 00:24:31.100
 stay fixed over some period of time. And the reason is because on the revenue side, customer

00:24:31.100 --> 00:24:36.960
 accounts are going to change, other expenditure lines will change, other revenue lines will

00:24:36.960 --> 00:24:52.440
 change. So that's going to change that percentage of where your, in the example, $10 goes.

00:24:52.440 --> 00:25:06.440
 If I may interrupt to take it further, I understand that what I'm looking for is a more definitive

00:25:06.440 --> 00:25:22.500
 line item notated on the electric bills so that the people who move in know when they're

00:25:22.500 --> 00:25:31.880
 looking at what their expenditures are, how much is really going to pay for the electric

00:25:31.880 --> 00:25:40.680
 generation, your staff and that, versus how much is going because you, and I'm just going

00:25:40.680 --> 00:25:48.240
 to pick on this, I know that it was that, to build the beautiful wall fake buildings

00:25:48.240 --> 00:25:56.960
 at the corner of Oak and Hickory when you come in off of 35. Because that is a capital

00:25:56.960 --> 00:26:07.080
 expense that would come out of your bond portion or that of your revenue. But people ought

00:26:07.080 --> 00:26:19.400
 to be able to look at, rather than going on a website and have to find it out. I've interacted

00:26:19.400 --> 00:26:30.320
 with groups of people who when you continually tell them to go to the website, they had difficulties.

00:26:30.320 --> 00:26:37.040
 So that was where I was coming from. A more thorough, elaborate line item.

00:26:37.040 --> 00:26:49.640
 Could you just clarify, are you suggesting that the, I'm sorry, could we go back to the

00:26:49.640 --> 00:27:11.760
 slide with this particular commission charge? So the charge that we're discussing is specifically

00:27:11.760 --> 00:27:17.080
 when debtors retire, does that should be added to the invoice or statement? Is that what

00:27:17.080 --> 00:27:21.920
 you're meaning to say or that there should always be a line item? Because I believe that

00:27:21.920 --> 00:27:28.960
 that may be off-posting if you're suggesting that there is just a constant line item.

00:27:28.960 --> 00:27:39.440
 Well, if you're asking for, and perhaps I'm understanding it incorrectly, that you want

00:27:39.440 --> 00:27:50.920
 to notify your citizens, your businesses about retiring debts and obligations, and then whenever

00:27:50.920 --> 00:28:00.960
 increases or rate, they'll have the estimated dates recorded. And in order to have that,

00:28:00.960 --> 00:28:08.920
 you'd have to have a line item at some point in time. Perhaps I'm totally wrong on that.

00:28:08.920 --> 00:28:16.440
 But how are you going to notify that that has been done?

00:28:16.440 --> 00:28:24.320
 I'm going to put a posting in the Debt and Record Chronicle that says, "Okay, on October

00:28:24.320 --> 00:28:37.920
 23rd of 1990, we are retiring this debt that we came up with, and such and such. In today's

00:28:37.920 --> 00:28:50.080
 computer age, it should be easy enough to elaborate by line item, the expenses."

00:28:50.080 --> 00:28:58.840
 So the city does publish the maturity dates and current debt portfolio for all the issuances

00:28:58.840 --> 00:29:11.880
 online, and it's also in various documents that the city publishes. Just one item that

00:29:11.880 --> 00:29:20.840
 I want to note is, as we began the conversation, we were talking a little bit about debt maturing

00:29:20.840 --> 00:29:29.320
 and debt issuance. So just to be aware that it may be the case that debt would mature

00:29:29.320 --> 00:29:37.240
 and debt would be issued, and would that then be a notification when there is no change

00:29:37.240 --> 00:29:52.240
 or the rate still decreases? So where I'm going is just that there's a lot of factors

00:29:52.240 --> 00:30:01.160
 that go into both the budgeting process, both in terms of various revenues and various expenses,

00:30:01.160 --> 00:30:11.720
 that a rate increase may or may not be due to debt. It may simply be due to lower revenue

00:30:11.720 --> 00:30:18.680
 or higher operational expenses. It's variable.

00:30:18.680 --> 00:30:21.720
 Commissioner Mujiguera.

00:30:21.720 --> 00:30:29.840
 So I'd like to bring this back into the charge on its face, which is just about kind of forcing

00:30:29.840 --> 00:30:35.840
 these decreases, which you said are already happening automatically. So I think you kind

00:30:35.840 --> 00:30:39.920
 of got really, really close to saying this, and I'm not asking you to have an opinion

00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:45.640
 on this matter, but I have some real concerns that this is going to hamstring council and

00:30:45.640 --> 00:30:51.600
 staff in making some really wonky budget decisions. I understand that the intention behind this

00:30:51.600 --> 00:30:57.560
 is pro-tax payer, and I think we're all concerned about the rates going up, but are there some

00:30:57.560 --> 00:31:02.320
 unintended consequences of this kind of language, the way it's written, when we're already doing

00:31:02.320 --> 00:31:08.320
 this effectively, putting this in charter language and creating some really unique or

00:31:08.320 --> 00:31:19.240
 challenging budget schemes that don't have the intended effect of saving any of us any

00:31:19.240 --> 00:31:20.240
 money?

00:31:20.240 --> 00:31:31.000
 I certainly think that there would be some questions and challenges, as I mentioned,

00:31:31.000 --> 00:31:40.480
 particularly in terms of is it the debt dollar that is prompting the increase, or is it the

00:31:40.480 --> 00:31:47.320
 operational dollar that's prompting the increase? Because in the financials, right, we have

00:31:47.320 --> 00:32:02.960
 a $2 increase, and which dollar is it? And so it may be a question as to how that's reported.

00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:13.160
 There's a number of issuances that are already outstanding. As with all the utilities, a

00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:21.640
 number of infrastructure needs, as the city grows, as infrastructure ages, as regulation

00:32:21.640 --> 00:32:39.720
 changes, and so there's sort of the practicality on a bill, how to visualize or put that there,

00:32:39.720 --> 00:32:50.680
 and then if that dollar were determined somehow. So I think there's probably some challenges

00:32:50.680 --> 00:32:58.840
 that we need to overcome in order to do that. And as far as the budgeting process itself,

00:32:58.840 --> 00:33:08.080
 I wouldn't imagine it would have a significant impact. But that would be...

00:33:08.080 --> 00:33:11.200
 I understand. Thank you. You can be determined.

00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:16.880
 So correct me if I'm wrong, but it can often be the case that capital expenditures might

00:33:16.880 --> 00:33:24.000
 save maintenance and operational expenditures. So it might be that, say, DME puts a capital

00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:31.000
 item in the budget for like self-restarting credits. And that's a capital expenditure.

00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:35.600
 But then because they install these, they are able to go and reduce their maintenance

00:33:35.600 --> 00:33:40.680
 and operations expenditure on having to send crews out every time a line gets touched by

00:33:40.680 --> 00:33:51.920
 a branch. So it might be that this forces emphasis or onto these expenses, these debt

00:33:51.920 --> 00:33:56.520
 expenses, when in fact those debt expenses might be saving us on the maintenance and

00:33:56.520 --> 00:34:00.760
 operations side. Yeah. I mean, one example that comes to mind,

00:34:00.760 --> 00:34:07.040
 and it doesn't fully recover it, but think about a vehicle. And the vehicle, when it's

00:34:07.040 --> 00:34:12.600
 new, you have very little maintenance cost associated with it. But if the vehicle is

00:34:12.600 --> 00:34:20.360
 10 or 20 or longer, we don't have any 30-year vehicles. But I'm thinking infrastructure,

00:34:20.360 --> 00:34:29.520
 the age of the infrastructure certainly has a maintenance cost, operating cost associated

00:34:29.520 --> 00:34:39.160
 with it. Particularly as within the utility, we look at infrastructure with older technology.

00:34:39.160 --> 00:34:47.760
 It may have parts that are more difficult to replace and maintain, harder to source.

00:34:47.760 --> 00:34:56.600
 So there, to your point, there are operational savings depending on what's being replaced.

00:34:56.600 --> 00:35:03.400
 Right. We are over time on this item already. Do I have more questions? Commissioner Davis?

00:35:03.400 --> 00:35:11.640
 I'm sure I move that we do not recommend this language to the City Council. I'll second

00:35:11.640 --> 00:35:15.680
 that. All right. Motion to second. Any discussion?

00:35:15.680 --> 00:35:21.040
 Sure. So I made my motion not because I don't think

00:35:21.040 --> 00:35:25.800
 it's a good idea. I think transparency is always a good idea. And I think helping people

00:35:25.800 --> 00:35:31.280
 understand the City budgeting process is a good idea. But as presented, it's just not

00:35:31.280 --> 00:35:37.400
 especially practical. One reason is from what we heard, that's not really the way that those

00:35:37.400 --> 00:35:43.000
 rates work. That it's a little bit that way on the property tax rate. But when you get

00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:48.520
 over to the utility side and the other revenue bonds, it just doesn't, that's not the way

00:35:48.520 --> 00:35:52.160
 that the debt service works. And it's not the way the rates are set. And if the information

00:35:52.160 --> 00:35:56.720
 is available to citizens in other ways, even if they're imperfect. The other reason though

00:35:56.720 --> 00:36:02.160
 too is from a practical perspective, when you get your tax statement, it doesn't come

00:36:02.160 --> 00:36:08.600
 from the city of Denton. Right. So the city of Denton really can't tell the county or

00:36:08.600 --> 00:36:17.320
 the appraisal district or whoever's your particular piece of information is coming from what,

00:36:17.320 --> 00:36:23.040
 you can't impose upon them a 50 line long list of all the different bond obligations

00:36:23.040 --> 00:36:28.080
 we've got. And that's the other part of it is even on our own side, on our own power

00:36:28.080 --> 00:36:33.320
 bills, and this is going to be a very popular answer, but there are simply too many debt

00:36:33.320 --> 00:36:39.360
 obligations to list on any particular piece of paper. It doesn't sound great. The city

00:36:39.360 --> 00:36:44.080
 has that kind of debt, but our individual debt obligations are just too numerous to

00:36:44.080 --> 00:36:49.040
 list. How many spreadsheets, you don't have to answer. It takes a bunch of spreadsheets

00:36:49.040 --> 00:36:54.000
 if you go to the city website to even list individual obligations we have. And they change

00:36:54.000 --> 00:36:59.080
 all the time. We'll read, we'll, we'll pay some off with a newer shorter term thing or

00:36:59.080 --> 00:37:02.200
 a better rate. And we're just, we're moving money around all the time. There's just not

00:37:02.200 --> 00:37:07.000
 a good practical way to do what this very well-intentioned thing is. So that's why I

00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:08.000
 made my motion.

00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:16.040
 I would say that's no different than any large organization. If you ask any company to say

00:37:16.040 --> 00:37:20.520
 does every individual piece of equipment over a certain amount of money is capitalized which

00:37:20.520 --> 00:37:25.720
 takes that debt service you're talking about. So it would be thousands and thousands of

00:37:25.720 --> 00:37:33.560
 pages of individual debt service to account for, right? So it's just, it's not practical.

00:37:33.560 --> 00:37:40.200
 It's not just the city. That's if you have a business, it's capital works that way.

00:37:40.200 --> 00:37:43.880
 Commissioner Johnson, you came in late. Do you have any clarifying questions?

00:37:43.880 --> 00:37:44.880
 No, no.

00:37:44.880 --> 00:37:45.880
 Okay.

00:37:45.880 --> 00:37:57.080
 All right. I will now call a vote on Commissioner Davis's motion that we do not recommend to

00:37:57.080 --> 00:38:04.160
 Council. Can I say the attached language? All right. All those in favor, please raise

00:38:04.160 --> 00:38:06.280
 your right hand and say aye.

00:38:06.280 --> 00:38:07.280
 Aye.

00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:13.440
 Believe that that is unanimous. All right. Everybody who is opposed, please raise your

00:38:13.440 --> 00:38:21.680
 right hand and say nay. All right. We are not recommending any changes on that. That

00:38:21.680 --> 00:38:30.080
 brings us to our next item. D, number CRC24-034. Receive a report, hold a discussion, give

00:38:30.080 --> 00:38:34.320
 staff direction on adding language to the charter that requires the posting, posting

00:38:34.320 --> 00:38:39.520
 the amount of money of an adequate contributions to fund pension or retirement plans required

00:38:39.520 --> 00:38:52.440
 to fund pension. Okay. Thank you. So just a quick primer on City of Denton pension. The

00:38:52.440 --> 00:38:58.000
 city participates in two pension plans, the Texas Municipal Retirement System, TMRS, which

00:38:58.000 --> 00:39:04.040
 is a agent multiple employer, traditional joint contributory. I don't know how to say

00:39:04.040 --> 00:39:12.040
 that, hybrid defined benefit plan, which is all of our city employees, including police.

