In seeing that we have a quorum, I will now call to order the regular meeting of the Charter
Review Committee at 5.32 p.m. As a reminder to everyone here and all speakers, we are
using the overhead mics, so please speak up when you talk. We will show on to our items
for consideration. Item A, number CRC 24-030, receive comments from members of the public,
who wish to speak, must be present at the meeting and submit a speaker card to staff.
The staff liaison prior to the item being called. Up to five speakers may speak for
two minutes each on any items on the agenda. It does not look like we have any speakers
who wish to speak. We will move on to item B, number CRC 24-031, consider approval of
the minutes of October 3, 2024 to our review committee meeting. Is there a motion to approve
minutes? Motion by Commissioner Molina-Ford. Do I have a second? Commissioner Trevino, I
seconded. All those in favor of approving the minutes, please raise your right hand and
say aye. And as a reminder, please keep your hands up long enough for staff to note. That's
unanimous. Thank you, everyone. That brings us to item C, number CRC 24-033, my apologies,
CRC 24-033, receive a report, hold a discussion, and give staff direction on adding language
to the charter regarding the increase in rates or fees on citizens or businesses.
Okay, thank you. So the next three items that we have that were brought to us from Weaver,
unfortunately he's not here to hear them. And if there had been more wiggle room in
the schedule, I would have made room for him to do that. But I'll go through the slides
for each of these items. As you have questions, I did ask for backup on this because I am
not a city finance guru. So at the back of the room we have our finance A team. Matt
is our budget manager, Viz is our deputy director of finance, and Terrence is our new grants
administrator. So we're prepared to get into the weeds with you on it if you so choose.
So with that, this charge brought to you by the committee yourselves, consider adding
language regarding the increase in rates or fees on citizens or businesses. The proposed
language that was submitted was, "Any increase in rates or fees on citizens or businesses
to retire a debt or obligation of the city shall be discontinued when debt or obligation
is paid in full. When and if any increase in rate or fee to retire a debt will have
estimated end date recorded on any invoice or statement where rate increase or fee is
charged. 100% of the increase in rates or fees referenced above shall be used to pay
off the reference debt." So some kind of basics on municipal debt. The city utilizes long-term
debt to finance non-operating expenses, which can include equipment, facilities, and acquisition
of land. And all debt issued by the city must be approved by the Texas attorney general's
office prior to the final sale of the debt. There are two types of long-term debt that
the city uses, general obligation debt, which includes COs and GOs. GOs are what you typically
call a bond. They are approved by the voters and have the financial maturity of 20 years
or less. And then COs, certificates of obligation, do not require voter approval. And some examples
of the pledge revenue that backs those are electric, water, wastewater, and they strive
to have a final maturity of 30 years or less. And then there's also revenue bond debt, which
is secured by pledge, typically of the city's utility system. And those strive to have a
final maturity of 30 years or less as well. Some of the relevant statutes, state statutes
that apply to municipal debt. The Texas Constitution has a section that covers truth and taxation.
Like the federal government, cities are not able to, cities have to have debt be funded.
They can't have unfunded debt. And then additionally, the Texas Tax Code requires that municipalities
collect a portion of CO debt paid for by taxes each year, and the county is required to verify
that amount. So there's some accountability within the city and the county there as well.
Texas Government Code has a couple of sections. One requires reporting for debt obligations.
Those posts have to be described in newspaper at least 30 days before, and they have to
describe the purpose, amount, method of repayment, and what the city council vote on those items
was. And then the other one defines what COs can be issued for, which is typically Public
Works related items, construction, buildings, plans, rights of way. And then just some considerations
on this item. COs are most commonly used for long-term, large-scale projects, which have
a debt service span of up to 30 years. So when we're looking at potentially having a
debt issued and a rate increased, that debt will not be paid off for 30 years. The cost
of that debt looks differently in 30 years, right? And our finance team can speak more
to that more eloquently than I can. State laws and existing city policies require transparency
and truth in taxation and promote accountability to taxpayers. And the city's website provides
information regarding the city's budget and budget process, including debt obligations.
And I can show y'all. So this is on the city website, and it has all sorts of information
and links about our historical bond projects, all of the different debt reports that were
required to have by state law, as well as some tables on what our debt looks like. So
with that, I will take any questions you have and bring up our finance.
Commissioner Davis. So I really don't want to drag us too far in the weeds of city finance,
but I think it'd be helpful for us to know, because the language is taxes and rates. So
could we get a little bit of information about the difference between the M&O tax rate and
the debt service tax rate, that our tax rate has different components to it, that it's
not just every year you have a set amount. Anyway, some information on that. And then
also, I think in fact, it's mentioned, if you can scroll up just a little bit on this,
the difference between debt that we are paying off as taxpayers, and debt that we're paying
off as ratepayers to the utilities, the utility debt, and how those are a little different
from each other and might be impacted differently by something like this.
One of you guys want to come up and join us? I mean, you came all this way.
Well, good evening, Matt Hamilton, budget manager for the city. I appreciate the question.
It's a great question. So there's two components to the property tax rate. One component of
it is called the M&O, the maintenance and operation rate. And the other component is
called the INS or debt rate, which stands for interest in sinking fund. So the M&O side
of the rate funds daily operations. This is personnel, this is materials and supplies.
The other piece of the rate, that INS rate, funds what's called the debt service. And
debt service is the payment that we make for the debt that we have financed. So the INS
rate is determined by all the outstanding debt, both GOs and COs, that the city has
issued in the prior fiscal year, because in that next fiscal year is when that debt service
starts. So the debt service side of the rates cannot be used for any kind of operational
expense and vice versa. So there's really two components to that total tax rate that
you see on your property tax bill. Now, what that rate does not pay for are revenue bonds
and revenue bonds are issued by the utility to fund utility projects. And revenue bonds
are secured by that specific revenue stream of the utility. Now, what you'll see is that
in CO issuance, the utilities are included. What happens internally within the city is
that the utilities make a transfer to pay that debt service. So it is the utilities
who are paying all the debt service associated with their utility projects that is not calculated
into that INS. So when we do the calculation with the county for the INS portion of the
tax rate, the debt portion of the tax rate, we exclude everything that is determined to
be self-supporting, which is the utility component of that. So all that is part of the property
tax bill calculation is only the general government CEOs and NGOs. There's not a utility component
associated with it. Yeah. So I just want to dive straight into the charge of this and
find out how it affects our budgeting process. So I have two questions. One, when we retire
these debts or obligations, does it ever really happen that we would leave that rate there
for an obligation that no longer exists? And two, what would be the substantive effect
on our budgeting process of implementing something like this? Yep. So that's a great question.
And just to back up a little bit, when we budget, let's just say utility, but it could
be any funder department, there's really two sides to it. One is the revenue side and one
is the expenditure side. And what we determine based on all the components, all the lines
in those two groups is what revenue would be required to meet our obligations and that
level of service. So what that means is that when a debt matures, and as you saw on the
slide, we usually issue debt for 10 to 20 years. So if a debt matured, let's say this
coming fiscal year in 2025, it was probably issued in 2005 or 2015, let's say. So all
else being equal, that rate would go lower because assuming no change in the revenue
and no change in any other expenditures. In other words, that's already happening. Like
it's going down if the obligations met. It would, yes. And the reason is because the
utilities do not budget it to make a profit and neither does the city. And so we budget
to have revenues equal expenditures and that's it. So there's a lot of pieces in there that
move. So a debt could mature and maybe revenues are higher outside of rate revenue. Maybe
it's interest income, for example, that adds a little bit more revenue. So in addition
to the debt maturing, you also have this other increase in revenue as well that helps rates.