00:39:12.040 --> 00:39:18.000
 And then the fire department has its own Denton Firemen's Relief and Retirement Fund, which

00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:27.200
 is a single employer contributory plan. So a couple of definitions. Funded ratio is the

00:39:27.200 --> 00:39:34.720
 ability of the plan's current assets to cover promised benefits. And the amortization period

00:39:34.720 --> 00:39:39.600
 is the length of time required to pay off the plan's current pension benefits earned

00:39:39.600 --> 00:39:45.880
 to date, plus an unfunded liability based on current contributions. And the pension review

00:39:45.880 --> 00:39:51.960
 board of the state of Texas recommends an amortization period of no more than 30 years,

00:39:51.960 --> 00:39:59.400
 with 10 to 25 years being the more preferable target. And then this is just a brief summary

00:39:59.400 --> 00:40:06.760
 of Denton's current pension plans. As you can see, the TMRS one, we are at an 85.3%

00:40:06.760 --> 00:40:18.880
 funding funded ratio and a 13.5 year amortization period, which is within the 10 to 25 years

00:40:18.880 --> 00:40:24.520
 being the more preferable target, as well within that. And then the firefighters plan

00:40:24.520 --> 00:40:39.360
 is 98.66% funded ratio and a 9.1 amortization period. Some of the relevant statutes, the

00:40:39.360 --> 00:40:45.520
 Texas government code has a whole section dedicated to TMRS that sets all of the definitions

00:40:45.520 --> 00:40:54.880
 and rules for it. And then it also is mandated to have a Texas Pension Review Board, which

00:40:54.880 --> 00:41:00.360
 oversees all of the public retirement systems, both state and local, in regard to their actuarial

00:41:00.360 --> 00:41:05.760
 soundness and compliance with state reporting requirements. We have a lot of requirements

00:41:05.760 --> 00:41:12.120
 from the Texas Pension Review Board that we have to follow as well. Some considerations

00:41:12.120 --> 00:41:20.080
 on this item, and our finance team can speak more to this as well, but state laws and existing

00:41:20.080 --> 00:41:31.560
 policies require publication and transparency and pension plans. And our website landing

00:41:31.560 --> 00:41:36.740
 page for the pension plans has all of that information that I've already given you. And

00:41:36.740 --> 00:41:49.560
 then you can click into either one of these and view the rate of return, as well as all

00:41:49.560 --> 00:42:02.240
 of the actuarial value assets and contribution rates. And then the Comptroller, we report

00:42:02.240 --> 00:42:11.120
 all of this to the Comptroller so you can also go and look up any public pension here

00:42:11.120 --> 00:42:19.560
 and see where it's at. So with that, I will yield for questions.

00:42:19.560 --> 00:42:27.480
 So if I'm understanding this correctly, the city is already required to post our contribution

00:42:27.480 --> 00:42:33.800
 status? Yes. I think that was the same question. It

00:42:33.800 --> 00:42:41.760
 just may be a different way. So we're basically already doing this by state law. Is that true?

00:42:41.760 --> 00:42:53.640
 Yes. And I'll confirm with finance. Yeah, yes. It looks like it is. We have a pension

00:42:53.640 --> 00:43:01.000
 initiative and it looks very similar to what we have to do.

00:43:01.000 --> 00:43:07.480
 Matt Hamilton, Budget Manager. We do publish this information and we do report it to the

00:43:07.480 --> 00:43:15.280
 state as well, as Christie had shown. And that is legally required by state law?

00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:21.560
 I believe so. Yes, the Comptroller requires that and we put it on the website as part

00:43:21.560 --> 00:43:25.000
 of what the Comptroller requires. Commissioner Beresma.

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:31.400
 I don't feel like we need to discuss this anymore. Go ahead and make the motion to not

00:43:31.400 --> 00:43:35.880
 pass this charge forward to the city council. I'll second that.

00:43:35.880 --> 00:43:41.540
 Motion by Commissioner Beresma, second by Commissioner Kirkpatrick. Any further discussion?

00:43:41.540 --> 00:43:43.520
 I just have a quick question. Commissioner Fikes.

00:43:43.520 --> 00:43:52.280
 So the way the charge is read is it inadequate contributions to fund the pension. So would

00:43:52.280 --> 00:43:58.960
 the inadequate contribution be defined as one minus the funded ratio?

00:43:58.960 --> 00:44:15.280
 So that's a really good question. This funded ratio, this is taking a look at the plan's

00:44:15.280 --> 00:44:23.600
 current assets versus what the promised future benefits are. So current assets are going

00:44:23.600 --> 00:44:31.360
 to fluctuate based on the market value currently. So if we had everyone in the city retire tomorrow,

00:44:31.360 --> 00:44:42.880
 we could pay the MRS 85.3% of those benefits. Now that doesn't mean that when individuals

00:44:42.880 --> 00:44:51.080
 retire they're only going to receive 85%. What it's saying is that based on the actuarial

00:44:51.080 --> 00:45:04.520
 analysis, and our contribution rate, it's going to take 13.5 years to reach 100% based

00:45:04.520 --> 00:45:08.600
 on our current future liabilities.

00:45:08.600 --> 00:45:15.720
 So yes, the current unfunded portion would be in that case one minus 0.853 which is 14.7%.

00:45:15.720 --> 00:45:25.360
 Is that fair? As of today, yes, if everyone, yes, were to

00:45:25.360 --> 00:45:26.360
 retire.

00:45:26.360 --> 00:45:29.440
 And the only other question, why is there two separate ones? I've always heard that

00:45:29.440 --> 00:45:34.600
 firefighters have their own, but what's the?

00:45:34.600 --> 00:45:39.960
 I think that that was just a decision that was made a number of years ago, I want to

00:45:39.960 --> 00:45:50.180
 say in the 1980s. And at that point, it was a decision whether or not to join TMRS. I

00:45:50.180 --> 00:45:56.800
 could be mistaken on that, but I believe that's how that occurred. The TMRS contribution rates,

00:45:56.800 --> 00:46:05.400
 I'll just add, are set by TMRS. The city doesn't decide whether to contribute more or less.

00:46:05.400 --> 00:46:14.040
 That's based on the direction of TMRS. And then, as you'll see, the firefighter's pension

00:46:14.040 --> 00:46:23.600
 is in really great shape, 98% funded, and we anticipate it will be 100% funded over

00:46:23.600 --> 00:46:28.880
 the next, I think it was four years or so, so very close.

00:46:28.880 --> 00:46:35.760
 So is that a product of different contribution rates between TMRS versus the firefighter

00:46:35.760 --> 00:46:42.520
 fund, or is it a difference in the investment returns within the fund?

00:46:42.520 --> 00:46:52.880
 Yeah, so I think it's, and I don't have the details on it, but I would presume that it

00:46:52.880 --> 00:46:59.200
 has to do with the investment, that asset allocation mix that was used in the past.

00:46:59.200 --> 00:47:02.840
 My gut tells me the same, that they're probably contributing the same amount. It's just the

00:47:02.840 --> 00:47:09.000
 returns are different. I can tell you that the contributions rate

00:47:09.000 --> 00:47:15.320
 matches TMRS. It is no lower than TMRS. The higher?

00:47:15.320 --> 00:47:24.760
 In the past, I don't think it's by very much.

00:47:24.760 --> 00:47:28.840
 Paralyzed with that. Refilling my water.

00:47:28.840 --> 00:47:34.120
 Commissioner Remsky, do you have a question? Well, I don't know, but to kind of give an

00:47:34.120 --> 00:47:42.040
 extra background on it, the gentleman commissioner that brought this up referenced it in fact

00:47:42.040 --> 00:47:50.600
 of the news about the fact that Dallas's pension fund was really at a risk. And his comment

00:47:50.600 --> 00:47:57.200
 and concern was whether or not the city of Denton could get caught.

00:47:57.200 --> 00:48:07.320
 And if, this is probably not that you could answer, but if we've got the Texas government

00:48:07.320 --> 00:48:16.480
 code in regard to pension systems, as well as the pension review board, how could Dallas,

00:48:16.480 --> 00:48:24.520
 I mean I know we're not in Dallas, but how could Denton, if we switch it and say we were

00:48:24.520 --> 00:48:30.160
 a Dallas group looking at that, and they would reference, oh boy, Denton's got this big up

00:48:30.160 --> 00:48:38.760
 front. How close does this review board keep a track on things?

00:48:38.760 --> 00:48:49.080
 Sorry, and absolutely cut me off if this is incorrect. My recollection of the controversy

00:48:49.080 --> 00:48:54.320
 in Dallas has specifically to do with their police pension. And I, if I'm not mistaken,

00:48:54.320 --> 00:48:58.960
 I may be, but I think that their police union made the same choice that our firefighters

00:48:58.960 --> 00:49:04.200
 did years ago with a separate pension, that their police are not TMRS. I could be mistaken

00:49:04.200 --> 00:49:12.120
 there, but TMRS, like Matt said, we don't control, it's a statewide system that we participate

00:49:12.120 --> 00:49:17.360
 in. And that's why, unless the whole thing's going belly up, that's why Denton's pension

00:49:17.360 --> 00:49:21.640
 fund isn't going to, for average employees and police, isn't going to go belly up. My

00:49:21.640 --> 00:49:26.720
 recollection of Dallas is that they had a police pension fund that has been plagued

00:49:26.720 --> 00:49:31.680
 with problems including mayhem, corruption, lots of different problems that our firefighter

00:49:31.680 --> 00:49:38.000
 fund doesn't have and the TMRS is very carefully protected against. That's my recollection

00:49:38.000 --> 00:49:39.000
 of the Dallas problem.

00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:45.200
 Well, I appreciate that extra clarification because I would really hate to find out if

00:49:45.200 --> 00:49:52.600
 you got a, you know, I know we don't control the state, but you know, the concern that

00:49:52.600 --> 00:50:01.320
 it's sort of like being in a condominium and find out all of a sudden you've got to pay

00:50:01.320 --> 00:50:09.680
 for a roof because nobody funded a contingency follow-through fund. So if you use that as

00:50:09.680 --> 00:50:12.680
 comparison, I like it.

00:50:12.680 --> 00:50:33.760
 So we have a motion on the floor to not recommend the aforementioned language to council. All

00:50:33.760 --> 00:50:39.680
 those in favor of not recommending that language, or recommending no change to the language,

00:50:39.680 --> 00:50:47.560
 please raise your right hand and say aye. All those opposed, all those opposed, please

00:50:47.560 --> 00:50:56.880
 raise your right hand and say nay. We will now move on to item E, number CRC 24-035,

00:50:56.880 --> 00:51:02.880
 to save a report, hold a discussion, give staff direction on adding language to the

00:51:02.880 --> 00:51:06.960
 charter that requires reporting the amount of any unfunded mandate incurred by the city

00:51:06.960 --> 00:51:13.520
 with information regarding the name of the mandate and the cost to the city complied.

00:51:13.520 --> 00:51:24.880
 Thank you. So some relevant statutes on this item is, there actually is a definition, state

00:51:24.880 --> 00:51:32.560
 definition of unfunded mandate. It is in the code starting in 1997. It means a requirement

00:51:32.560 --> 00:51:39.280
 made by a statute enacted by the legislature that requires political subdivision to establish,

00:51:39.280 --> 00:51:45.120
 expand, or modify an activity in any way that could require the expenditure of revenue by

00:51:45.120 --> 00:51:50.760
 the political subdivision that would not have been required in the absence of the statutory

00:51:50.760 --> 00:51:56.760
 provision. Interestingly enough, this piece of code exists in the state statute, but it

00:51:56.760 --> 00:52:03.560
 has no application in any other part of the state, so I would say that it's still a little

00:52:03.560 --> 00:52:11.680
 bit ambiguous what that means and what that would apply to in a state law situation. And

00:52:11.680 --> 00:52:18.920
 then some considerations on this item, state law doesn't have any application to other

00:52:18.920 --> 00:52:27.040
 statutes like I said, so that how we would define an unfunded mandate and then how also

00:52:27.040 --> 00:52:34.560
 we would track its cost is not something that is already defined. It would be something

00:52:34.560 --> 00:52:43.120
 that we would have to figure out either in this group or with staff at a later date.

00:52:43.120 --> 00:52:50.360
 And then just some additional staff impact in conversations with our finance team and

00:52:50.360 --> 00:52:56.760
 they can speak to this more as well. Existing finance and database systems do not have the

00:52:56.760 --> 00:53:02.600
 operability that would support reporting or tracking unfunded mandates and manual tracking

00:53:02.600 --> 00:53:08.760
 would require an estimated three to four hundred hours of staff time and roughly five to six

00:53:08.760 --> 00:53:17.480
 people on our finance team. And implementation would require additional staffing and funding.

00:53:17.480 --> 00:53:24.600
 Questions for staff. Commissioner Mungivar. So one could say that this amendment is an

00:53:24.600 --> 00:53:33.280
 unfunded mandate on the city of death. How did we get there? One could say that. That's

00:53:33.280 --> 00:53:39.240
 not that's not a dig. And I and I I've worked on the one side like I've I've heard the

00:53:39.240 --> 00:53:44.400
 cries of cities and unfunded mandates and I don't like it. But we do have the Texas

00:53:44.400 --> 00:53:51.600
 Municipal League. We do have organizations that track this stuff at a meta level. I don't

00:53:51.600 --> 00:53:57.200
 know that there's really any value by asking the city of Denton to track this and put it

00:53:57.200 --> 00:54:03.080
 out to the taxpayers. And I think that if there's any concerns that people have about

00:54:03.080 --> 00:54:08.720
 taxpayer funded lobbying, like I mean, this borders on that. If we're giving that kind

00:54:08.720 --> 00:54:13.520
 of information out, what else are we to do with it? But to hold our legislators accountable

00:54:13.520 --> 00:54:17.960
 for putting those costs in our cities. And I think that's a real problem. But I don't

00:54:17.960 --> 00:54:24.600
 know that there's really any need for our city to have all these extra staff hours spent

00:54:24.600 --> 00:54:29.920
 working on this just to remind us that, yes, we are paying for stuff that we're not getting

00:54:29.920 --> 00:54:34.680
 any money from the state legislature. I think we're all acutely aware of that fact. So I'm

00:54:34.680 --> 00:54:40.360
 going to make a motion that we don't recommend this to council. Motion by Commissioner Montreguerra

00:54:40.360 --> 00:54:49.920
 second by Commissioner Burisma. At what level? You said meta level or metal level? Meta like

00:54:49.920 --> 00:54:54.040
 like they're like track like what does this cost the average city or like per dollar or

00:54:54.040 --> 00:54:58.160
 something like that. Like there's like kind of like fact sheets like for a city of two

00:54:58.160 --> 00:55:01.840
 hundred fifty thousand like you just get these little like flyers handouts like this is what