Conversely, if there was a new expenditure need, maybe a change in regulation, something
that was different from the prior year, that debt could mature, but there would be a need
either operationally or the need to issue debt for a new project or infrastructure that's
needed. So as an example, it might be the case that Dent Municipal Electric has some
CEO roll off their balance sheet, they paid it off. But then the state comes and says,
oh, our transmission costs have gone up. And DME looks at its books and says, well, we
weren't paying $2 million a year on that CEO. And the state has just told us our transmission
costs are going to be $2 million higher. So even though the rate might not go down, there
would be, in effect, $2 million in savings because had that CEO not been retired at that
time, they would have had to pass that cost on. So there may be no apparent change in
the rate or the tax to the consumer. I say, oh, my bill has not changed and the debt went
off the books, so why hasn't my bill dropped? But the reason for that might be that there
are new costs. And so I'm still saving money versus the scenario where the debt didn't
roll off the books and they would have had to add that additional charge.
So just, I guess, specifically to the details that you provided, there's a couple of different
rates within DME. The TCRF and the ECA would be calculated differently than base rates.
So all else being equal, the maturity of debt and not having to pay that debt service anymore
would impact the base rates. And there would not be a need to increase rates and the potential
to lower rates. Commissioner Dix?
So on the tax rate side, on the property tax side, it's pretty straightforward when council
approves a new tax rate. There's usually a historical graph provided and we could see,
well, our INS or debt service rate has been this for the last however many years and our
M&O rate, the park council is usually, you know, debating over and budgeting on, is the
other side of the rate. And I'm going to kind of leave aside for a second, the council taking
the opportunity to fill the rate, like when the debt service rate goes down, saying, oh,
well, folks are used to a 59 cent tax, well, then we can fill the rest of that rate with
M&O and it's not really going to hurt anybody. It's really transparent when that takes place,
when they do just like find some costs to, to necessitate filling the rest of that rate,
even though the debt service rate came down. If I'm worried about that on the utility side,
where it's not so straightforward, where I can't just find one council's slide presentation
and kind of see what those rates are, how do I as a citizen figure out what part of
my, you know, so DMH is talking about a rate increase, right? How do I know what part of
that rate increase is debt service? What part of that is, hey, we got a little wiggle room
in the rate because our debt service went down this year. We can take a little more,
you can fill that rate just a little bit with some other stuff. How do I watch that and
how is that made transparent to citizens? Yeah. So, you know, we don't have a comparable
slide, I guess, or chart. The data is there, you know, to break out the debt service. And
we do show, you know, that through the budgeting process as it goes through PUB and then, and
then council and then in the budget book. So, you know, the debt service would be that
proportional component of the total budget. And in the case of DME, we would need to exclude
the other revenues. So, you know, the information is there. There may be an opportunity for
us to put together, you know, a graphic and some information to share with the public
on, you know, what piece of the, you know, utility rate goes kind of to what function
of that utility. That's something we could look at. It sounds like right now the best
information available is, you know, that massive proforma that DME presents during the budgeting
process with all the little breakouts and things. But there might be an opportunity
in the future to, you know, and they do a good job explaining the basic breakdown rate,
but there might be an opportunity in the future to kind of make that more transparent. Yeah.
And something that is not as detailed as the proforma that's shared is the budget book
that's produced. And that does, you know, have the various lines that are a little easier
to, it's more reader friendly, I think. But something in terms of a, you know, just kind
of a one page here's, you know, where the dollars go, that's something we could look
at.
Mr. Ransky.
Okay, if I'm understanding this correctly, and I'm going to use some numbers, I know
they don't have any accuracy, but say my bill is 95 cents a kilowatt hour. Out that 95 cents,
50 cents goes to the actual generation and function in that for my receiving my electricity.
The other 45 cents is going in for debt reduction. At the, I think what this proposal suggestion
is, is there be a mechanism on the billing to assist people to realize that when they're
paying 95 cents, 50 cents is going to the day to day, 45 cents is going for debt reduction.
It might be then depending on how many bonds or that they're recovering to break that out
as to when said debt would be retired. Then if I hear correctly, if 20 cents of that 45
cents is retired, one can then transfer that over to help pick up that the fact that that
50 cents no longer covers the generation. And if that's the case, is that not inappropriate
because you're taking what had been utilized to pay off a debt and you're reassigning it
to your day to day operations. And my understanding is that the quote, "two shall not mix like
oil and water" unless residents are notified and whatever other legal processes have to
be taken care of. And I would infer that the same would apply to managing the cities day
to day versus paying off a debt.
So a couple of things. The rate that the utilities charge is not unlike on the property tax side
where there is a specific INS and O&M or M&O rate. And those dollars do not get mixed.
On the utility side, there is not an INS portion of your utility bill. As a resident when you
receive a bill and let's say it's $10, you're absolutely right. Some portion of that is
and you'll see it on the bill for the transmission cost recovery and the ECA and then your base
rates. So outside of the transmission and energy charges, that base rate is going to
cover all the operational expenses, which includes debt service of the utility. So personnel
materials and supplies, the debt service, the payments that are made for services within
the city or technology, for example. So when the utility issues debt, and let's say it's
for a large project, there's not a specific fee associated with that project that would
stay fixed over some period of time. And the reason is because on the revenue side, customer
accounts are going to change, other expenditure lines will change, other revenue lines will
change. So that's going to change that percentage of where your, in the example, $10 goes.
If I may interrupt to take it further, I understand that what I'm looking for is a more definitive
line item notated on the electric bills so that the people who move in know when they're
looking at what their expenditures are, how much is really going to pay for the electric
generation, your staff and that, versus how much is going because you, and I'm just going
to pick on this, I know that it was that, to build the beautiful wall fake buildings
at the corner of Oak and Hickory when you come in off of 35. Because that is a capital
expense that would come out of your bond portion or that of your revenue. But people ought
to be able to look at, rather than going on a website and have to find it out. I've interacted
with groups of people who when you continually tell them to go to the website, they had difficulties.
So that was where I was coming from. A more thorough, elaborate line item.
Could you just clarify, are you suggesting that the, I'm sorry, could we go back to the
slide with this particular commission charge? So the charge that we're discussing is specifically
when debtors retire, does that should be added to the invoice or statement? Is that what
you're meaning to say or that there should always be a line item? Because I believe that
that may be off-posting if you're suggesting that there is just a constant line item.
Well, if you're asking for, and perhaps I'm understanding it incorrectly, that you want
to notify your citizens, your businesses about retiring debts and obligations, and then whenever
increases or rate, they'll have the estimated dates recorded. And in order to have that,
you'd have to have a line item at some point in time. Perhaps I'm totally wrong on that.
But how are you going to notify that that has been done?
I'm going to put a posting in the Debt and Record Chronicle that says, "Okay, on October
23rd of 1990, we are retiring this debt that we came up with, and such and such. In today's
computer age, it should be easy enough to elaborate by line item, the expenses."
So the city does publish the maturity dates and current debt portfolio for all the issuances
online, and it's also in various documents that the city publishes. Just one item that
I want to note is, as we began the conversation, we were talking a little bit about debt maturing
and debt issuance. So just to be aware that it may be the case that debt would mature
and debt would be issued, and would that then be a notification when there is no change
or the rate still decreases? So where I'm going is just that there's a lot of factors
that go into both the budgeting process, both in terms of various revenues and various expenses,
that a rate increase may or may not be due to debt. It may simply be due to lower revenue
or higher operational expenses. It's variable.
Commissioner Mujiguera.
So I'd like to bring this back into the charge on its face, which is just about kind of forcing
these decreases, which you said are already happening automatically. So I think you kind
of got really, really close to saying this, and I'm not asking you to have an opinion
on this matter, but I have some real concerns that this is going to hamstring council and
staff in making some really wonky budget decisions. I understand that the intention behind this
is pro-tax payer, and I think we're all concerned about the rates going up, but are there some
unintended consequences of this kind of language, the way it's written, when we're already doing
this effectively, putting this in charter language and creating some really unique or
challenging budget schemes that don't have the intended effect of saving any of us any
money?
I certainly think that there would be some questions and challenges, as I mentioned,
particularly in terms of is it the debt dollar that is prompting the increase, or is it the
operational dollar that's prompting the increase? Because in the financials, right, we have
a $2 increase, and which dollar is it? And so it may be a question as to how that's reported.
There's a number of issuances that are already outstanding. As with all the utilities, a
number of infrastructure needs, as the city grows, as infrastructure ages, as regulation
changes, and so there's sort of the practicality on a bill, how to visualize or put that there,
and then if that dollar were determined somehow. So I think there's probably some challenges
that we need to overcome in order to do that. And as far as the budgeting process itself,
I wouldn't imagine it would have a significant impact. But that would be...
I understand. Thank you. You can be determined.
So correct me if I'm wrong, but it can often be the case that capital expenditures might
save maintenance and operational expenditures. So it might be that, say, DME puts a capital
item in the budget for like self-restarting credits. And that's a capital expenditure.
But then because they install these, they are able to go and reduce their maintenance
and operations expenditure on having to send crews out every time a line gets touched by
a branch. So it might be that this forces emphasis or onto these expenses, these debt
expenses, when in fact those debt expenses might be saving us on the maintenance and
operations side. Yeah. I mean, one example that comes to mind,
and it doesn't fully recover it, but think about a vehicle. And the vehicle, when it's
new, you have very little maintenance cost associated with it. But if the vehicle is
10 or 20 or longer, we don't have any 30-year vehicles. But I'm thinking infrastructure,
the age of the infrastructure certainly has a maintenance cost, operating cost associated
with it. Particularly as within the utility, we look at infrastructure with older technology.
It may have parts that are more difficult to replace and maintain, harder to source.
So there, to your point, there are operational savings depending on what's being replaced.
Right. We are over time on this item already. Do I have more questions? Commissioner Davis?
I'm sure I move that we do not recommend this language to the City Council. I'll second
that. All right. Motion to second. Any discussion?
Sure. So I made my motion not because I don't think
it's a good idea. I think transparency is always a good idea. And I think helping people
understand the City budgeting process is a good idea. But as presented, it's just not
especially practical. One reason is from what we heard, that's not really the way that those
rates work. That it's a little bit that way on the property tax rate. But when you get
over to the utility side and the other revenue bonds, it just doesn't, that's not the way
that the debt service works. And it's not the way the rates are set. And if the information
is available to citizens in other ways, even if they're imperfect. The other reason though
too is from a practical perspective, when you get your tax statement, it doesn't come
from the city of Denton. Right. So the city of Denton really can't tell the county or
the appraisal district or whoever's your particular piece of information is coming from what,
you can't impose upon them a 50 line long list of all the different bond obligations
we've got. And that's the other part of it is even on our own side, on our own power
bills, and this is going to be a very popular answer, but there are simply too many debt
obligations to list on any particular piece of paper. It doesn't sound great. The city
has that kind of debt, but our individual debt obligations are just too numerous to
list. How many spreadsheets, you don't have to answer. It takes a bunch of spreadsheets
if you go to the city website to even list individual obligations we have. And they change
all the time. We'll read, we'll, we'll pay some off with a newer shorter term thing or
a better rate. And we're just, we're moving money around all the time. There's just not
a good practical way to do what this very well-intentioned thing is. So that's why I
made my motion.
I would say that's no different than any large organization. If you ask any company to say
does every individual piece of equipment over a certain amount of money is capitalized which
takes that debt service you're talking about. So it would be thousands and thousands of
pages of individual debt service to account for, right? So it's just, it's not practical.
It's not just the city. That's if you have a business, it's capital works that way.
Commissioner Johnson, you came in late. Do you have any clarifying questions?
No, no.
Okay.
All right. I will now call a vote on Commissioner Davis's motion that we do not recommend to
Council. Can I say the attached language? All right. All those in favor, please raise
your right hand and say aye.
Aye.
Believe that that is unanimous. All right. Everybody who is opposed, please raise your
right hand and say nay. All right. We are not recommending any changes on that. That
brings us to our next item. D, number CRC24-034. Receive a report, hold a discussion, give
staff direction on adding language to the charter that requires the posting, posting
the amount of money of an adequate contributions to fund pension or retirement plans required
to fund pension. Okay. Thank you. So just a quick primer on City of Denton pension. The
city participates in two pension plans, the Texas Municipal Retirement System, TMRS, which
is a agent multiple employer, traditional joint contributory. I don't know how to say
that, hybrid defined benefit plan, which is all of our city employees, including police.
And then the fire department has its own Denton Firemen's Relief and Retirement Fund, which
is a single employer contributory plan. So a couple of definitions. Funded ratio is the
ability of the plan's current assets to cover promised benefits. And the amortization period
is the length of time required to pay off the plan's current pension benefits earned
to date, plus an unfunded liability based on current contributions. And the pension review
board of the state of Texas recommends an amortization period of no more than 30 years,
with 10 to 25 years being the more preferable target. And then this is just a brief summary
of Denton's current pension plans. As you can see, the TMRS one, we are at an 85.3%
funding funded ratio and a 13.5 year amortization period, which is within the 10 to 25 years
being the more preferable target, as well within that. And then the firefighters plan
is 98.66% funded ratio and a 9.1 amortization period. Some of the relevant statutes, the
Texas government code has a whole section dedicated to TMRS that sets all of the definitions
and rules for it. And then it also is mandated to have a Texas Pension Review Board, which
oversees all of the public retirement systems, both state and local, in regard to their actuarial
soundness and compliance with state reporting requirements. We have a lot of requirements
from the Texas Pension Review Board that we have to follow as well. Some considerations
on this item, and our finance team can speak more to this as well, but state laws and existing
policies require publication and transparency and pension plans. And our website landing
page for the pension plans has all of that information that I've already given you. And
then you can click into either one of these and view the rate of return, as well as all
of the actuarial value assets and contribution rates. And then the Comptroller, we report
all of this to the Comptroller so you can also go and look up any public pension here
and see where it's at. So with that, I will yield for questions.
So if I'm understanding this correctly, the city is already required to post our contribution
status? Yes. I think that was the same question. It
just may be a different way. So we're basically already doing this by state law. Is that true?
Yes. And I'll confirm with finance. Yeah, yes. It looks like it is. We have a pension
initiative and it looks very similar to what we have to do.
Matt Hamilton, Budget Manager. We do publish this information and we do report it to the
state as well, as Christie had shown. And that is legally required by state law?
I believe so. Yes, the Comptroller requires that and we put it on the website as part
of what the Comptroller requires. Commissioner Beresma.
I don't feel like we need to discuss this anymore. Go ahead and make the motion to not
pass this charge forward to the city council. I'll second that.
Motion by Commissioner Beresma, second by Commissioner Kirkpatrick. Any further discussion?
I just have a quick question. Commissioner Fikes.
So the way the charge is read is it inadequate contributions to fund the pension. So would
the inadequate contribution be defined as one minus the funded ratio?