00:55:01.840 --> 00:55:06.240
 this is going to cost our city and like a lot of times it'd be like a malformation of

00:55:06.240 --> 00:55:15.120
 like small, medium, large sized cities. Further discussion? Commissioner Davis. In the spirit

00:55:15.120 --> 00:55:20.440
 of the concern of knowing that not every citizen is going to necessarily find themselves on

00:55:20.440 --> 00:55:29.560
 the website or something like that and kind of acknowledging to the definition provided

00:55:29.560 --> 00:55:33.600
 that for some reasons in the government code, no further reference is kind of only half

00:55:33.600 --> 00:55:38.320
 the definition of the mandate. It doesn't mention the part where there's not money provided

00:55:38.320 --> 00:55:47.080
 by the person by the entity mandating to cover the mandate. Is there a short of three hundred

00:55:47.080 --> 00:55:55.040
 or four hundred staff hours? Is there a way for city staff to make available very basic

00:55:55.040 --> 00:56:00.080
 information about this kind of stuff? You know using things that already exist from

00:56:00.080 --> 00:56:07.320
 TML. Is there a more basic requirement that we can reasonably put in place that's not

00:56:07.320 --> 00:56:12.080
 going to take three hundred four hundred staff hours? I think that's probably just a little

00:56:12.080 --> 00:56:15.480
 bit high because it goes down every year. You know you only have to update it every

00:56:15.480 --> 00:56:21.720
 two years when the legislature meets. But is there something where we can accomplish

00:56:21.720 --> 00:56:27.120
 the spirit of informing our citizens about what the state's putting on us and not paying

00:56:27.120 --> 00:56:35.520
 for that it doesn't take three or four hundred staff hours? I'm not asking you to invent

00:56:35.520 --> 00:57:02.080
 it on the spot. Do you have any feedback Matt? I think if the data is already there and has

00:57:02.080 --> 00:57:12.320
 been produced and the effort made by another organization like TML or others then absolutely

00:57:12.320 --> 00:57:21.680
 it could be something that staff potentially could do. I think the concern is if there

00:57:21.680 --> 00:57:31.520
 is a mandate identifying what that liability looks like specifically for the city of Denton

00:57:31.520 --> 00:57:40.200
 depending on the mandate and the extent of it we would have to do presumably quite a

00:57:40.200 --> 00:57:48.480
 bit of analysis to know what that is and then update you know going forward to track it

00:57:48.480 --> 00:57:55.040
 and that's where that kind of tracking mechanism isn't something that's currently available

00:57:55.040 --> 00:58:05.320
 in our enterprise system. So I think from a staff perspective there's some unknown as

00:58:05.320 --> 00:58:14.800
 to you know how deep does the analysis go for all the mandates and the ultimate cost

00:58:14.800 --> 00:58:25.440
 of staff time associated with that. Thank you. So let me make sure I'm kind of understanding

00:58:25.440 --> 00:58:32.240
 the big problem why the cost or the time cost could be so much. So there's unfunded mandates

00:58:32.240 --> 00:58:36.640
 and there's unfunded mandates. There's the big ones that we hear about every two years

00:58:36.640 --> 00:58:40.760
 right like the legislature requires every city to put up a billboard that says don't

00:58:40.760 --> 00:58:45.120
 mess with Texas and they didn't give us any money to do it but we all have to spend $100,000

00:58:45.120 --> 00:58:50.840
 billboard and then there's the mandates that are like every city has to have water that

00:58:50.840 --> 00:58:55.440
 meets these quality standards but there's no state money for running our water plant.

00:58:55.440 --> 00:59:00.920
 So we have regulatory duties and statutory duties that are required but we wouldn't really

00:59:00.920 --> 00:59:05.880
 put them in the bucket of unfunded mandates or big political splashy items and that kind

00:59:05.880 --> 00:59:12.840
 of stuff and within the city budget I mean millions and millions of things that we do

00:59:12.840 --> 00:59:17.560
 because we are a city because we're required to by the state but we collect our own taxes

00:59:17.560 --> 00:59:28.120
 to do it. Am I kind of close to the mark? Right yeah. Commissioner Danton. I think even

00:59:28.120 --> 00:59:34.840
 if you attempted to do this it would get messed up and not be accurate after a year or two

00:59:34.840 --> 00:59:39.480
 and that's not a dig on anybody it's just because you have to have some committee meet

00:59:39.480 --> 00:59:45.180
 and say is this an unfunded mandate or not? What's the definition? So I understand the

00:59:45.180 --> 00:59:49.640
 spirit of it but the practicalities doesn't seem reasonable but I don't think it will

00:59:49.640 --> 00:59:54.680
 give you an accurate picture anyway at the end of the day. I don't see how this could

00:59:54.680 --> 01:00:09.600
 actually be measurable and be accurate. Commissioner Remsky would you like to speak? I'm toying

01:00:09.600 --> 01:00:19.720
 with my question but such a rub. Anyway the fact that it states that it would require

01:00:19.720 --> 01:00:30.880
 all of those extra man hours, lady hours, state hours. If it's a unfunded mandate it's

01:00:30.880 --> 01:00:41.120
 something that we have to quote pay for. In order to pay for it it would come out of operations.

01:00:41.120 --> 01:00:46.880
 Operations goes through and they calculate a budget so isn't there somewhere in that

01:00:46.880 --> 01:00:55.760
 process that one knows how much that unfunded mandate contributes to the operational fund?

01:00:55.760 --> 01:01:02.280
 Commissioner Mungibar do you have an answer? I think this is what kind of Commissioner

01:01:02.280 --> 01:01:08.600
 Danhoff is getting at is the question of what is an unfunded mandate? Is it something is

01:01:08.600 --> 01:01:12.920
 it like a sign that we have to put in one year or is it a regulation that we have to

01:01:12.920 --> 01:01:18.720
 enforce year over year? It's very technical when you start talking about these. EPA changes

01:01:18.720 --> 01:01:24.240
 our greenhouse gas limitation from this to this so therefore we have an unfunded mandate

01:01:24.240 --> 01:01:30.200
 to make low knocks burners everywhere. Like is that an unfunded mandate or is that just

01:01:30.200 --> 01:01:34.920
 a regulation? And at the end of the day that's where it gets convoluted. I just don't know

01:01:34.920 --> 01:01:40.640
 that there's any value added from this. Like I said I think we've got lots of great groups

01:01:40.640 --> 01:01:46.600
 that are documenting this at a high level and kind of know when they see it but I don't

01:01:46.600 --> 01:01:52.560
 see that there's any value in asking our city staff to spend any extra time to analyze this

01:01:52.560 --> 01:01:57.960
 because I don't know that it gives a lot of information that isn't already out there and

01:01:57.960 --> 01:02:05.460
 I also don't know that people would even read it when it comes down to it. All right so

01:02:05.460 --> 01:02:14.280
 we have a motion on the floor to recommend no change made by Commissioner Davis, Commissioner

01:02:14.280 --> 01:02:26.960
 McGuire, seconded by Commissioner Burrisma to recommend not adding language as indicated

01:02:26.960 --> 01:02:32.480
 on this item. All those in favor of recommending not adding that language please raise your

01:02:32.480 --> 01:02:39.920
 right hand and say aye. Aye. That would be unanimous. All those opposed please raise

01:02:39.920 --> 01:02:46.640
 your right hand and say nay. All right that recommendation has been made we now move on

01:02:46.640 --> 01:02:55.080
 to and I'm going to call the next two items together. Item F number CRC 24-008. Receiver

01:02:55.080 --> 01:02:59.360
 report hold a discussion and give staff direction on modifying the mix of single and at-large

01:02:59.360 --> 01:03:08.200
 districts as well as item G number CRC 24-008. Receiver report hold a discussion and give

01:03:08.200 --> 01:03:15.000
 staff direction on the need for additional council seats based on population size. We

01:03:15.000 --> 01:03:20.800
 had some absences the last time these two items were discussed and we did not have a

01:03:20.800 --> 01:03:25.480
 passing motion when they were discussed so I'd like to start off by asking did with the

01:03:25.480 --> 01:03:32.400
 members who were not here did you guys get a chance to go back and watch that conversation?

01:03:32.400 --> 01:03:37.440
 Point of order. State your point of order. Yeah both these items you called them together

01:03:37.440 --> 01:03:42.200
 it's all resting together. Both these items are out of order under the City Council rules

01:03:42.200 --> 01:03:49.120
 of procedure and specifically section 2-29 G11. Motions for reconsideration. They're

01:03:49.120 --> 01:03:56.360
 items that we have considered. The motions failed. The items failed. We moved forward

01:03:56.360 --> 01:04:01.680
 with our work and it's now out of order to reconsider them without a motion to reconsider.

01:04:01.680 --> 01:04:09.280
 Such a motion was not made in the proper time so these are out of order. It is my opinion

01:04:09.280 --> 01:04:16.560
 as chair that it is the charge of this committee to produce recommendations on these items.

01:04:16.560 --> 01:04:23.760
 This committee did not produce recommendations on this item. This question was previously

01:04:23.760 --> 01:04:29.320
 I discussed with staff previously and I've not heard recommendations from our professional

01:04:29.320 --> 01:04:35.080
 legal team to the contrary of the advice that I received previously. So I'm going to proceed

01:04:35.080 --> 01:04:46.280
 with this item. I filled in ruling of the chair. All right. So the procedure here is

01:04:46.280 --> 01:04:53.680
 that he has appealed the ruling of the chair so now the entirety of the body wants to move

01:04:53.680 --> 01:05:00.080
 forward. All right. So Commissioner Davis has appealed my judgment on these items that

01:05:00.080 --> 01:05:07.120
 these items my judgment that these items can return in this manner. So we will now be taking

01:05:07.120 --> 01:05:17.240
 a vote a vote aye on this item would be that Commissioner Davis's appeal is correct and

01:05:17.240 --> 01:05:25.000
 that these items cannot return and a vote nay on this item for this appeal would be

01:05:25.000 --> 01:05:31.800
 that this appeal is incorrect and the committee would like to consider these items once more.

01:05:31.800 --> 01:05:46.480
 Give me a further discussion. It's a debatable motion. This is a committee this isn't city

01:05:46.480 --> 01:05:56.840
 council. City council has the right it was my understanding and whether or not bringing

01:05:56.840 --> 01:06:09.680
 it down to here to do a reconsider. I'm a little curious on that. Number two the fact

01:06:09.680 --> 01:06:22.240
 that we decided based on votes that there was not a you know it's not a decision that

01:06:22.240 --> 01:06:31.000
 it doesn't move forward a decision to read here the recommendation to the city council

01:06:31.000 --> 01:06:40.680
 that said we could not determine whether or not we should do it or not. So is that not

01:06:40.680 --> 01:06:48.720
 a recommendation because if that is not a recommendation and we go through reconsidering

01:06:48.720 --> 01:06:54.140
 there are probably at least three or four other items that we've discussed that did

01:06:54.140 --> 01:07:02.000
 not pass because of a tie or that. Are we going to go back and reconsider all of those

01:07:02.000 --> 01:07:07.560
 again and when are we going to get forward on it. I'm trying to look at this globally

01:07:07.560 --> 01:07:16.680
 not it's just this one or two items that we are combining. Sure there have been items

01:07:16.680 --> 01:07:22.800
 discussed by this committee that did not pass on seven seven votes. I have no intention

01:07:22.800 --> 01:07:28.120
 of revisiting those votes because the committee spoke as a full committee on those items.

01:07:28.120 --> 01:07:35.960
 On these two particular items there was not a there were several absences on the meeting

01:07:35.960 --> 01:07:43.080
 that these items were discussed previously and so is my opinion that the lack of direction

01:07:43.080 --> 01:07:51.680
 given from this body was perhaps related to that number of apps and given that there are

01:07:51.680 --> 01:07:59.400
 committee members who were here or who are here tonight who are not here then at a minimum

01:07:59.400 --> 01:08:03.000
 I would like those committee members who are not present previously to be able to give

01:08:03.000 --> 01:08:11.080
 direction given the fact that this did not pass and that there were those absences. If

01:08:11.080 --> 01:08:16.520
 ideally I would like to have this committee bring forward some opinion on this item to

01:08:16.520 --> 01:08:25.040
 council does that answer your concerns. It somewhat does but if one of the rationales

01:08:25.040 --> 01:08:34.400
 is that members were not here we don't have members here again tonight. So unless one

01:08:34.400 --> 01:08:41.680
 were to and I know I don't think there's anything like this in rules Robert's rules or that

01:08:41.680 --> 01:08:48.400
 but unless the discussion was such that only those that were missing on that night could

01:08:48.400 --> 01:08:56.920
 give their vote and see how it would change it because if okay if I was here I've already

01:08:56.920 --> 01:09:02.960
 given you my vote so therefore I should not vote again today. I'm going to just pick

01:09:02.960 --> 01:09:09.440
 on and say if Commissioner Fikes was not here that night he would get to vote if Commissioner

01:09:09.440 --> 01:09:18.080
 Kirkpatrick was not here he votes rather than having all of us here because then you're

01:09:18.080 --> 01:09:26.600
 not taking into account the ones that are absent tonight.

01:09:26.600 --> 01:09:34.360
 Can we go back to the minutes I guess and figure out on these two particular items what

01:09:34.360 --> 01:09:42.040
 the vote was. So was it seven against? Yes it would be the. It was seven I think all

01:09:42.040 --> 01:09:45.240
 the people that were absent would have voted in contrary it would have been seven to seven

01:09:45.240 --> 01:09:50.000
 so the best they could have gotten was seven to seven correct and then you would have revisited.