So that's a really good question. This funded ratio, this is taking a look at the plan's
current assets versus what the promised future benefits are. So current assets are going
to fluctuate based on the market value currently. So if we had everyone in the city retire tomorrow,
we could pay the MRS 85.3% of those benefits. Now that doesn't mean that when individuals
retire they're only going to receive 85%. What it's saying is that based on the actuarial
analysis, and our contribution rate, it's going to take 13.5 years to reach 100% based
on our current future liabilities.
So yes, the current unfunded portion would be in that case one minus 0.853 which is 14.7%.
Is that fair? As of today, yes, if everyone, yes, were to
retire.
And the only other question, why is there two separate ones? I've always heard that
firefighters have their own, but what's the?
I think that that was just a decision that was made a number of years ago, I want to
say in the 1980s. And at that point, it was a decision whether or not to join TMRS. I
could be mistaken on that, but I believe that's how that occurred. The TMRS contribution rates,
I'll just add, are set by TMRS. The city doesn't decide whether to contribute more or less.
That's based on the direction of TMRS. And then, as you'll see, the firefighter's pension
is in really great shape, 98% funded, and we anticipate it will be 100% funded over
the next, I think it was four years or so, so very close.
So is that a product of different contribution rates between TMRS versus the firefighter
fund, or is it a difference in the investment returns within the fund?
Yeah, so I think it's, and I don't have the details on it, but I would presume that it
has to do with the investment, that asset allocation mix that was used in the past.
My gut tells me the same, that they're probably contributing the same amount. It's just the
returns are different. I can tell you that the contributions rate
matches TMRS. It is no lower than TMRS. The higher?
In the past, I don't think it's by very much.
Paralyzed with that. Refilling my water.
Commissioner Remsky, do you have a question? Well, I don't know, but to kind of give an
extra background on it, the gentleman commissioner that brought this up referenced it in fact
of the news about the fact that Dallas's pension fund was really at a risk. And his comment
and concern was whether or not the city of Denton could get caught.
And if, this is probably not that you could answer, but if we've got the Texas government
code in regard to pension systems, as well as the pension review board, how could Dallas,
I mean I know we're not in Dallas, but how could Denton, if we switch it and say we were
a Dallas group looking at that, and they would reference, oh boy, Denton's got this big up
front. How close does this review board keep a track on things?
Sorry, and absolutely cut me off if this is incorrect. My recollection of the controversy
in Dallas has specifically to do with their police pension. And I, if I'm not mistaken,
I may be, but I think that their police union made the same choice that our firefighters
did years ago with a separate pension, that their police are not TMRS. I could be mistaken
there, but TMRS, like Matt said, we don't control, it's a statewide system that we participate
in. And that's why, unless the whole thing's going belly up, that's why Denton's pension
fund isn't going to, for average employees and police, isn't going to go belly up. My
recollection of Dallas is that they had a police pension fund that has been plagued
with problems including mayhem, corruption, lots of different problems that our firefighter
fund doesn't have and the TMRS is very carefully protected against. That's my recollection
of the Dallas problem.
Well, I appreciate that extra clarification because I would really hate to find out if
you got a, you know, I know we don't control the state, but you know, the concern that
it's sort of like being in a condominium and find out all of a sudden you've got to pay
for a roof because nobody funded a contingency follow-through fund. So if you use that as
comparison, I like it.
So we have a motion on the floor to not recommend the aforementioned language to council. All
those in favor of not recommending that language, or recommending no change to the language,
please raise your right hand and say aye. All those opposed, all those opposed, please
raise your right hand and say nay. We will now move on to item E, number CRC 24-035,
to save a report, hold a discussion, give staff direction on adding language to the
charter that requires reporting the amount of any unfunded mandate incurred by the city
with information regarding the name of the mandate and the cost to the city complied.
Thank you. So some relevant statutes on this item is, there actually is a definition, state
definition of unfunded mandate. It is in the code starting in 1997. It means a requirement
made by a statute enacted by the legislature that requires political subdivision to establish,
expand, or modify an activity in any way that could require the expenditure of revenue by
the political subdivision that would not have been required in the absence of the statutory
provision. Interestingly enough, this piece of code exists in the state statute, but it
has no application in any other part of the state, so I would say that it's still a little
bit ambiguous what that means and what that would apply to in a state law situation. And
then some considerations on this item, state law doesn't have any application to other
statutes like I said, so that how we would define an unfunded mandate and then how also
we would track its cost is not something that is already defined. It would be something
that we would have to figure out either in this group or with staff at a later date.
And then just some additional staff impact in conversations with our finance team and
they can speak to this more as well. Existing finance and database systems do not have the
operability that would support reporting or tracking unfunded mandates and manual tracking
would require an estimated three to four hundred hours of staff time and roughly five to six
people on our finance team. And implementation would require additional staffing and funding.
Questions for staff. Commissioner Mungivar. So one could say that this amendment is an
unfunded mandate on the city of death. How did we get there? One could say that. That's
not that's not a dig. And I and I I've worked on the one side like I've I've heard the
cries of cities and unfunded mandates and I don't like it. But we do have the Texas
Municipal League. We do have organizations that track this stuff at a meta level. I don't
know that there's really any value by asking the city of Denton to track this and put it
out to the taxpayers. And I think that if there's any concerns that people have about
taxpayer funded lobbying, like I mean, this borders on that. If we're giving that kind
of information out, what else are we to do with it? But to hold our legislators accountable
for putting those costs in our cities. And I think that's a real problem. But I don't
know that there's really any need for our city to have all these extra staff hours spent
working on this just to remind us that, yes, we are paying for stuff that we're not getting
any money from the state legislature. I think we're all acutely aware of that fact. So I'm
going to make a motion that we don't recommend this to council. Motion by Commissioner Montreguerra
second by Commissioner Burisma. At what level? You said meta level or metal level? Meta like
like they're like track like what does this cost the average city or like per dollar or
something like that. Like there's like kind of like fact sheets like for a city of two
hundred fifty thousand like you just get these little like flyers handouts like this is what
this is going to cost our city and like a lot of times it'd be like a malformation of
like small, medium, large sized cities. Further discussion? Commissioner Davis. In the spirit
of the concern of knowing that not every citizen is going to necessarily find themselves on
the website or something like that and kind of acknowledging to the definition provided
that for some reasons in the government code, no further reference is kind of only half
the definition of the mandate. It doesn't mention the part where there's not money provided
by the person by the entity mandating to cover the mandate. Is there a short of three hundred
or four hundred staff hours? Is there a way for city staff to make available very basic
information about this kind of stuff? You know using things that already exist from
TML. Is there a more basic requirement that we can reasonably put in place that's not
going to take three hundred four hundred staff hours? I think that's probably just a little
bit high because it goes down every year. You know you only have to update it every
two years when the legislature meets. But is there something where we can accomplish
the spirit of informing our citizens about what the state's putting on us and not paying
for that it doesn't take three or four hundred staff hours? I'm not asking you to invent
it on the spot. Do you have any feedback Matt? I think if the data is already there and has
been produced and the effort made by another organization like TML or others then absolutely
it could be something that staff potentially could do. I think the concern is if there
is a mandate identifying what that liability looks like specifically for the city of Denton
depending on the mandate and the extent of it we would have to do presumably quite a
bit of analysis to know what that is and then update you know going forward to track it
and that's where that kind of tracking mechanism isn't something that's currently available
in our enterprise system. So I think from a staff perspective there's some unknown as
to you know how deep does the analysis go for all the mandates and the ultimate cost
of staff time associated with that. Thank you. So let me make sure I'm kind of understanding
the big problem why the cost or the time cost could be so much. So there's unfunded mandates
and there's unfunded mandates. There's the big ones that we hear about every two years
right like the legislature requires every city to put up a billboard that says don't
mess with Texas and they didn't give us any money to do it but we all have to spend $100,000
billboard and then there's the mandates that are like every city has to have water that
meets these quality standards but there's no state money for running our water plant.