01:09:50.000 --> 01:09:57.920
 That's kind of why I'm getting that is that if it was already a seven against it this

01:09:57.920 --> 01:10:05.760
 substantively doesn't matter because it could only be seven to seven. This committee is

01:10:05.760 --> 01:10:12.600
 charged with producing recommendations to council. Point of order Madam Chair on this

01:10:12.600 --> 01:10:19.960
 motion each member may speak once. Thank you. Sorry what did he say? On this Robert's rules

01:10:19.960 --> 01:10:26.720
 of order dictate that on appeals to the chair each member may speak once and only once.

01:10:26.720 --> 01:10:49.040
 Well I didn't intend for that to be my. So in the event my understanding or my question

01:10:49.040 --> 01:10:59.920
 is or comment if we didn't have enough then and we're reconsidering today why would we

01:10:59.920 --> 01:11:04.920
 reconsider it if we don't have a full full today because that's just going to open up

01:11:04.920 --> 01:11:10.080
 to where we can continue to go more because if we don't get seven to seven today based

01:11:10.080 --> 01:11:18.040
 on your decision or comment you just made we would go again. The other thing we still

01:11:18.040 --> 01:11:28.280
 have council charges that we have not discussed that have not been presented. Why would we

01:11:28.280 --> 01:11:33.640
 why would we discuss something a second time prior to discussing those items the first

01:11:33.640 --> 01:11:46.960
 time and I'm not done so I don't want to yield if I'm not going to get the floor back. Apologies.

01:11:46.960 --> 01:11:53.400
 And then when you talk about the seven to seven vote and that you would not reconsider

01:11:53.400 --> 01:11:58.360
 a vote if we had a seven to seven and I think that's false too because the original chair

01:11:58.360 --> 01:12:03.960
 vote that we had was seven to seven on two separate occasions and it came back the next

01:12:03.960 --> 01:12:09.880
 time even though we had a vice chair that was elected and so we could continue to operate

01:12:09.880 --> 01:12:18.160
 going forward but we didn't we came brought it back so back to Commissioner Ramsey's comment

01:12:18.160 --> 01:12:23.240
 that there are others that we didn't that would make we have to bring them all in but

01:12:23.240 --> 01:12:31.360
 I do agree with Mr. Davis that the council procedures is the only thing that I've seen

01:12:31.360 --> 01:12:38.240
 and it appears to me that they have the next session to bring that up and there's nothing

01:12:38.240 --> 01:12:43.560
 that deviates from that I still have a hard time getting past that that I think I think

01:12:43.560 --> 01:12:50.880
 supports Commissioner Davis's claim. Thank you. Commissioner Mungiwara. We're gonna see

01:12:50.880 --> 01:12:58.120
 if she can answer the question. Would you like to address why this would be coming back

01:12:58.120 --> 01:13:02.800
 at this meeting as opposed to future meetings? It was placed these two items were placed

01:13:02.800 --> 01:13:10.040
 on the agenda at the request of the chair the decision to move the perfecting charges

01:13:10.040 --> 01:13:18.520
 which we were planning on having this evening was in order to make time logistically for

01:13:18.520 --> 01:13:23.880
 this. So we still we still do have charges that we have not addressed or have not decided

01:13:23.880 --> 01:13:31.120
 on at the council similar to this that we have not discussed one time it seems out of

01:13:31.120 --> 01:13:35.240
 order to be considered speaking on something else a second time we're discussing if we

01:13:35.240 --> 01:13:43.080
 haven't even done that once we only have one more meeting. Commissioner Mungiwara. I'm

01:13:43.080 --> 01:13:47.840
 very sensitive to Chairwoman Bray's concern that we need to provide some direction to

01:13:47.840 --> 01:13:52.440
 council on this I understand there's some talk about how there was there was seven votes

01:13:52.440 --> 01:13:57.440
 how could things change well we did change votes did change for Chairwoman Bray when

01:13:57.440 --> 01:14:03.160
 it came down to when we had to make a final decision. Now that's just one example but

01:14:03.160 --> 01:14:10.200
 my point is is that in the absence of any direction which we haven't provided any direction

01:14:10.200 --> 01:14:13.920
 we've merely had seven folks say they want no changes seven folks say that they would

01:14:13.920 --> 01:14:19.960
 like to see some changes in the absence of that council is going to do what they'd like

01:14:19.960 --> 01:14:25.240
 and so I think there's a really good opportunity here that if we can reach a consensus on something

01:14:25.240 --> 01:14:31.240
 then it could be something that we were at least the majority of us can be happy about

01:14:31.240 --> 01:14:38.280
 rather than the council members that directed us to consider this to choose their own plans

01:14:38.280 --> 01:14:54.600
 so that would be my consideration. Would you like to make a motion? No I'd like to speak

01:14:54.600 --> 01:15:02.800
 to my motion. I haven't debated the motion yet. I made it but I didn't expect a motion.

01:15:02.800 --> 01:15:08.160
 So I feel kind of like Walter and the Big Lebowski if there are rules there are ways

01:15:08.160 --> 01:15:12.240
 that you do things and there are ways you don't do things. Our meetings are governed

01:15:12.240 --> 01:15:17.120
 by two things Robert's Rules of Order and the Council Rules of Procedure. It's very

01:15:17.120 --> 01:15:22.920
 clear in the city code of ordinances that boards and commissions are to be governed

01:15:22.920 --> 01:15:27.340
 by the Council Rules of Procedure. There's some stuff that doesn't apply like what do

01:15:27.340 --> 01:15:31.840
 you do to elect a mayor or a pro tem? This doesn't apply to us. There are other things

01:15:31.840 --> 01:15:39.160
 that apply very clearly to us and it's very clear in the code that those Rules of Procedure

01:15:39.160 --> 01:15:47.080
 in 229 apply to this body. There is a way to revisit an item. The way to revisit an

01:15:47.080 --> 01:15:50.760
 item is not that the chair keeps adding it and adding it and adding it until she gets

01:15:50.760 --> 01:15:57.240
 the vote she wants. The way that you revisit an item is you follow G-11 which is consideration

01:15:57.240 --> 01:16:02.960
 we can put it on the screen if we need to and my motion is not to my point of order

01:16:02.960 --> 01:16:08.840
 excuse me and that was overruled and that I've appealed is not really about the substance

01:16:08.840 --> 01:16:15.240
 of the item. My point of order was that we didn't follow the rules for putting this back

01:16:15.240 --> 01:16:19.840
 on the agenda. The way you put it back on the agenda is you make a motion to reconsider

01:16:19.840 --> 01:16:24.440
 under the Texas Open Meetings Act. You have to do that ahead of time so it can be properly

01:16:24.440 --> 01:16:29.040
 posted then the body has a vote on the motion to reconsider and that's when we have the

01:16:29.040 --> 01:16:32.520
 debate about well did we really have enough people there to talk about it? Did we have

01:16:32.520 --> 01:16:37.080
 all the information that we needed? Was that the right time to consider that motion? And

01:16:37.080 --> 01:16:41.560
 the only person who can only people who can make that motion to reconsider are folks who

01:16:41.560 --> 01:16:48.080
 are on the prevailing side. The motion did not pass so the people who are on the prevailing

01:16:48.080 --> 01:16:53.320
 side are the people who voted against the motion. Like I said the last time we talked

01:16:53.320 --> 01:16:57.720
 about this there's a hundred ways a motion can die there's only one way it can pass.

01:16:57.720 --> 01:17:04.000
 We took action on these items. It failed. The people who voted against my motions on

01:17:04.000 --> 01:17:10.200
 these could have moved to reconsider within the time frame specified they didn't do it

01:17:10.200 --> 01:17:14.960
 so to take it back up today we are out of order. If this is something that is important

01:17:14.960 --> 01:17:21.480
 to you if you find yourself in the minority that voted on these items if you find yourself

01:17:21.480 --> 01:17:25.960
 someone who because of your own personal obligations couldn't be at that meeting go to your council

01:17:25.960 --> 01:17:30.940
 member and ask them to add this to the charge. Go to your council member and go to the next

01:17:30.940 --> 01:17:35.160
 level where all these things have to go and handle it there. You don't go outside the

01:17:35.160 --> 01:17:40.880
 rules to create your own rules where we can go back and revisit items that were properly

01:17:40.880 --> 01:17:46.160
 considered by the body and put to the side. That's the substance of my motion appealing

01:17:46.160 --> 01:17:56.480
 the ruling of the chair. Do we have any other speakers before we would like to vote? Do

01:17:56.480 --> 01:18:08.640
 we need a simple majority or eight votes? Eight votes. Eight votes to in favor of Mr.

01:18:08.640 --> 01:18:16.600
 Davis' motion go ahead and roll the chair. You would need eight votes yes. Okay thank

01:18:16.600 --> 01:18:25.000
 you. Point of entry. So I have a question about that eight votes. I've gone back to

01:18:25.000 --> 01:18:31.480
 this is leaving all prior votes about procedural things aside. Chairs and elected aside. I've

01:18:31.480 --> 01:18:39.080
 gone back to our enabling statute our charge in the eight vote requirement specifically

01:18:39.080 --> 01:18:44.240
 references recommendations of the body. This is a procedural vote and not a recommendation

01:18:44.240 --> 01:18:50.720
 to body. So can we can we look at that language and make sure we're we can and and we have

01:18:50.720 --> 01:19:02.040
 to look at this a few times in the law department. The body has decided that once you do your

01:19:02.040 --> 01:19:05.400
 work by eight votes and the charging document that created this body said eight votes and

01:19:05.400 --> 01:19:11.920
 that's kind of how this body has been drawn. Can you speak louder please? The charging

01:19:11.920 --> 01:19:19.520
 document says eight votes and how this committee has been run is that you've decided that eight

01:19:19.520 --> 01:19:25.080
 votes is where we are and so it would be backwards to go back now and say oh we want to change

01:19:25.080 --> 01:19:29.680
 this because it's a procedural rule. Everything has been by eight votes on this committee

01:19:29.680 --> 01:19:38.180
 and that's the way we should keep going. Do the charging document also say to abide by

01:19:38.180 --> 01:19:43.480
 council's procedures? The charging document does not specifically say that. I can go pull

01:19:43.480 --> 01:19:51.120
 it out. No the charging document says this body has to have eight votes to make a recommendation.

01:19:51.120 --> 01:19:57.880
 That's what the charging document says. Without eight votes this body is not making a recommendation.

01:19:57.880 --> 01:20:01.560
 This isn't a recommendation is what he's saying correct? Right he's saying this is a procedural

01:20:01.560 --> 01:20:09.240
 matter. Correct. But even on the procedural matter we've gone with the eight vote rule.

01:20:09.240 --> 01:20:16.160
 And those would be what other examples are procedural matters? For instance the one that

01:20:16.160 --> 01:20:28.800
 you brought up about voting. We voted until we got a chair. Okay. Does, I'm a little bit

01:20:28.800 --> 01:20:37.420
 confused by what you're telling us. Not on what you're saying but if the body has decided

01:20:37.420 --> 01:20:43.760
 just out of a you know a spirit of congeniality or to preserve decorum or just to be able

01:20:43.760 --> 01:20:48.920
 to move forward that we're going to adopt this eight vote majority thing even if that's

01:20:48.920 --> 01:20:56.100
 not what's in our language. How does that constrain us going forward? Like we haven't

01:20:56.100 --> 01:21:01.420
 changed anything. We haven't changed any rules. We've said I mean nobody challenged it. People

01:21:01.420 --> 01:21:06.360
 who could have benefited by challenging it decided not to. Didn't raise a point of order.

01:21:06.360 --> 01:21:12.200
 Didn't raise exactly this point at the time. Does that take away someone's ability to raise

01:21:12.200 --> 01:21:17.640
 the valid concern that we're not required to have eight votes? How does that under Robert's

01:21:17.640 --> 01:21:22.880
 rules constrain the body going forward just because someone chose not to assert a point

01:21:22.880 --> 01:21:27.960
 of order some earlier time? No it doesn't because there's two things. You have made

01:21:27.960 --> 01:21:33.040
 that point tonight. You've made that point tonight. And the body is going to vote on

01:21:33.040 --> 01:21:38.520
 that point tonight. And Robert's rules are only there to make sure that the majority,

01:21:38.520 --> 01:21:42.880
 the will of the majority prevails. That's what those rules are for. And that the voice

01:21:42.880 --> 01:21:47.960
 of the minority is preserved and heard. Right and I think we've accomplished both of those

01:21:47.960 --> 01:21:57.560
 but the majority vote prevails. The minority cannot award the vote of the majority. We'll

01:21:57.560 --> 01:22:05.040
 see what the vote is and we'll see what the points are after. Do you have a point of information?

01:22:05.040 --> 01:22:14.880
 I am trying to determine whether or not the agenda is posted 72 hours ahead because I

01:22:14.880 --> 01:22:26.920
 didn't print out what came to my home on Monday to bring the copy in. It's listed on here

01:22:26.920 --> 01:22:35.400
 that we would cover that item. I do not recall if what was printed 72 hours ahead and falling

01:22:35.400 --> 01:22:43.360
 under the Open Meetings Act then it was listed. Does anyone have a copy of what the original

01:22:43.360 --> 01:22:53.160
 agenda was as posted now to us on my note? I can speak to that. The agenda that is before

01:22:53.160 --> 01:22:58.840
 you is the agenda that was posted on Monday before 5.30 in accordance with our Open Meetings

01:22:58.840 --> 01:23:04.280
 Act. I didn't hear part of that last part. Could I ask you to speak louder? Yes. It was

01:23:04.280 --> 01:23:09.960
 posted, the agenda before you is the exact same agenda that was posted on Monday before

01:23:09.960 --> 01:23:17.560
 5.30 p.m. which is within our 72, which is when our 72 hour period starts. Okay. I guess

01:23:17.560 --> 01:23:29.040
 I just didn't recall that. Thank you. All right. We will now vote on Commissioner Davis's

01:23:29.040 --> 01:23:35.380
 appeal of the Chair's judgment. As a reminder, a vote aye on this is a vote in favor of Mr.