So we have regulatory duties and statutory duties that are required but we wouldn't really
put them in the bucket of unfunded mandates or big political splashy items and that kind
of stuff and within the city budget I mean millions and millions of things that we do
because we are a city because we're required to by the state but we collect our own taxes
to do it. Am I kind of close to the mark? Right yeah. Commissioner Danton. I think even
if you attempted to do this it would get messed up and not be accurate after a year or two
and that's not a dig on anybody it's just because you have to have some committee meet
and say is this an unfunded mandate or not? What's the definition? So I understand the
spirit of it but the practicalities doesn't seem reasonable but I don't think it will
give you an accurate picture anyway at the end of the day. I don't see how this could
actually be measurable and be accurate. Commissioner Remsky would you like to speak? I'm toying
with my question but such a rub. Anyway the fact that it states that it would require
all of those extra man hours, lady hours, state hours. If it's a unfunded mandate it's
something that we have to quote pay for. In order to pay for it it would come out of operations.
Operations goes through and they calculate a budget so isn't there somewhere in that
process that one knows how much that unfunded mandate contributes to the operational fund?
Commissioner Mungibar do you have an answer? I think this is what kind of Commissioner
Danhoff is getting at is the question of what is an unfunded mandate? Is it something is
it like a sign that we have to put in one year or is it a regulation that we have to
enforce year over year? It's very technical when you start talking about these. EPA changes
our greenhouse gas limitation from this to this so therefore we have an unfunded mandate
to make low knocks burners everywhere. Like is that an unfunded mandate or is that just
a regulation? And at the end of the day that's where it gets convoluted. I just don't know
that there's any value added from this. Like I said I think we've got lots of great groups
that are documenting this at a high level and kind of know when they see it but I don't
see that there's any value in asking our city staff to spend any extra time to analyze this
because I don't know that it gives a lot of information that isn't already out there and
I also don't know that people would even read it when it comes down to it. All right so
we have a motion on the floor to recommend no change made by Commissioner Davis, Commissioner
McGuire, seconded by Commissioner Burrisma to recommend not adding language as indicated
on this item. All those in favor of recommending not adding that language please raise your
right hand and say aye. Aye. That would be unanimous. All those opposed please raise
your right hand and say nay. All right that recommendation has been made we now move on
to and I'm going to call the next two items together. Item F number CRC 24-008. Receiver
report hold a discussion and give staff direction on modifying the mix of single and at-large
districts as well as item G number CRC 24-008. Receiver report hold a discussion and give
staff direction on the need for additional council seats based on population size. We
had some absences the last time these two items were discussed and we did not have a
passing motion when they were discussed so I'd like to start off by asking did with the
members who were not here did you guys get a chance to go back and watch that conversation?
Point of order. State your point of order. Yeah both these items you called them together
it's all resting together. Both these items are out of order under the City Council rules
of procedure and specifically section 2-29 G11. Motions for reconsideration. They're
items that we have considered. The motions failed. The items failed. We moved forward
with our work and it's now out of order to reconsider them without a motion to reconsider.
Such a motion was not made in the proper time so these are out of order. It is my opinion
as chair that it is the charge of this committee to produce recommendations on these items.
This committee did not produce recommendations on this item. This question was previously
I discussed with staff previously and I've not heard recommendations from our professional
legal team to the contrary of the advice that I received previously. So I'm going to proceed
with this item. I filled in ruling of the chair. All right. So the procedure here is
that he has appealed the ruling of the chair so now the entirety of the body wants to move
forward. All right. So Commissioner Davis has appealed my judgment on these items that
these items my judgment that these items can return in this manner. So we will now be taking
a vote a vote aye on this item would be that Commissioner Davis's appeal is correct and
that these items cannot return and a vote nay on this item for this appeal would be
that this appeal is incorrect and the committee would like to consider these items once more.
Give me a further discussion. It's a debatable motion. This is a committee this isn't city
council. City council has the right it was my understanding and whether or not bringing
it down to here to do a reconsider. I'm a little curious on that. Number two the fact
that we decided based on votes that there was not a you know it's not a decision that
it doesn't move forward a decision to read here the recommendation to the city council
that said we could not determine whether or not we should do it or not. So is that not
a recommendation because if that is not a recommendation and we go through reconsidering
there are probably at least three or four other items that we've discussed that did
not pass because of a tie or that. Are we going to go back and reconsider all of those
again and when are we going to get forward on it. I'm trying to look at this globally
not it's just this one or two items that we are combining. Sure there have been items
discussed by this committee that did not pass on seven seven votes. I have no intention
of revisiting those votes because the committee spoke as a full committee on those items.
On these two particular items there was not a there were several absences on the meeting
that these items were discussed previously and so is my opinion that the lack of direction
given from this body was perhaps related to that number of apps and given that there are
committee members who were here or who are here tonight who are not here then at a minimum
I would like those committee members who are not present previously to be able to give
direction given the fact that this did not pass and that there were those absences. If
ideally I would like to have this committee bring forward some opinion on this item to
council does that answer your concerns. It somewhat does but if one of the rationales
is that members were not here we don't have members here again tonight. So unless one
were to and I know I don't think there's anything like this in rules Robert's rules or that
but unless the discussion was such that only those that were missing on that night could
give their vote and see how it would change it because if okay if I was here I've already
given you my vote so therefore I should not vote again today. I'm going to just pick
on and say if Commissioner Fikes was not here that night he would get to vote if Commissioner
Kirkpatrick was not here he votes rather than having all of us here because then you're
not taking into account the ones that are absent tonight.
Can we go back to the minutes I guess and figure out on these two particular items what
the vote was. So was it seven against? Yes it would be the. It was seven I think all
the people that were absent would have voted in contrary it would have been seven to seven
so the best they could have gotten was seven to seven correct and then you would have revisited.
That's kind of why I'm getting that is that if it was already a seven against it this
substantively doesn't matter because it could only be seven to seven. This committee is
charged with producing recommendations to council. Point of order Madam Chair on this
motion each member may speak once. Thank you. Sorry what did he say? On this Robert's rules
of order dictate that on appeals to the chair each member may speak once and only once.
Well I didn't intend for that to be my. So in the event my understanding or my question
is or comment if we didn't have enough then and we're reconsidering today why would we
reconsider it if we don't have a full full today because that's just going to open up
to where we can continue to go more because if we don't get seven to seven today based
on your decision or comment you just made we would go again. The other thing we still
have council charges that we have not discussed that have not been presented. Why would we
why would we discuss something a second time prior to discussing those items the first
time and I'm not done so I don't want to yield if I'm not going to get the floor back. Apologies.