01:23:35.380 --> 01:23:44.520
 Davis's appeal and a vote nay is a vote against Mr. Davis's appeal. All those in favor of

01:23:44.520 --> 01:23:53.560
 Mr. Davis's appeal, please raise your right hands and say aye. Aye. All those opposed,

01:23:53.560 --> 01:24:07.480
 please raise your right hands and say nay. Nay. I believe that is 8 to 4. Did we get

01:24:07.480 --> 01:24:20.600
 that? Excellent. All right. We will now move on to the items. Does anyone have any questions

01:24:20.600 --> 01:24:27.200
 on the items before we move into discussion? Commissioner Mungivore. In the interest of

01:24:27.200 --> 01:24:34.160
 time, are we wanting to vote on one package, if you will, all at once in the end as opposed

01:24:34.160 --> 01:24:41.920
 to the two parts respectively? Or could such a motion be made? If that is the motion that

01:24:41.920 --> 01:25:07.120
 is made. Any further questions? Are they going to present it again? I don't believe so. Will

01:25:07.120 --> 01:25:08.920
 they? That was not my plan too. But can we? Are you asking to see the information again?

01:25:08.920 --> 01:25:13.500
 I should be in your mind. Any presentation? Mike, go over again. If we are all going to

01:25:13.500 --> 01:25:17.220
 go over it, if everybody is here and has a discussion, then I think it would be prudent

01:25:17.220 --> 01:25:23.400
 to go over it. It is 6.57. Do we need to do this next time or are we going to be in the

01:25:23.400 --> 01:25:29.720
 middle of three minutes? We have run over on meetings previously. If Commissioners would

01:25:29.720 --> 01:25:35.840
 like to make the motion to delay it, that is the motion that has been made. If we could

01:25:35.840 --> 01:25:51.800
 get a quick reminder of the previous discussions or previous presentations. And if anybody

01:25:51.800 --> 01:26:20.760
 needs to grab a water. Marsha, please go ahead. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am

01:26:20.760 --> 01:26:34.760
 sorry. This information was seen previously on Thursday, August the 8th. If you are looking

01:26:34.760 --> 01:26:58.080
 for it in your binders, or on the website. What large is it again, you know? This would

01:26:58.080 --> 01:27:22.480
 be charge D and charge M to all of you. I move that these items be postponed to our

01:27:22.480 --> 01:27:42.840
 next meeting. We will vote on whether or not to delay these items until our next meeting.

01:27:42.840 --> 01:28:08.040
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:28:08.040 --> 01:28:25.400
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:28:25.400 --> 01:28:42.360
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:28:42.360 --> 01:28:58.920
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:28:58.920 --> 01:29:15.360
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:29:15.360 --> 01:29:33.760
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:29:33.760 --> 01:29:49.240
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:29:49.240 --> 01:30:11.800
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:30:11.800 --> 01:30:28.160
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:30:28.160 --> 01:30:48.680
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:30:48.680 --> 01:31:05.360
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:31:05.360 --> 01:31:21.840
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:31:21.840 --> 01:31:37.800
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:31:37.800 --> 01:31:59.640
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:31:59.640 --> 01:32:15.320
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:32:15.320 --> 01:32:32.340
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:32:32.340 --> 01:32:45.880
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:32:45.880 --> 01:33:06.640
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:33:06.640 --> 01:33:24.220
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:33:24.220 --> 01:33:40.800
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:33:40.800 --> 01:33:58.320
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:33:58.320 --> 01:34:13.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:34:13.600 --> 01:34:29.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:34:29.600 --> 01:34:44.960
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:34:44.960 --> 01:35:02.440
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:35:02.440 --> 01:35:16.960
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:35:16.960 --> 01:35:35.720
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:35:35.720 --> 01:35:57.080
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:35:57.080 --> 01:36:14.320
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:36:14.320 --> 01:36:29.760
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:36:29.760 --> 01:36:48.080
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:36:48.080 --> 01:37:05.560
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:37:05.560 --> 01:37:24.960
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:37:24.960 --> 01:37:40.160
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:37:40.160 --> 01:37:55.800
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:37:55.800 --> 01:38:14.160
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:38:14.160 --> 01:38:29.440
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:38:29.440 --> 01:38:46.320
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:38:46.320 --> 01:39:02.200
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:39:02.200 --> 01:39:18.040
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:39:18.040 --> 01:39:34.800
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:39:34.800 --> 01:39:52.680
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:39:52.680 --> 01:40:12.200
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:40:12.200 --> 01:40:26.880
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:40:26.880 --> 01:40:46.880
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:40:46.880 --> 01:41:05.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:41:05.600 --> 01:41:21.000
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:41:21.000 --> 01:41:39.300
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:41:39.300 --> 01:41:54.480
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:41:54.480 --> 01:42:10.360
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:42:10.360 --> 01:42:27.040
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:42:27.040 --> 01:42:47.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:42:47.600 --> 01:43:04.560
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:43:04.560 --> 01:43:21.000
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:43:21.000 --> 01:43:38.440
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:43:38.440 --> 01:43:58.840
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:43:58.840 --> 01:44:14.880
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:44:14.880 --> 01:44:36.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:44:36.600 --> 01:44:52.880
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:44:52.880 --> 01:45:07.400
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:45:07.400 --> 01:45:26.120
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:45:26.120 --> 01:45:44.400
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:45:44.400 --> 01:46:00.540
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:46:00.540 --> 01:46:19.120
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:46:19.120 --> 01:46:35.040
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:46:35.040 --> 01:46:52.400
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:46:52.400 --> 01:47:10.000
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:47:10.000 --> 01:47:27.320
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:47:27.320 --> 01:47:43.820
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:47:43.820 --> 01:48:03.320
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:48:03.320 --> 01:48:18.020
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:48:18.020 --> 01:48:37.620
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:48:37.620 --> 01:48:55.880
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:48:55.880 --> 01:49:12.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:49:12.100 --> 01:49:32.540
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:49:32.540 --> 01:49:47.840
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:49:47.840 --> 01:50:06.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:50:06.100 --> 01:50:23.200
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:50:23.200 --> 01:50:41.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:50:41.100 --> 01:51:00.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:51:00.100 --> 01:51:21.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:51:21.600 --> 01:51:34.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:51:34.100 --> 01:51:53.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:51:53.600 --> 01:52:10.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:52:10.100 --> 01:52:31.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:52:31.600 --> 01:52:51.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:52:51.100 --> 01:53:07.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:53:07.600 --> 01:53:22.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:53:22.100 --> 01:53:40.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:53:40.600 --> 01:53:55.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:53:55.100 --> 01:54:15.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:54:15.600 --> 01:54:37.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:54:37.100 --> 01:54:52.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:54:52.600 --> 01:55:08.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:55:08.100 --> 01:55:23.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:55:23.600 --> 01:55:41.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:55:41.100 --> 01:55:56.600
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:55:56.600 --> 01:56:15.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:56:15.100 --> 01:56:30.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:56:30.100 --> 01:56:50.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:56:50.100 --> 01:57:14.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:57:14.100 --> 01:57:33.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:57:33.100 --> 01:57:53.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:57:53.100 --> 01:58:12.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:58:12.100 --> 01:58:27.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:58:27.100 --> 01:58:46.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:58:46.100 --> 01:59:01.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:59:01.100 --> 01:59:16.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:59:16.100 --> 01:59:36.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:59:36.100 --> 01:59:54.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

01:59:54.100 --> 02:00:13.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

02:00:13.100 --> 02:00:32.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

02:00:32.100 --> 02:00:51.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

02:00:51.100 --> 02:01:06.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

02:01:06.100 --> 02:01:21.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

02:01:21.100 --> 02:01:43.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

02:01:43.100 --> 02:01:58.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

02:01:58.100 --> 02:02:17.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

02:02:17.100 --> 02:02:32.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

02:02:32.100 --> 02:02:47.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

02:02:47.100 --> 02:03:02.100
 I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.

02:03:02.100 --> 02:03:31.100
 At the time that we had this discussion, I made a presentation that commented is that what we need to do is address the aspect of voters as well as what is recommended and considered best practices according to the manual that talks about putting, and I never call it right,

02:03:31.100 --> 02:03:48.100
 but it was the 85th, 9th edition bottle city charter. When you look at the bottle city charter with the present number that we have on council, we are right in there with our seven members.

02:03:48.100 --> 02:04:17.100
 They also recommend that one has the mix of districts as well as at-largest. One of the reasons that it's stated among us as to the at-large issue is it costs more for them to run because they have to get their signs everywhere.

02:04:17.100 --> 02:04:44.100
 I could be totally wrong, but deciding as to what a, as council member Brewer-Isma says, democracy, constitution, charters should be considered based on whether or not Mr. X or Y has the funding.

02:04:44.100 --> 02:05:03.100
 If Mr. X, as an at-large, is a decent candidate, he's going to get the funding, because people are going to know it's decent. Okay, people may argue. People may argue with that, and maybe I'm being naive, okay?

02:05:03.100 --> 02:05:11.100
 But, you know, are we looking for equity? Are we looking for what is equitable?

02:05:11.100 --> 02:05:35.100
 If we go and change the number, and this is a stupid rationale for not doing it, they're going to have to reconfigure the dais because it's only set up right now for seven members plus the city manager plus the city attorney.

02:05:35.100 --> 02:06:04.100
 And then I'm just throwing in at them. Again, if you've got your districts and you have your at-large, I as a voter, you as a voter, you as a voter, have four people that you can interact with so that if, for a chance, your district has a dot of a council member, you could go to somebody else.

02:06:04.100 --> 02:06:10.100
 If it ain't broke, why are we trying to change it?

02:06:10.100 --> 02:06:27.100
 This has been in existence for a length of time. It seems to, and I know people will say, and I'm not one who says we can't change, and I'm not one who says, well, you know, we tried this 30 years ago and it didn't work.

02:06:27.100 --> 02:06:46.100
 Well, 30 years ago is not today. However, we are following the best practices as noted in the model city booklet that says what we are to look at.

02:06:46.100 --> 02:06:59.100
 The concern that a vote from a single district, you know, equity and equalness of what the strength is of my vote.

02:06:59.100 --> 02:07:16.100
 Unfortunately, I did break, but I think several members here got, because I had asked Christine to send off, when I showed what was the percentage of voters per district.

02:07:16.100 --> 02:07:37.100
 So you can make 103 districts if you want it, and I know that's exaggerating, but no matter how many districts you want, there are always going to be registered voters who don't show up to vote.

02:07:37.100 --> 02:07:59.100
 And if you're saying that I want my vote to count and I want to be sure to have strength, well, you've got to have everybody within that district also vote, even if you're down to the smaller ones.

02:07:59.100 --> 02:08:10.100
 And I know that what I am saying is, is really probably creating the need for a big bottle of toast.

02:08:10.100 --> 02:08:15.100
 But we went through all of this before.

02:08:15.100 --> 02:08:20.100
 And that's going back to that and I probably shouldn't bring it up.

02:08:20.100 --> 02:08:34.100
 Yeah, in the interest of time I'd like to move to the previous question.

02:08:34.100 --> 02:08:40.100
 Per Robert's rules, if I move the question and I get a second and a two-thirds majority, then we just vote and we're done talking about it.

02:08:40.100 --> 02:08:53.100
 We have to have eight. We have to have eight for anything to pass.

02:08:53.100 --> 02:09:11.100
 Okay, we'll have eight people. One seconds and we get eight and then we end discussion.

02:09:11.100 --> 02:09:17.100
 All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye.

02:09:17.100 --> 02:09:24.100
 Five, six, seven, eight. All right. I on this is a vote for recommending.

02:09:24.100 --> 02:09:26.100
 It's not two thirds.

02:09:26.100 --> 02:09:28.100
 It's not two thirds.

02:09:28.100 --> 02:09:31.100
 It's a vote of eight and that's what we've been doing.

02:09:31.100 --> 02:09:36.100
 That's what happened because Robert's rules said it's two thirds, but we say eight.

02:09:36.100 --> 02:09:40.100
 Eight is a majority. Eight is not two thirds.

02:09:40.100 --> 02:09:46.100
 You can't downgrade a Robert's rule. Like you can upgrade it. You can say a majority for this committee is going to be eight.

02:09:46.100 --> 02:09:48.100
 You can't downgrade a super majority.

02:09:48.100 --> 02:09:51.100
 As chair, I will call the question.

02:09:51.100 --> 02:09:54.100
 No, no, ma'am. Point of order.

02:09:54.100 --> 02:09:57.100
 Thank you. One, violating Robert's rules again.

02:09:57.100 --> 02:10:10.100
 Two, you're doing it to cut off debate and I haven't responded to half the things that the new folks, the people who were here to have this debate and hear their voices and respond to, have an interest to respond to this because the previous questions moved.

02:10:10.100 --> 02:10:17.100
 If we are annoyed that we're spending this much time on it, I'll remind you of my motion earlier was to take this up another time.

02:10:17.100 --> 02:10:19.100
 We're going to spend all of our time on it.

02:10:19.100 --> 02:10:21.100
 There are places I'd rather be also.

02:10:21.100 --> 02:10:30.100
 There are two different things I'm missing, including the one involved that we were talking about before the meeting involving the schools and our kids are all that kind of stuff.

02:10:30.100 --> 02:10:40.100
 This debate is not finished and it is an abuse of Robert's rules to call it finished based on the majority vote that we just had. It's a two thirds.

02:10:40.100 --> 02:11:02.100
 So we can follow the rules we don't want information. If there were eight folks that voted in favor of this point of porous motion, there were only four, presumably four that we're going to vote against with that.

02:11:02.100 --> 02:11:15.100
 Okay, so then we just work off that assumption so that we don't have to have this whole discussion.

02:11:15.100 --> 02:11:32.100
 Is anybody going to change your vote at this point?

02:11:32.100 --> 02:11:45.100
 Well, that's what we've been doing this entire time to change that now upsets everything. It is by the vote of eight. That is what is in the charging document.

02:11:45.100 --> 02:11:53.100
 And that's how we proceeded thus far for a majority. We have never addressed the question of what is two thirds, but the eight would be two thirds.

02:11:53.100 --> 02:12:07.100
 You said it's two thirds of what we have here tonight.

02:12:07.100 --> 02:12:24.100
 But when we voted before, we were told that it had to be the eight regardless of whether or not we have enough people here.

02:12:24.100 --> 02:12:41.100
 That's right. And we've done both of them. It's two thirds and eight.

02:12:41.100 --> 02:12:46.100
 That's procedurally correct. Okay. All right. Commissioner Davis, continuing discussion.

02:12:46.100 --> 02:12:57.100
 I promise I will be as brief as I possibly can. I just think some things were brought up tonight that were not brought up the last time that need to be addressed.

02:12:57.100 --> 02:13:04.100
 The first there was a valid point made about Hispanic conclusion in the conversation back in 1980.

02:13:04.100 --> 02:13:10.100
 And I absolutely don't want this to come across as, you know, well, there was a little bit or there was enough.

02:13:10.100 --> 02:13:16.100
 I do want to point out that Councilmember Ravella was one of the council members who passed this next.

02:13:16.100 --> 02:13:24.100
 How many years ago was that? 17? In 1980. More than 17? And it's 2024.

02:13:24.100 --> 02:13:27.100
 Commissioner Davis has the point. Apologies.

02:13:27.100 --> 02:13:36.100
 And again, I'm just giving that information. I'm not saying that information counts for something or represents a certain something.

02:13:36.100 --> 02:13:47.100
 The other thing I'll point out is we've been presented this idea that I think is disingenuous that if we create more city council districts, we're going to have more opportunity districts.

02:13:47.100 --> 02:13:53.100
 The point was made that the Denton population is at least 30% Hispanic. I think it's higher. I think it's more than 30%.

02:13:53.100 --> 02:13:58.100
 And we have to do that for any representation besides acting on the school board. That's it.

02:13:58.100 --> 02:14:12.100
 So my point is, in none of the opportunity districts that we've been presented by email, is there a Hispanic population that exceeds 30% or approaches the 32-34% that I think is probably more accurate.

02:14:12.100 --> 02:14:17.100
 There's not. I have a fourth. Correct. Apologies.

02:14:17.100 --> 02:14:23.100
 That's why those districts represent cracking and packing and not opportunity.

02:14:23.100 --> 02:14:33.100
 The other thing I'll point out is that we used to call it the chattering class. I think I like that better than political class or the echo chamber or whatever you want to call it.

02:14:33.100 --> 02:14:42.100
 There is a group of people, and I have counted myself among that group of people. We are all sitting here talking about the city charter. That all makes us democracy nerds.

02:14:42.100 --> 02:14:50.100
 That makes us people involved in our city government. That makes us people that are part of, whether we want to be there or not, the quote unquote political class, the chattering class.

02:14:50.100 --> 02:15:01.100
 There's a whole other group of people who doesn't want this. They're not asking for it. There is no groundswell for, you know, I wish I had fewer at-large members and more single-member district people.

02:15:01.100 --> 02:15:06.100
 Those folks aren't out there outside of a couple of folks on a Facebook forum.

02:15:06.100 --> 02:15:24.100
 The other thing I'll point out is that when you step outside, if you want to cherry pick examples, you can cherry pick examples from recent elections all you want. I'll give you a couple. You have Deb Armenter, who was elected at-large in a decisive runoff.

02:15:24.100 --> 02:15:37.100
 Elected at-large with very little money, with very little support from the quote unquote establishment, you know, the Chamber of Commerce types, or the developers, the realtors, or whatever you want to put in that group, was overwhelmingly elected.

02:15:37.100 --> 02:15:49.100
 And that's a person from, I think she'd self-identify as kind of the farther left. And then you have someone who is kind of closer to the center, Brandon Chase McGee, who was again elected twice now at-large.

02:15:49.100 --> 02:15:57.100
 And he'll be the first one to tell you he's a regular guy, he's a working guy, he doesn't have a lot of money to put in this himself, that he's got to raise the money from other places.

02:15:57.100 --> 02:16:09.100
 So this idea that the problem with at-larges is the inability of regular people to raise money and run, or the regular people to be involved in the process, that is false. That is disingenuous. And we know that it's false.

02:16:09.100 --> 02:16:26.100
 The other thing I'll point out is that the cost is not just changing the seats on the dais. It's not just how many computer screens do you have at city council. Our entire city code is written based on a charter that has seven council members, one of whom is the mayor, two of whom are at-large.

02:16:26.100 --> 02:16:49.100
 You have to rewrite big chunks of the code. It is not as simple as saying, well, we put it out on the ballot, the citizens vote, and then the next election we're going to elect more city council members. Just like we had the conversation about the Board of Ethics, and once that charter amendment passed, there were months and years and still ongoing debate about what that charter section means.

02:16:49.100 --> 02:17:03.100
 The city code of ordinances, especially Article 2, is going to have to be rewritten, and the city council is going to have to adopt code changes to that, and I guarantee you that's going to mean some outside council or some extra staff hours.

02:17:03.100 --> 02:17:20.100
 And then finally, I talked about the political classes and the chattering classes and the people who are not agitating for this. There are times that the political science types, myself included, should leave the math to the people who can do math.

02:17:20.100 --> 02:17:35.100
 Right now, we have four out of seven. The idea that having four out of seven council members I can vote for is somehow worse than two out of nine is absurd.

02:17:35.100 --> 02:17:46.100
 The idea that, well, you know, there's this abstract idea about the voting strength of a community. You can't quite pin that down. You really have to kind of go on these squishy things.

02:17:46.100 --> 02:18:07.100
 It's absurd to say that two out of nine is somehow greater voting strength in the city of Denton. When I'm electing the board of directors of my electric company, the people who set my water rates, the people who set my tax rates, the people who are tasked to fix my roads, to say that two out of nine of those people is somehow better than four out of seven.

02:18:07.100 --> 02:18:27.100
 The math just doesn't make sense. Take the politics out of it, let the city council do the policy setting, let the voters do the politics. The way we're set up as a city now complies with best practices, has worked, and I've not heard a single based in data example.

02:18:27.100 --> 02:18:38.100
 I've heard speculation about how it could be better. I've not heard one example of how it has not been the best way to run the city so far. Leave things how they are.

02:18:38.100 --> 02:19:05.100
 Responding to a few of your remarks, perhaps you and I are talking with different people. I do regularly hear frustration about the current way that the voting system is. I will overhear conversations at bars, where people are mostly around election season, not right now.

02:19:05.100 --> 02:19:33.100
 During the municipal election season, I do just hear people sporadically express frustration about the issues that you're discussing. With regard to the idea that these maps don't contain anything close to 32% Hispanic, I'm looking at 31.7% Hispanic right now, I call that pretty close.

02:19:33.100 --> 02:19:53.100
 And, I mean, you talked about about Fred and Chase McGee, and how he talked about how he had to raise money. I think that if you look at the newspaper coverage if you look at discussions, the fact that he had to raise money is a very controversial thing about him.

02:19:53.100 --> 02:20:12.100
 That is something that people very much do not like about his campaign. Just speaking frankly, that's a very common complaint. So I think that, if anything, that is an argument in favor of reducing the amount of money that needs to be spent on an election.

02:20:12.100 --> 02:20:15.100
 Commissioner Kirkpatrick.

02:20:15.100 --> 02:20:26.100
 I got a lot of notes here, this is very interesting. This is the second time we've gone about this and just a few things for, I just want to state that I find it interesting that we talked for about 45 minutes about not getting to this discussion.

02:20:26.100 --> 02:20:38.100
 So that time, and I understand and have appreciation for people who do have other things going on this evening. But at the same time, you know, for me personally when I stepped up for this was on these type of nights, this is my thing.

02:20:38.100 --> 02:20:45.100
 You know, now if there's something an emergency or anything outside of that, I get that. Getting back to some of the things I've heard.

02:20:45.100 --> 02:20:55.100
 I have not heard anything from the first discussion or tonight which shows me that at large districts is something that gives us anything better than single districts.

02:20:55.100 --> 02:21:15.100
 I would put it to just as everybody in their everyday lives when you're dealing with, and forgive me if I have an example or metaphor which may not fit perfectly. But if we all are in a system where we're all customers, residents to an extent, and we have sales representatives and I've got two sales representatives that are trying to look out for all of us or four.

02:21:15.100 --> 02:21:33.100
 You know the ability to have somebody that I can get in touch with more often has more accountability to me something that I want when it comes to historically what we've seen with Hispanic representation and correct me if I'm wrong in the over 100 years of city council we've had to Hispanic representatives to.

02:21:33.100 --> 02:21:40.100
 So that's not a good representation, especially when in the current we have over 30% of our population Hispanic and that number is going to grow.

02:21:40.100 --> 02:21:54.100
 I always see it as better, and I've got a number of points here, but as Brewer noted down earlier that you have better democracy when you have better access to your representative.

02:21:54.100 --> 02:22:08.100
 I have not seen or heard anything from anybody that's just proven that to me. I don't see how that is in any walk of life when you have less access to somebody and now I've heard the flip where you say well at the at large I can vote for three or four people.

02:22:08.100 --> 02:22:24.100
 But I think historically that's been proven out why we've gone to single districts, because when you get in a population and didn't is still majority, a certain demographic that they have a unwarranted control over who's going to be in the city council in those mayor seats.

02:22:24.100 --> 02:22:33.100
 So I want us to be moving to something that is more representative of what we have here gives more opportunities to people who are heavily a part of this community.

02:22:33.100 --> 02:22:43.100
 And I don't forgive me I don't want to take up too much time because there's been a lot of diatribes tonight but I just, you know, especially when we're talking about historically, I think historically.

02:22:43.100 --> 02:22:55.100
 If you go back and say that's not broke don't fix it well, we wouldn't have done civil rights, we wouldn't, we wouldn't have done suffrage, you know it wasn't broke, let's not fix it so I think that's highly problematic.

02:22:55.100 --> 02:23:08.100
 We use that that type of rationale. So, you know, and I think one other thing too when we talk about how there's so many things forgive me cherry picking and talking about dead our mentor well that's something to that was in a November election too.

02:23:08.100 --> 02:23:30.100
 And when you talk about and I've worked, hold on, I've worked in campaigns that were both single, and I've worked with them at large, and just the logistics of me going, I've got to go meet these three neighborhoods, or I'm going to go meet all 20 of these neighborhoods, I've got to get my signs out there, I'm going to get the voice out there I've got to talk to people all over this community.

02:23:30.100 --> 02:23:44.100
 And the idea that that how is not going to be more cost prohibitive is just completely illogical completely illogical I mean, even outside my experience, if you're serving for versus serving 20 you're going to be sporting more money trying to serve 20.

02:23:44.100 --> 02:24:02.100
 So for me, us narrowing this and having more opportunities for people and having more direct representation. I don't, I haven't seen or heard anything that pushes back against that and I'll you back to believe you were wanting to address this but Deborah mentor on her election

02:24:02.100 --> 02:24:05.100
 during a normal May election cycle.

02:24:05.100 --> 02:24:10.100
 I would add that she probably received a lot of free advertising from her opponent.

02:24:10.100 --> 02:24:16.100
 Forgive me, forgive me, June runoff, lowest turnout elections we have.

02:24:16.100 --> 02:24:18.100
 Commissioner Kirkpatrick.

02:24:18.100 --> 02:24:19.100
 Did you have more to say?

02:24:19.100 --> 02:24:23.100
 No, no, no, forgive me that was, that was the COVID cycle, correct?

02:24:23.100 --> 02:24:24.100
 That was 2018.

02:24:24.100 --> 02:24:26.100
 Interesting, okay.

02:24:26.100 --> 02:24:30.100
 Okay.

02:24:30.100 --> 02:24:31.100
 Commissioner Romsky.

02:24:31.100 --> 02:24:40.100
 Put my, okay.

02:24:40.100 --> 02:24:43.100
 The comment was made about Facebook.

02:24:43.100 --> 02:24:48.100
 I am going to read, if I may.

02:24:48.100 --> 02:24:53.100
 What was posted on Facebook on August 26.

02:24:53.100 --> 02:25:01.100
 And I found it interesting when I saw it.

02:25:01.100 --> 02:25:11.100
 So, full disclosure here, we presented the idea of doing away with at large districts a couple of years ago.

02:25:11.100 --> 02:25:22.100
 Mostly it was a tongue in cheek response to the recurring question about a certain neighborhoods influence.

02:25:22.100 --> 02:25:31.100
 But no, in actuality, once you get beyond being a devil's advocate, this is a bad idea.

02:25:31.100 --> 02:25:35.100
 There are way too many opportunities for abuse.

02:25:35.100 --> 02:25:45.100
 There would be way too many battles probably deserving about how these districts would be cut and who would cut them.

02:25:45.100 --> 02:25:55.100
 I mean, look at the current district map, and two years down the road, there are some glaring curiosities that we all missed.

02:25:55.100 --> 02:26:11.100
 But the fact is, we have historically under-deserved communities that have been bailed out a few times by having that second, third, fourth set of eyes that they at large provide.

02:26:11.100 --> 02:26:20.100
 We're looking at single districts. And sorry if you don't think that community, excuse me, we are looking at Southeast Dayton.

02:26:20.100 --> 02:26:27.100
 And sorry if you don't think that community could use the help of an occasional backup or two.

02:26:27.100 --> 02:26:35.100
 Then let's set a date, have a drink, and we'd like to introduce you to a thing called your privilege.