And then when you talk about the seven to seven vote and that you would not reconsider
a vote if we had a seven to seven and I think that's false too because the original chair
vote that we had was seven to seven on two separate occasions and it came back the next
time even though we had a vice chair that was elected and so we could continue to operate
going forward but we didn't we came brought it back so back to Commissioner Ramsey's comment
that there are others that we didn't that would make we have to bring them all in but
I do agree with Mr. Davis that the council procedures is the only thing that I've seen
and it appears to me that they have the next session to bring that up and there's nothing
that deviates from that I still have a hard time getting past that that I think I think
supports Commissioner Davis's claim. Thank you. Commissioner Mungiwara. We're gonna see
if she can answer the question. Would you like to address why this would be coming back
at this meeting as opposed to future meetings? It was placed these two items were placed
on the agenda at the request of the chair the decision to move the perfecting charges
which we were planning on having this evening was in order to make time logistically for
this. So we still we still do have charges that we have not addressed or have not decided
on at the council similar to this that we have not discussed one time it seems out of
order to be considered speaking on something else a second time we're discussing if we
haven't even done that once we only have one more meeting. Commissioner Mungiwara. I'm
very sensitive to Chairwoman Bray's concern that we need to provide some direction to
council on this I understand there's some talk about how there was there was seven votes
how could things change well we did change votes did change for Chairwoman Bray when
it came down to when we had to make a final decision. Now that's just one example but
my point is is that in the absence of any direction which we haven't provided any direction
we've merely had seven folks say they want no changes seven folks say that they would
like to see some changes in the absence of that council is going to do what they'd like
and so I think there's a really good opportunity here that if we can reach a consensus on something
then it could be something that we were at least the majority of us can be happy about
rather than the council members that directed us to consider this to choose their own plans
so that would be my consideration. Would you like to make a motion? No I'd like to speak
to my motion. I haven't debated the motion yet. I made it but I didn't expect a motion.
So I feel kind of like Walter and the Big Lebowski if there are rules there are ways
that you do things and there are ways you don't do things. Our meetings are governed
by two things Robert's Rules of Order and the Council Rules of Procedure. It's very
clear in the city code of ordinances that boards and commissions are to be governed
by the Council Rules of Procedure. There's some stuff that doesn't apply like what do
you do to elect a mayor or a pro tem? This doesn't apply to us. There are other things
that apply very clearly to us and it's very clear in the code that those Rules of Procedure
in 229 apply to this body. There is a way to revisit an item. The way to revisit an
item is not that the chair keeps adding it and adding it and adding it until she gets
the vote she wants. The way that you revisit an item is you follow G-11 which is consideration
we can put it on the screen if we need to and my motion is not to my point of order
excuse me and that was overruled and that I've appealed is not really about the substance
of the item. My point of order was that we didn't follow the rules for putting this back
on the agenda. The way you put it back on the agenda is you make a motion to reconsider
under the Texas Open Meetings Act. You have to do that ahead of time so it can be properly
posted then the body has a vote on the motion to reconsider and that's when we have the
debate about well did we really have enough people there to talk about it? Did we have
all the information that we needed? Was that the right time to consider that motion? And
the only person who can only people who can make that motion to reconsider are folks who
are on the prevailing side. The motion did not pass so the people who are on the prevailing
side are the people who voted against the motion. Like I said the last time we talked
about this there's a hundred ways a motion can die there's only one way it can pass.
We took action on these items. It failed. The people who voted against my motions on
these could have moved to reconsider within the time frame specified they didn't do it
so to take it back up today we are out of order. If this is something that is important
to you if you find yourself in the minority that voted on these items if you find yourself
someone who because of your own personal obligations couldn't be at that meeting go to your council
member and ask them to add this to the charge. Go to your council member and go to the next
level where all these things have to go and handle it there. You don't go outside the
rules to create your own rules where we can go back and revisit items that were properly
considered by the body and put to the side. That's the substance of my motion appealing
the ruling of the chair. Do we have any other speakers before we would like to vote? Do
we need a simple majority or eight votes? Eight votes. Eight votes to in favor of Mr.
Davis' motion go ahead and roll the chair. You would need eight votes yes. Okay thank
you. Point of entry. So I have a question about that eight votes. I've gone back to
this is leaving all prior votes about procedural things aside. Chairs and elected aside. I've
gone back to our enabling statute our charge in the eight vote requirement specifically
references recommendations of the body. This is a procedural vote and not a recommendation
to body. So can we can we look at that language and make sure we're we can and and we have
to look at this a few times in the law department. The body has decided that once you do your
work by eight votes and the charging document that created this body said eight votes and
that's kind of how this body has been drawn. Can you speak louder please? The charging
document says eight votes and how this committee has been run is that you've decided that eight
votes is where we are and so it would be backwards to go back now and say oh we want to change
this because it's a procedural rule. Everything has been by eight votes on this committee
and that's the way we should keep going. Do the charging document also say to abide by
council's procedures? The charging document does not specifically say that. I can go pull
it out. No the charging document says this body has to have eight votes to make a recommendation.
That's what the charging document says. Without eight votes this body is not making a recommendation.
This isn't a recommendation is what he's saying correct? Right he's saying this is a procedural
matter. Correct. But even on the procedural matter we've gone with the eight vote rule.
And those would be what other examples are procedural matters? For instance the one that
you brought up about voting. We voted until we got a chair. Okay. Does, I'm a little bit
confused by what you're telling us. Not on what you're saying but if the body has decided
just out of a you know a spirit of congeniality or to preserve decorum or just to be able
to move forward that we're going to adopt this eight vote majority thing even if that's
not what's in our language. How does that constrain us going forward? Like we haven't
changed anything. We haven't changed any rules. We've said I mean nobody challenged it. People
who could have benefited by challenging it decided not to. Didn't raise a point of order.
Didn't raise exactly this point at the time. Does that take away someone's ability to raise
the valid concern that we're not required to have eight votes? How does that under Robert's
rules constrain the body going forward just because someone chose not to assert a point
of order some earlier time? No it doesn't because there's two things. You have made
that point tonight. You've made that point tonight. And the body is going to vote on
that point tonight. And Robert's rules are only there to make sure that the majority,
the will of the majority prevails. That's what those rules are for. And that the voice
of the minority is preserved and heard. Right and I think we've accomplished both of those
but the majority vote prevails. The minority cannot award the vote of the majority. We'll
see what the vote is and we'll see what the points are after. Do you have a point of information?
I am trying to determine whether or not the agenda is posted 72 hours ahead because I
didn't print out what came to my home on Monday to bring the copy in. It's listed on here
that we would cover that item. I do not recall if what was printed 72 hours ahead and falling
under the Open Meetings Act then it was listed. Does anyone have a copy of what the original
agenda was as posted now to us on my note? I can speak to that. The agenda that is before
you is the agenda that was posted on Monday before 5.30 in accordance with our Open Meetings
Act. I didn't hear part of that last part. Could I ask you to speak louder? Yes. It was
posted, the agenda before you is the exact same agenda that was posted on Monday before
5.30 p.m. which is within our 72, which is when our 72 hour period starts. Okay. I guess
I just didn't recall that. Thank you. All right. We will now vote on Commissioner Davis's
appeal of the Chair's judgment. As a reminder, a vote aye on this is a vote in favor of Mr.
Davis's appeal and a vote nay is a vote against Mr. Davis's appeal. All those in favor of
Mr. Davis's appeal, please raise your right hands and say aye. Aye. All those opposed,
please raise your right hands and say nay. Nay. I believe that is 8 to 4. Did we get
that? Excellent. All right. We will now move on to the items. Does anyone have any questions
on the items before we move into discussion? Commissioner Mungivore. In the interest of
time, are we wanting to vote on one package, if you will, all at once in the end as opposed
to the two parts respectively? Or could such a motion be made? If that is the motion that
is made. Any further questions? Are they going to present it again? I don't believe so. Will
they? That was not my plan too. But can we? Are you asking to see the information again?
I should be in your mind. Any presentation? Mike, go over again. If we are all going to
go over it, if everybody is here and has a discussion, then I think it would be prudent
to go over it. It is 6.57. Do we need to do this next time or are we going to be in the
middle of three minutes? We have run over on meetings previously. If Commissioners would
like to make the motion to delay it, that is the motion that has been made. If we could
get a quick reminder of the previous discussions or previous presentations. And if anybody
needs to grab a water. Marsha, please go ahead. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am
sorry. This information was seen previously on Thursday, August the 8th. If you are looking
for it in your binders, or on the website. What large is it again, you know? This would
be charge D and charge M to all of you. I move that these items be postponed to our
next meeting. We will vote on whether or not to delay these items until our next meeting.