02:26:35.100 --> 02:26:41.100
 So don't kick that down the road, crush it and throw it in a bin.

02:26:41.100 --> 02:26:51.100
 You can also say that when they had bit it because they did an asterisk, that we pulled that idea out of our ass and you wouldn't be wrong.

02:26:51.100 --> 02:26:55.100
 Forgive me, but that's what's in here.

02:26:55.100 --> 02:27:05.100
 Is she just reading a random person's comments on Facebook that are sent in our committees? Is that what she's doing? I'm literally asking.

02:27:05.100 --> 02:27:10.100
 I believe that that was a post made within the Denton Matters Facebook group by Matt Croneta.

02:27:10.100 --> 02:27:13.100
 Right. Okay. And he is generally one...

02:27:13.100 --> 02:27:15.100
 Not on this committee.

02:27:15.100 --> 02:27:17.100
 No, he's not on this committee.

02:27:17.100 --> 02:27:33.100
 Okay. You keep addressing as part of this underserved and you, Commissioner Kirkpatrick, were referencing the Spanish population.

02:27:33.100 --> 02:27:51.100
 When the districting was done, it had nothing to do mainly with worrying about if you had minority Hispanic, black, and Native Americans.

02:27:51.100 --> 02:28:09.100
 Okay. It was done as picking on a neighborhood that was typically and continues to use their constitutional right and vote.

02:28:09.100 --> 02:28:28.100
 In district three members were very upset that a certain neighborhood was part of them because according to them, we had nothing to do with the city of Denton.

02:28:28.100 --> 02:28:32.100
 We should not have been in Denton.

02:28:32.100 --> 02:28:41.100
 They would have liked to de-annex us from Denton. And yes, I'm getting a little vocal on it.

02:28:41.100 --> 02:28:52.100
 But there is a history here that I think several members of this council are not aware of when it took place.

02:28:52.100 --> 02:29:05.100
 And those of us who live in the neighborhood that got readjusted, we volunteer at schools.

02:29:05.100 --> 02:29:22.100
 We have put together a scholarship for the music department at UNT because if an out-of-state student gets a $1,000 scholarship, they can pay regular in-state tuition.

02:29:22.100 --> 02:29:29.100
 We volunteer at Salvation Army.

02:29:29.100 --> 02:29:37.100
 We volunteer at what was the king and that which has changed.

02:29:37.100 --> 02:29:45.100
 What I'm getting to is we do an awful lot to support the city of Denton.

02:29:45.100 --> 02:29:51.100
 And we pay our taxes, which includes a goodly amount that goes to the schools.

02:29:51.100 --> 02:29:56.100
 And you know what? We don't have a member that uses the schools.

02:29:56.100 --> 02:30:00.100
 So that is gravy to the city of Denton.

02:30:00.100 --> 02:30:13.100
 The only thing we get out of the city of Denton is our water, which of course we pay for just like anybody else, our trash, which we pay for just like anybody else.

02:30:13.100 --> 02:30:24.100
 We do not get our city's streets or our community streets swept or anything because we do that within our HOA.

02:30:24.100 --> 02:30:38.100
 And we don't even get regular police visits or routes or survey, unless we call them for something like a severe accident.

02:30:38.100 --> 02:30:43.100
 Other than that, we have the constable.

02:30:43.100 --> 02:30:49.100
 I know you're looking at me, Mr. Kirkpatrick, with wondering, "Hey, what?"

02:30:49.100 --> 02:30:55.100
 But that's what life is at this community.

02:30:55.100 --> 02:31:03.100
 The people in District 3 said we should be de-annexed from.

02:31:03.100 --> 02:31:11.100
 And they were also because of, "Oh, we have amenities. We pay for those amenities."

02:31:11.100 --> 02:31:22.100
 Just like those where the students have the amenities to use the basketball courts, their swimming pool, their running track, and their libraries.

02:31:22.100 --> 02:31:36.100
 So we are such that we give to the city of Denton a lot more than comes up.

02:31:36.100 --> 02:31:54.100
 So we look at this, and you want to take away the opportunity for us to be able to vote for more than one single district.

02:31:54.100 --> 02:32:01.100
 The other thing is, going to a number of eight, how are you going to ever have...

02:32:01.100 --> 02:32:06.100
 Commissioner Remski, I think I'm going to have to cut you off here.

02:32:06.100 --> 02:32:09.100
 Commissioner Johnson.

02:32:09.100 --> 02:32:18.100
 You know, it's funny how people that live on the west side of town talk about Southeast Denton, and they've never been there.

02:32:18.100 --> 02:32:27.100
 When you look at Southeast Denton now, the history of Southeast Denton, so you'll know, was birthed out of Quaker Town.

02:32:27.100 --> 02:32:32.100
 You know Quaker Town was moved to Southeast Denton, right?

02:32:32.100 --> 02:32:41.100
 Now there's going to be another Quaker Town movement with gentrification, but still there's people there.

02:32:41.100 --> 02:32:43.100
 There's still black people there.

02:32:43.100 --> 02:32:46.100
 Where's their voice going to be heard at?

02:32:46.100 --> 02:32:53.100
 We need some type of representation or maybe where we can have a voice, someone like that.

02:32:53.100 --> 02:32:59.100
 In that community that's being just spread it all over.

02:32:59.100 --> 02:33:06.100
 So when I hear somebody from Robertson Ranch tell me about Southeast Denton, kind of take a fit.

02:33:06.100 --> 02:33:11.100
 And let's go back to...

02:33:11.100 --> 02:33:15.100
 If it's not broke, why fix it?

02:33:15.100 --> 02:33:22.100
 I'm glad they didn't have that mindset. My people never would have been free.

02:33:22.100 --> 02:33:25.100
 You, Montal.

02:33:25.100 --> 02:33:28.100
 May I just kind of... Mr. Johnson?

02:33:28.100 --> 02:33:30.100
 Very, very briefly.

02:33:30.100 --> 02:33:39.100
 Mr. Johnson, I have nothing against Southeast Denton, and the only reason that came up was when I was reading verbatim.

02:33:39.100 --> 02:33:46.100
 And I know that you have the problem, and the problem exists in regard to Quaker Town and that.

02:33:46.100 --> 02:33:54.100
 And I have interacted on a few of those questions with a couple of council members.

02:33:54.100 --> 02:33:57.100
 Thank you, Commissioner Rice. Commissioner Brewer-Eatsma?

02:33:57.100 --> 02:34:04.100
 Just building off of what Nate was talking about and what Julie was referring to earlier with the model charter, city charter.

02:34:04.100 --> 02:34:11.100
 And the model city charter saying that either a mix of districts or all single member districts are the best plans.

02:34:11.100 --> 02:34:16.100
 What they didn't say is that all at-large districts is a good idea.

02:34:16.100 --> 02:34:22.100
 And there's a reason for that, because generally at-large districts are not the best way to do representation.

02:34:22.100 --> 02:34:30.100
 So they realized that if we have only at-large, we're definitely violating the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, so we can't have all at-large.

02:34:30.100 --> 02:34:34.100
 So let's work this mix. That doesn't mean that the at-large is a good idea.

02:34:34.100 --> 02:34:39.100
 It means that if we have a mix, we won't be violating the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act.

02:34:39.100 --> 02:34:43.100
 The single member districts...

02:34:43.100 --> 02:34:51.100
 Excuse me, I know, but we've thrown Robert's rules out the door just about the first five minutes.

02:34:51.100 --> 02:34:54.100
 Commissioner Brewer-Eatsma has the floor.

02:34:54.100 --> 02:34:57.100
 So that was just the point I was trying to make.

02:34:57.100 --> 02:35:08.100
 But I don't think because it says a mix of districts is a good way of doing business in the model, means that that's the best way of doing business.

02:35:08.100 --> 02:35:14.100
 They say it's an acceptable way that isn't going to violate the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, right?

02:35:14.100 --> 02:35:16.100
 That it is acceptable and you can do it this way.

02:35:16.100 --> 02:35:22.100
 I think what we have been charged with discussing here tonight is, is there a better way to do it?

02:35:22.100 --> 02:35:33.100
 And I believe there's a better way to do it that serves all of the members of our community more effectively by increasing the number of members on our council and decreasing the number of people they represent.

02:35:33.100 --> 02:35:39.100
 I just want to make it really clear because we're talking about Matt Granada who made this post.

02:35:39.100 --> 02:35:41.100
 We're talking about how he's referring to ropes and ranch.

02:35:41.100 --> 02:35:44.100
 Matt Granada does not speak for this committee.

02:35:44.100 --> 02:35:48.100
 He does not speak for those who are in favor or against any of these measures.

02:35:48.100 --> 02:35:50.100
 He definitely doesn't speak for Southeast Denton.

02:35:50.100 --> 02:35:57.100
 And I would also say that the comments he's referring to about ropes and ranch are deeply troubling.

02:35:57.100 --> 02:36:04.100
 Everybody in Denton deserves strong representation, whether you live in ropes and ranch, whether you live in Southeast Denton.

02:36:04.100 --> 02:36:13.100
 And it's also important to remember, too, that no matter how much you contribute in tax revenue, you don't necessarily get more of a voice on council.

02:36:13.100 --> 02:36:19.100
 You can show up and vote more, but every community in this city deserves representation.

02:36:19.100 --> 02:36:25.100
 And I want to make it clear, too, we're not throwing the at-large all the way out.

02:36:25.100 --> 02:36:28.100
 We still have a mayor that we get to vote for.

02:36:28.100 --> 02:36:30.100
 We still get two people.

02:36:30.100 --> 02:36:38.100
 And as much as some people would ridicule this as ridiculous or absurd, I believe, and I feel like I have sufficiently explained,

02:36:38.100 --> 02:36:47.100
 and I think a lot of other people have explained, too, that you get more bang for your buck when you have a smaller district

02:36:47.100 --> 02:36:53.100
 and a person who is more directly accountable to you because your vote holds more weight with that one person.

02:36:53.100 --> 02:36:55.100
 I still maintain that that's the case.

02:36:55.100 --> 02:37:06.100
 I know four people sounds really sexy, but I can tell you right now, not all the four people would want to meet with me or want to talk to me.

02:37:06.100 --> 02:37:15.100
 So it's really immaterial whether or not I have four if I, in my vote, don't have power to control their actions

02:37:15.100 --> 02:37:20.100
 or that their actions don't have a consequence when they come up for reelection in two years.

02:37:20.100 --> 02:37:26.100
 So I don't think there's really much else to say. I'd really like if we could move forward with the vote.

02:37:26.100 --> 02:37:33.100
 I'll just add this comment. If I'm going to try to have a conversation with someone,

02:37:33.100 --> 02:37:42.100
 I think my odds of having a conversation with someone about something is better if I have four opportunities than it is if I can only talk to two people about that.

02:37:42.100 --> 02:37:44.100
 But do they have to listen to you?

02:37:44.100 --> 02:37:50.100
 I'm going to give the floor to Commissioner Davis.

02:37:50.100 --> 02:37:54.100
 I'll be very brief and just direct response to what Peter said.

02:37:54.100 --> 02:38:04.100
 The math of four of seven versus two of nine is not just about how many people does this one person represent

02:38:04.100 --> 02:38:09.100
 and how many people does this one person have to worry about or how big a geographical district do they have to worry about.

02:38:09.100 --> 02:38:16.100
 It has to do with the majority of the council that my voting strength isn't just four random people.

02:38:16.100 --> 02:38:18.100
 It's four out of seven. It's a majority.

02:38:18.100 --> 02:38:28.100
 It's a group of four people that have to compete every two years for my vote, who have to answer to me and my neighbors for my vote and their vote every two years.

02:38:28.100 --> 02:38:32.100
 And those four people have combined voting strength that is the majority.

02:38:32.100 --> 02:38:40.100
 Two out of nine isn't a bad idea just because it's fewer votes that I get to cast on the city council.

02:38:40.100 --> 02:38:49.100
 It's because I have less of an opportunity to influence the majority decision of the city council.

02:38:49.100 --> 02:38:55.100
 There has been speculation about the kinds of folks who might run or the kind of opportunity that might come up.

02:38:55.100 --> 02:38:58.100
 I'm just going to point out again, that's not what we're talking about.

02:38:58.100 --> 02:39:02.100
 We're talking about just across the board, all other things being equal.

02:39:02.100 --> 02:39:13.100
 However, city council eventually decides or their lawyers decide to draw the districts the best way to represent the city, the best way to constitute the city council.

02:39:13.100 --> 02:39:18.100
 And my vote on a majority of council is much stronger.

02:39:18.100 --> 02:39:31.100
 I just can't see any historical data that tells me that people in Denton who want to vote don't vote, that people who on city council, because people don't traditionally show up for city council stuff.

02:39:31.100 --> 02:39:37.100
 The people who vote on city council are the people who know the most about city issues and care the most.

02:39:37.100 --> 02:39:44.100
 Even when we were in a presidential year, even when it was the COVID year, the undercount on city offices was ridiculous.

02:39:44.100 --> 02:39:50.100
 Even people who are shown up to vote were not voting on their city council members and mayor and stuff.

02:39:50.100 --> 02:39:59.100
 The idea that having fewer districts, fewer constituents per district is going to increase turnout.

02:39:59.100 --> 02:40:02.100
 There is no historical empirical data for that.

02:40:02.100 --> 02:40:06.100
 The data doesn't exist because this is not a data driven idea.

02:40:06.100 --> 02:40:09.100
 This is a politically driven idea.

02:40:09.100 --> 02:40:16.100
 The idea here is not, with all respect to my fellow committee members, the idea here is not to make better government for Denton.

02:40:16.100 --> 02:40:20.100
 The idea here is have government of a certain type for Denton.

02:40:20.100 --> 02:40:25.100
 The frustration about one part of town is politically driven.