I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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?
But, you know, are we looking for equity? Are we looking for what is equitable?
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.
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.
If it ain't broke, why are we trying to change it?
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.
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.
The concern that a vote from a single district, you know, equity and equalness of what the strength is of my vote.
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.
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.
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.
And I know that what I am saying is, is really probably creating the need for a big bottle of toast.
But we went through all of this before.
And that's going back to that and I probably shouldn't bring it up.
Yeah, in the interest of time I'd like to move to the previous question.
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.
We have to have eight. We have to have eight for anything to pass.
Okay, we'll have eight people. One seconds and we get eight and then we end discussion.
All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye.
Five, six, seven, eight. All right. I on this is a vote for recommending.
It's not two thirds.
It's a vote of eight and that's what we've been doing.
That's what happened because Robert's rules said it's two thirds, but we say eight.
Eight is a majority. Eight is not two thirds.
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.
You can't downgrade a super majority.
As chair, I will call the question.
No, no, ma'am. Point of order.
Thank you. One, violating Robert's rules again.
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.
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.
We're going to spend all of our time on it.
There are places I'd rather be also.
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.
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.
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.
Okay, so then we just work off that assumption so that we don't have to have this whole discussion.
Is anybody going to change your vote at this point?
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.
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.
You said it's two thirds of what we have here tonight.
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.
That's right. And we've done both of them. It's two thirds and eight.
That's procedurally correct. Okay. All right. Commissioner Davis, continuing discussion.
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.
The first there was a valid point made about Hispanic conclusion in the conversation back in 1980.
And I absolutely don't want this to come across as, you know, well, there was a little bit or there was enough.
I do want to point out that Councilmember Ravella was one of the council members who passed this next.
How many years ago was that? 17? In 1980. More than 17? And it's 2024.
Commissioner Davis has the point. Apologies.
And again, I'm just giving that information. I'm not saying that information counts for something or represents a certain something.
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.
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%.
And we have to do that for any representation besides acting on the school board. That's it.
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.
There's not. I have a fourth. Correct. Apologies.
That's why those districts represent cracking and packing and not opportunity.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Those folks aren't out there outside of a couple of folks on a Facebook forum.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Commissioner Kirkpatrick.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
during a normal May election cycle.
I would add that she probably received a lot of free advertising from her opponent.
Forgive me, forgive me, June runoff, lowest turnout elections we have.
Commissioner Kirkpatrick.
Did you have more to say?
No, no, no, forgive me that was, that was the COVID cycle, correct?
That was 2018.
Interesting, okay.
Okay.
Commissioner Romsky.
Put my, okay.
The comment was made about Facebook.
I am going to read, if I may.
What was posted on Facebook on August 26.
And I found it interesting when I saw it.
So, full disclosure here, we presented the idea of doing away with at large districts a couple of years ago.
Mostly it was a tongue in cheek response to the recurring question about a certain neighborhoods influence.
But no, in actuality, once you get beyond being a devil's advocate, this is a bad idea.
There are way too many opportunities for abuse.
There would be way too many battles probably deserving about how these districts would be cut and who would cut them.
I mean, look at the current district map, and two years down the road, there are some glaring curiosities that we all missed.
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.
We're looking at single districts. And sorry if you don't think that community, excuse me, we are looking at Southeast Dayton.
And sorry if you don't think that community could use the help of an occasional backup or two.
Then let's set a date, have a drink, and we'd like to introduce you to a thing called your privilege.
So don't kick that down the road, crush it and throw it in a bin.
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.
Forgive me, but that's what's in here.
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.
I believe that that was a post made within the Denton Matters Facebook group by Matt Croneta.
Right. Okay. And he is generally one...
Not on this committee.
No, he's not on this committee.
Okay. You keep addressing as part of this underserved and you, Commissioner Kirkpatrick, were referencing the Spanish population.
When the districting was done, it had nothing to do mainly with worrying about if you had minority Hispanic, black, and Native Americans.
Okay. It was done as picking on a neighborhood that was typically and continues to use their constitutional right and vote.
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.
We should not have been in Denton.
They would have liked to de-annex us from Denton. And yes, I'm getting a little vocal on it.
But there is a history here that I think several members of this council are not aware of when it took place.
And those of us who live in the neighborhood that got readjusted, we volunteer at schools.
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.
We volunteer at Salvation Army.
We volunteer at what was the king and that which has changed.
What I'm getting to is we do an awful lot to support the city of Denton.
And we pay our taxes, which includes a goodly amount that goes to the schools.
And you know what? We don't have a member that uses the schools.
So that is gravy to the city of Denton.
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.
We do not get our city's streets or our community streets swept or anything because we do that within our HOA.
And we don't even get regular police visits or routes or survey, unless we call them for something like a severe accident.
Other than that, we have the constable.
I know you're looking at me, Mr. Kirkpatrick, with wondering, "Hey, what?"
But that's what life is at this community.
The people in District 3 said we should be de-annexed from.
And they were also because of, "Oh, we have amenities. We pay for those amenities."
Just like those where the students have the amenities to use the basketball courts, their swimming pool, their running track, and their libraries.
So we are such that we give to the city of Denton a lot more than comes up.
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.
The other thing is, going to a number of eight, how are you going to ever have...
Commissioner Remski, I think I'm going to have to cut you off here.
Commissioner Johnson.
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.
When you look at Southeast Denton now, the history of Southeast Denton, so you'll know, was birthed out of Quaker Town.
You know Quaker Town was moved to Southeast Denton, right?
Now there's going to be another Quaker Town movement with gentrification, but still there's people there.
There's still black people there.
Where's their voice going to be heard at?
We need some type of representation or maybe where we can have a voice, someone like that.
In that community that's being just spread it all over.
So when I hear somebody from Robertson Ranch tell me about Southeast Denton, kind of take a fit.
And let's go back to...
If it's not broke, why fix it?
I'm glad they didn't have that mindset. My people never would have been free.
You, Montal.
May I just kind of... Mr. Johnson?
Very, very briefly.
Mr. Johnson, I have nothing against Southeast Denton, and the only reason that came up was when I was reading verbatim.
And I know that you have the problem, and the problem exists in regard to Quaker Town and that.
And I have interacted on a few of those questions with a couple of council members.
Thank you, Commissioner Rice. Commissioner Brewer-Eatsma?
Just building off of what Nate was talking about and what Julie was referring to earlier with the model charter, city charter.
And the model city charter saying that either a mix of districts or all single member districts are the best plans.
What they didn't say is that all at-large districts is a good idea.
And there's a reason for that, because generally at-large districts are not the best way to do representation.
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.
So let's work this mix. That doesn't mean that the at-large is a good idea.
It means that if we have a mix, we won't be violating the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act.
The single member districts...
Excuse me, I know, but we've thrown Robert's rules out the door just about the first five minutes.
Commissioner Brewer-Eatsma has the floor.
So that was just the point I was trying to make.
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.
They say it's an acceptable way that isn't going to violate the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, right?
That it is acceptable and you can do it this way.
I think what we have been charged with discussing here tonight is, is there a better way to do it?
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.
I just want to make it really clear because we're talking about Matt Granada who made this post.
We're talking about how he's referring to ropes and ranch.
Matt Granada does not speak for this committee.
He does not speak for those who are in favor or against any of these measures.
He definitely doesn't speak for Southeast Denton.
And I would also say that the comments he's referring to about ropes and ranch are deeply troubling.
Everybody in Denton deserves strong representation, whether you live in ropes and ranch, whether you live in Southeast Denton.
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.
You can show up and vote more, but every community in this city deserves representation.
And I want to make it clear, too, we're not throwing the at-large all the way out.
We still have a mayor that we get to vote for.
We still get two people.
And as much as some people would ridicule this as ridiculous or absurd, I believe, and I feel like I have sufficiently explained,
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
and a person who is more directly accountable to you because your vote holds more weight with that one person.
I still maintain that that's the case.
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.
So it's really immaterial whether or not I have four if I, in my vote, don't have power to control their actions
or that their actions don't have a consequence when they come up for reelection in two years.
So I don't think there's really much else to say. I'd really like if we could move forward with the vote.
I'll just add this comment. If I'm going to try to have a conversation with someone,
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.
But do they have to listen to you?
I'm going to give the floor to Commissioner Davis.
I'll be very brief and just direct response to what Peter said.
The math of four of seven versus two of nine is not just about how many people does this one person represent
and how many people does this one person have to worry about or how big a geographical district do they have to worry about.
It has to do with the majority of the council that my voting strength isn't just four random people.
It's four out of seven. It's a majority.
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.
And those four people have combined voting strength that is the majority.
Two out of nine isn't a bad idea just because it's fewer votes that I get to cast on the city council.
It's because I have less of an opportunity to influence the majority decision of the city council.
There has been speculation about the kinds of folks who might run or the kind of opportunity that might come up.
I'm just going to point out again, that's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about just across the board, all other things being equal.
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.
And my vote on a majority of council is much stronger.
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.
The people who vote on city council are the people who know the most about city issues and care the most.
Even when we were in a presidential year, even when it was the COVID year, the undercount on city offices was ridiculous.
Even people who are shown up to vote were not voting on their city council members and mayor and stuff.
The idea that having fewer districts, fewer constituents per district is going to increase turnout.
There is no historical empirical data for that.
The data doesn't exist because this is not a data driven idea.
This is a politically driven idea.
The idea here is not, with all respect to my fellow committee members, the idea here is not to make better government for Denton.
The idea here is have government of a certain type for Denton.
The frustration about one part of town is politically driven.
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.
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.
They're going to overcrowd district three and they're going to take it over.
We need more districts to cover them.
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.
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.
Incredibly short-sighted.
We're not.
It's not that if it's don't, if it's broke, don't fix it.
If it's working, don't fix it.
Nobody is saying if it's don't, if it's not broke, don't fix it.
We're saying it is working.
There's not a reason to fix it.
I think there's a big difference.
Commissioner Manjiguera and then I think this will be our last.
Yeah, just two brief points.
I've never made, and I don't think anyone here is making the argument that creating these districts will increase turnout.
That's not my argument.
I'm not maintaining that there's doubt on that.
I'm saying that it's going to increase the voting strength of people in single-member districts.
Could it maybe increase turnout?
Perhaps.
That's not the argument I'm making, though, and I'm not supporting any vacuous data to that effect.
And once again, and I'll be straight, I brought up the 100 coal development.
I think it's exciting that they're coming to Denton.
And then that's, and I'm in the Eagle Creek development.
That was a new development that came to Denton.
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.
Perhaps in a new configuration, Robeson Ranch might have their very own single-member district when it comes down to it.
That's exactly the point.
And once again, I'll never disparage any single community.
I believe Robeson Ranch deserves representation.
I appreciate everything they do for this community.
I'm thinking about all the communities, though, in this proposal.
And I think everybody here has made some really, really great points tonight.
And I know we're talking about best practices, but I think this is about what's right for Denton.
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.
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.
So I think it's time to vote.
All right.
You have 30 seconds.
All right.
Number one, I don't know that Robeson Ranch wants us over.
Number two, in regard to your wanting eight, I'm going to suggest that if we do anything, we go to nine.
And we do it so that we then have four at large.
And we up the number of individual districts to five.
Would that meet your needs?
Would that take it out of the political aspects?
Would that meet the requirements of the concerns that we don't have Spanish at that?
But rather than going to eight and having them being all at large, or all as individual districts, we keep the mix.
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?"
Or how many?
I think we need to vote on the motion on the floor.
But I just want to make it really clear.
I resent the idea that this is political.
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.
This is about making sure that we have the best possible democracy, small d democracy, for the city of Denton.
I think we've all laid out great nonpartisan reasons.
I know we've offered anecdotal examples of recent political history.
I think that's helpful.
But I think a lot of it's not instructive about what we need to do moving forward.
I think they're great counterpoints.
But I think as a matter of course, we need to think, like, all of that aside, what is the objective best goal?
I don't think that adding a single and another at large is a solution.
I think we need to vote on the eight-single member and mayor.
Thank you, Commissioner Madriguera.
Not to prolong the meeting, but I really appreciate that Peter said that this isn't about a political perspective.
It is about a philosophical perspective.
There is philosophy behind this.
It is not about counting votes and doing some sort of Machiavellian practice here.
That this really is philosophically where I stand on creating smaller districts so people have better representation.
I think we've got to vote on it twice, make sure it goes.
With that, let's vote.
All those in favor?
Let me clarify, just real quick.
What are we?
We've talked a lot.
Can we restate the motion?
Because I understand the motion was just to combine, the motion was to combine the two topics.
That was the motion.
No, when I introduced the topic...
They said that was it.
When I introduced the topics, I called them together.
I called the two topics together.
We had a few motions about whether or not I could call the topics.
Those succeeded, the topics were called together.
And Commissioner Madriguera introduced a motion for eight at-large districts.
So adding two districts.
Eight single member districts.
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.
All those in favor, please raise your right hand and say aye.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.
All those opposed, please raise your right hand and say nay.
Nay.
One, two, three, four.
The ayes have it.
We will now move on to concluding items.
Does anyone have any concluding items?
Commissioner Davis.
I'd just like to make my regular PSA announcement about the Texas Open Meetings Act.
The walking quorums, this is properly a part of concluding items.
It's a statement of fact.
It's a properly part and then I'll be quiet.
Those of y'all who had your conversations offline.
Those of y'all who had your walking quorums with the folks who weren't here last time.
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.
Denton is watching.
The city council has to vote on this, is watching.
God forbid it reaches the ballot.
The voters are watching too.
Everyone knows.
Everybody's watching you.
Any other concluding items?
Commissioner Kirkpatrick.
Commissioner Davis, that's interesting.
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.
I would leave it at that, sir, and bid you a good evening.
If you heard it threaten that, you're listening for a while.
That's weird to say.
Commissioner Maguiguera.
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.
They're allowed to change their mind.
So I'll say that too.
Commissioner Ransky.
I apologize for talking a little bit louder.
I didn't put my hearing piece in today.
So I end up bad.
I also feel a little bit of umbrage because either the way I phrase things or what I read.
Yes, Commissioner Maguiguera, Matt Granita is not part of this group or that.
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.
And the constituent said no, vote this way. I'm just using the resource.
And also, again, Mr. Johnson, I apologize.
I was not taking a front or trying to that.
You know, I was just reading what he said and that was where he put it in.
So I have nothing against that.
I know I'm one of the new, well I'm not the newest PIP person sitting here for a change.
But, you know, I've still got a lot to learn.
I've hit my 10-year anniversary, but I've got a lot more to learn than I did.
All right. Thank you, Commissioner Ransky.
With no other concluding items, I will call this meeting to a close at 822 p.m.
God bless. You all have a good night.