02:40:25.100 --> 02:40:33.100
 The idea that one part of town or even the people who move into the Hunter Cole area like we talked about the first time around, the first first time around.

02:40:33.100 --> 02:40:43.100
 That conversation was all about how do we find a way to dilute those new folks' voice because they're going to overcrowd district four and they're going to take it over.

02:40:43.100 --> 02:40:45.100
 They're going to overcrowd district three and they're going to take it over.

02:40:45.100 --> 02:40:47.100
 We need more districts to cover them.

02:40:47.100 --> 02:41:02.100
 From the beginning, this has been driven by, I have to tell you all, my friends on the other side, I have to tell you all, an incredibly short-sighted drive from the political chattering class to redesign the way the city votes.

02:41:02.100 --> 02:41:13.100
 And I'm telling you, look back the 80s to the 90s to the 2000s to now and look to the demographics in 2030 and 2040, the shoe always ends up on the other foot.

02:41:13.100 --> 02:41:15.100
 Incredibly short-sighted.

02:41:15.100 --> 02:41:16.100
 We're not.

02:41:16.100 --> 02:41:19.100
 It's not that if it's don't, if it's broke, don't fix it.

02:41:19.100 --> 02:41:22.100
 If it's working, don't fix it.

02:41:22.100 --> 02:41:25.100
 Nobody is saying if it's don't, if it's not broke, don't fix it.

02:41:25.100 --> 02:41:27.100
 We're saying it is working.

02:41:27.100 --> 02:41:29.100
 There's not a reason to fix it.

02:41:29.100 --> 02:41:31.100
 I think there's a big difference.

02:41:31.100 --> 02:41:34.100
 Commissioner Manjiguera and then I think this will be our last.

02:41:34.100 --> 02:41:37.100
 Yeah, just two brief points.

02:41:37.100 --> 02:41:42.100
 I've never made, and I don't think anyone here is making the argument that creating these districts will increase turnout.

02:41:42.100 --> 02:41:43.100
 That's not my argument.

02:41:43.100 --> 02:41:45.100
 I'm not maintaining that there's doubt on that.

02:41:45.100 --> 02:41:49.100
 I'm saying that it's going to increase the voting strength of people in single-member districts.

02:41:49.100 --> 02:41:51.100
 Could it maybe increase turnout?

02:41:51.100 --> 02:41:52.100
 Perhaps.

02:41:52.100 --> 02:41:56.100
 That's not the argument I'm making, though, and I'm not supporting any vacuous data to that effect.

02:41:56.100 --> 02:42:00.100
 And once again, and I'll be straight, I brought up the 100 coal development.

02:42:00.100 --> 02:42:02.100
 I think it's exciting that they're coming to Denton.

02:42:02.100 --> 02:42:05.100
 And then that's, and I'm in the Eagle Creek development.

02:42:05.100 --> 02:42:07.100
 That was a new development that came to Denton.

02:42:07.100 --> 02:42:14.100
 And I think it's important that communities like that, that we're accounting for that in our growth and making sure that we're creating new districts.

02:42:14.100 --> 02:42:21.100
 Perhaps in a new configuration, Robeson Ranch might have their very own single-member district when it comes down to it.

02:42:21.100 --> 02:42:26.100
 That's exactly the point.

02:42:26.100 --> 02:42:31.100
 And once again, I'll never disparage any single community.

02:42:31.100 --> 02:42:34.100
 I believe Robeson Ranch deserves representation.

02:42:34.100 --> 02:42:37.100
 I appreciate everything they do for this community.

02:42:37.100 --> 02:42:40.100
 I'm thinking about all the communities, though, in this proposal.

02:42:40.100 --> 02:42:43.100
 And I think everybody here has made some really, really great points tonight.

02:42:43.100 --> 02:42:47.100
 And I know we're talking about best practices, but I think this is about what's right for Denton.

02:42:47.100 --> 02:42:58.100
 I think we have a really great opportunity to forge a new path that preserves our communities of interest, that preserves the character of Denton, and accounts for the growth that we're going to see over the next couple of decades.

02:42:58.100 --> 02:43:07.100
 And that even though we made a great stride 50 years ago by implementing this, I think it's time we take a next step.

02:43:07.100 --> 02:43:09.100
 So I think it's time to vote.

02:43:09.100 --> 02:43:10.100
 All right.

02:43:10.100 --> 02:43:12.100
 You have 30 seconds.

02:43:12.100 --> 02:43:13.100
 You have 30 seconds.

02:43:13.100 --> 02:43:14.100
 All right.

02:43:14.100 --> 02:43:18.100
 Number one, I don't know that Robeson Ranch wants us over.

02:43:18.100 --> 02:43:25.100
 Number two, in regard to your wanting eight, I'm going to suggest that if we do anything, we go to nine.

02:43:25.100 --> 02:43:31.100
 And we do it so that we then have four at large.

02:43:31.100 --> 02:43:36.100
 And we up the number of individual districts to five.

02:43:36.100 --> 02:43:38.100
 Would that meet your needs?

02:43:38.100 --> 02:43:42.100
 Would that take it out of the political aspects?

02:43:42.100 --> 02:43:50.100
 Would that meet the requirements of the concerns that we don't have Spanish at that?

02:43:50.100 --> 02:43:59.100
 But rather than going to eight and having them being all at large, or all as individual districts, we keep the mix.

02:43:59.100 --> 02:44:11.100
 And we add one at large, and we add one individual district because we're doing both of these things together of, "Do we change the mix?"

02:44:11.100 --> 02:44:13.100
 Or how many?

02:44:13.100 --> 02:44:15.100
 I think we need to vote on the motion on the floor.

02:44:15.100 --> 02:44:16.100
 But I just want to make it really clear.

02:44:16.100 --> 02:44:18.100
 I resent the idea that this is political.

02:44:18.100 --> 02:44:30.100
 I know we're talking about politics, and we're talking about all these other things, but there's been a lot of allusions to some kind of nefarious political plot going on.

02:44:30.100 --> 02:44:37.100
 This is about making sure that we have the best possible democracy, small d democracy, for the city of Denton.

02:44:37.100 --> 02:44:40.100
 I think we've all laid out great nonpartisan reasons.

02:44:40.100 --> 02:44:44.100
 I know we've offered anecdotal examples of recent political history.

02:44:44.100 --> 02:44:45.100
 I think that's helpful.

02:44:45.100 --> 02:44:49.100
 But I think a lot of it's not instructive about what we need to do moving forward.

02:44:49.100 --> 02:44:51.100
 I think they're great counterpoints.

02:44:51.100 --> 02:44:57.100
 But I think as a matter of course, we need to think, like, all of that aside, what is the objective best goal?

02:44:57.100 --> 02:45:01.100
 I don't think that adding a single and another at large is a solution.

02:45:01.100 --> 02:45:06.100
 I think we need to vote on the eight-single member and mayor.

02:45:06.100 --> 02:45:08.100
 Thank you, Commissioner Madriguera.

02:45:08.100 --> 02:45:15.100
 Not to prolong the meeting, but I really appreciate that Peter said that this isn't about a political perspective.

02:45:15.100 --> 02:45:17.100
 It is about a philosophical perspective.

02:45:17.100 --> 02:45:19.100
 There is philosophy behind this.

02:45:19.100 --> 02:45:24.100
 It is not about counting votes and doing some sort of Machiavellian practice here.

02:45:24.100 --> 02:45:31.100
 That this really is philosophically where I stand on creating smaller districts so people have better representation.

02:45:31.100 --> 02:45:36.100
 I think we've got to vote on it twice, make sure it goes.

02:45:36.100 --> 02:45:38.100
 With that, let's vote.

02:45:38.100 --> 02:45:40.100
 All those in favor?

02:45:40.100 --> 02:45:42.100
 Let me clarify, just real quick.

02:45:42.100 --> 02:45:44.100
 What are we?

02:45:44.100 --> 02:45:46.100
 We've talked a lot.

02:45:46.100 --> 02:45:48.100
 Can we restate the motion?

02:45:48.100 --> 02:45:57.100
 Because I understand the motion was just to combine, the motion was to combine the two topics.

02:45:57.100 --> 02:45:59.100
 That was the motion.

02:45:59.100 --> 02:46:01.100
 No, when I introduced the topic...

02:46:01.100 --> 02:46:03.100
 They said that was it.

02:46:03.100 --> 02:46:08.100
 When I introduced the topics, I called them together.

02:46:08.100 --> 02:46:10.100
 I called the two topics together.

02:46:10.100 --> 02:46:14.100
 We had a few motions about whether or not I could call the topics.

02:46:14.100 --> 02:46:17.100
 Those succeeded, the topics were called together.

02:46:17.100 --> 02:46:24.100
 And Commissioner Madriguera introduced a motion for eight at-large districts.

02:46:24.100 --> 02:46:25.100
 So adding two districts.

02:46:25.100 --> 02:46:27.100
 Eight single member districts.

02:46:27.100 --> 02:46:46.100
 Eight single member districts and the mayor, so adding two districts to the total count and converting the two at-large positions that are not the mayor to being district seats as well for a total council balance of eight district seats and one mayoral seat that would be an at-large position.

02:46:46.100 --> 02:46:51.100
 All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye.

02:46:51.100 --> 02:46:57.100
 One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

02:46:57.100 --> 02:47:00.100
 All those opposed, please raise your right hand and say nay.

02:47:00.100 --> 02:47:01.100
 Nay.

02:47:01.100 --> 02:47:03.100
 One, two, three, four.

02:47:03.100 --> 02:47:04.100
 The ayes have it.

02:47:04.100 --> 02:47:08.100
 We will now move on to concluding items.

02:47:08.100 --> 02:47:10.100
 Does anyone have any concluding items?

02:47:10.100 --> 02:47:12.100
 Commissioner Davis.

02:47:12.100 --> 02:47:17.100
 I'd just like to make my regular PSA announcement about the Texas Open Meetings Act.

02:47:17.100 --> 02:47:21.100
 The walking quorums, this is properly a part of concluding items.

02:47:21.100 --> 02:47:22.100
 It's a statement of fact.

02:47:22.100 --> 02:47:27.100
 It's a properly part and then I'll be quiet.

02:47:27.100 --> 02:47:30.100
 Those of y'all who had your conversations offline.

02:47:30.100 --> 02:47:34.100
 Those of y'all who had your walking quorums with the folks who weren't here last time.

02:47:34.100 --> 02:47:41.100
 Those of y'all who called your friends and neighbors to make sure that this vote turned out the second time better than it did the first time.

02:47:41.100 --> 02:47:42.100
 Denton is watching.

02:47:42.100 --> 02:47:44.100
 The city council has to vote on this, is watching.

02:47:44.100 --> 02:47:46.100
 God forbid it reaches the ballot.

02:47:46.100 --> 02:47:48.100
 The voters are watching too.

02:47:48.100 --> 02:47:49.100
 Everyone knows.

02:47:49.100 --> 02:47:53.100
 Everybody's watching you.

02:47:53.100 --> 02:48:01.100
 Any other concluding items?

02:48:01.100 --> 02:48:03.100
 Commissioner Kirkpatrick.

02:48:03.100 --> 02:48:05.100
 Commissioner Davis, that's interesting.

02:48:05.100 --> 02:48:14.100
 You brought that up kind of on numerous occasions and forgive me, but that sounds a little almost threatening to the rest of the members.

02:48:14.100 --> 02:48:19.100
 I would leave it at that, sir, and bid you a good evening.

02:48:19.100 --> 02:48:21.100
 If you heard it threaten that, you're listening for a while.

02:48:21.100 --> 02:48:24.100
 That's weird to say.

02:48:24.100 --> 02:48:25.100
 Commissioner Maguiguera.

02:48:25.100 --> 02:48:34.100
 I would also say it's offensive to one of our commissioners who did change their mind in the intervening period and that people are allowed to make persuasive arguments.

02:48:34.100 --> 02:48:35.100
 They're allowed to change their mind.

02:48:35.100 --> 02:48:40.100
 So I'll say that too.

02:48:40.100 --> 02:48:42.100
 Commissioner Ransky.

02:48:42.100 --> 02:48:46.100
 I apologize for talking a little bit louder.

02:48:46.100 --> 02:48:49.100
 I didn't put my hearing piece in today.

02:48:49.100 --> 02:48:53.100
 So I end up bad.

02:48:53.100 --> 02:49:06.100
 I also feel a little bit of umbrage because either the way I phrase things or what I read.

02:49:06.100 --> 02:49:16.100
 Yes, Commissioner Maguiguera, Matt Granita is not part of this group or that.

02:49:16.100 --> 02:49:30.100
 However, by reading something like that, is that not the same as the fact that somebody says, well, you know, my constituent came to me and said I wanted to vote this way.

02:49:30.100 --> 02:49:36.100
 And the constituent said no, vote this way. I'm just using the resource.

02:49:36.100 --> 02:49:40.100
 And also, again, Mr. Johnson, I apologize.

02:49:40.100 --> 02:49:44.100
 I was not taking a front or trying to that.

02:49:44.100 --> 02:49:51.100
 You know, I was just reading what he said and that was where he put it in.

02:49:51.100 --> 02:49:54.100
 So I have nothing against that.

02:49:54.100 --> 02:50:00.100
 I know I'm one of the new, well I'm not the newest PIP person sitting here for a change.

02:50:00.100 --> 02:50:03.100
 But, you know, I've still got a lot to learn.

02:50:03.100 --> 02:50:08.100
 I've hit my 10-year anniversary, but I've got a lot more to learn than I did.

02:50:08.100 --> 02:50:10.100
 All right. Thank you, Commissioner Ransky.

02:50:10.100 --> 02:50:18.100
 With no other concluding items, I will call this meeting to a close at 822 p.m.

02:50:18.100 --> 02:50:23.100
 God bless. You all have a good night.