Sep 24, 2019 City Council on 2019-09-24 2:00 PM

Welcome, everybody, to this meeting of the Denton City Council. It is Tuesday, September the 24th, 2019, it is 2.02 p.m. We do have a quorum, so I'll call this meeting to order. Our first item on the agenda for our work session is agenda item one, which is citizen comments on consent agenda items. We do not have any citizen comments, at least blue cards filled out for citizen comments on consent agenda items. Next item is request for clarification on agenda items listed on this agenda. Councilmember Davis. I'd like to pull item B, simply because I have to recuse from that item. I don't need a presentation or anything. Okay. Councilmember Armitage. Yes, and I wanted to pull item K about the towing and then the item about the school resource officers, which is, sorry, item B. Okay, so K and B, B is already being pulled. Yep, sorry, K. Are you wanting, what exactly are you wanting at the 6.30 session, are you wanting a presentation or? Oh, no, just a question about that now. Oh, you have a question about it now, okay. Yeah. So you're not-- Pull for question currently, sorry. Oh, okay, all right. So you're not pulling it off the consent agenda. Yes, sorry. Okay. Wrong term. So on B, who's here that could answer a question on agenda item, consent agenda item B? Good afternoon, Mayor and Council, Frank Dixon, Chief of Police. Yes, go ahead. Yeah, so I was just wondering if you could speak to whether or not the reimbursement from DISD covers the whole cost of service or just part of it and how that compares to the reimbursement that the city has gotten in the past. So the contributions have actually gone up from our contributions last year. So they've increased it so they can cover the six current SROs in this year's budget from them. Okay, great. So it covers 100% of the cost of-- Just shy of it. Just shy of it, okay. And do you happen to know, and this might be a question more for the city manager or assistant city manager than for you, but if the money, if it gets reimbursed directly to the police department or to the general fund, that might be more of a-- Just general fund. Okay. General fund operations. Thank you. That was all. Thank you. That's right. Thank you. And then on question, you had something on agenda item K? Yes. Okay. All right. Go ahead. Yeah, about the towing. So I'm not sure who--I'll wait for you. Okay. So this is about, as you know, about a contract for towing services not to exceed $175,000, and the agenda description mentions that currently the city does not have a towing contract for city-owned vehicles. I was wondering if you could just speak to why we need a contract for towing and what the advantages are of that. It's helpful if we go over a certain amount to have a contract in place that's already been pre-bid, that way we don't have to go get individual quotes every time the vehicle goes down and needs to be towed. So in the past, we haven't done that, but we thought it was a good time to go ahead and get that accomplished this year. Excellent. So it's a money saver for the city because we know that we're going--we generally need, as a matter of course, a certain number of vehicles. We don't know how many, but we know that we're going to tow vehicles, unfortunately. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I think Councilmember Briggs has a follow-up question. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. Hi. So just to clarify that this is only for city vehicles only. That's true. Okay. That's true. For citizen vehicles, there's still the same rotation schedule that PD has used in the past. This is only for city vehicles when they break down out in service. Or when we need to transport them from shop to shop. And so just another follow-up question on that. Is this refundable through our insurance? Does insurance--our insurance policy pay for a portion of towing like, say, it would for my private insurance of a car? To my knowledge, it does not, but that would be a question for risk. Okay. But I believe because we're self-insured, that that's not-- That's not part of it. That's not part of it. Okay. Okay. Were those your questions? Okay. All right. Anybody else? One housekeeping measure on items for individual consideration, agenda item three. You see the letters A, B, and D. C was originally on there, but it got pulled. So it's just a clerical error. So it's not like C is--C isn't just not going to be used. So just wanted to bring that to everybody's attention before that may come up in the regular meeting. So it'll just be A, B, and D for agenda item three, items for individual consideration. Any other clarifications for this agenda item or for the consent agenda or the agenda in general? Yes, Councilmember Davis. Just a very brief comment actually on C and D. I just want to take a moment and recognize all the hard work that went into agenda item C and D, our meet and confer, both on behalf of the city management and labor. Excellent work all around, and I'm happy to see the results. Great. Thank you. Okay. Then we will move on to our work session reports agenda item three. Watch the whole room clear out. Y'all are welcome to stay if you like. It's good stuff. You want to hear it. All right. Agenda item three is receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction on potential revisions to the Dent City Council rules of procedure. In the presentation, there's going to be, I think, seven or eight decision points. So if we could just let her get through the presentation, then we'll deliberate and discuss on each one of those at the end. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm Rachel Wood with the Development Services Department now. Coming back in my previous capacity and chief of staff role to go through various rules of procedure, charter, and code of ordinances amendments that you all have requested over the past year, several of which we've already discussed, but we're seeking feedback today regarding how you'd like for us to proceed. As the mayor mentioned, there are eight different requested potential revisions that we're going to be going through today, included as exhibit three, and then you also have a hard copy on your desk, is kind of a simplified matrix outlining the request, outlining the current state of the code rules of procedure or charter requirement, listing the request for the potential revision and then the mechanism required to make that revision. So as we're going through each of these items, this matrix may help you kind of better understand the nuances of what's being requested and the required mechanism to make the requested revision. So each subsequent slide I'll go into in greater detail, but just as a quick synopsis, under the rules of procedure, revisions that we discussed include public participation in meetings both for open microphone as well as the public hearing aspect, the motion for reconsideration provision, the mayor's ability to make or second a motion, the tie vote provision, and then reading constituent emails during council meetings. Under code of ordinances, we need feedback from you on the leave of absence provision that currently does not exist within the city code, and then a potential charter amendment regarding the process for nominations to citizen boards, commissions, and committees. So as a quick reminder, the rules of procedure is outlined in section 2-29 of the City of Denton's code of ordinances. I won't read through each of these bullets, but essentially the rules of procedure outlines how we have our order of business and general meeting decorum for the city council as well as boards and commissions, and it also establishes the creation of committees, boards, and commissions. So the first set of requested revisions that we're going to go through are within the options for public participation in meetings, and I will note that back in April you received a very detailed ISR 2019-076 that is sent to the city manager Stuart Birdseye help draft that included several different aspects that we've been asked to provide feedback on. So currently, for topics not on the agenda, residents have two options to speak with council. They can either schedule a citizen report, which they have to do the Thursday prior to the council meeting date, and up to four speakers can speak for up to four minutes on any topic of their choosing. It just can't be an item on that specific city council agenda. Then we also have open microphone where residents, up to two residents, can speak for up to four minutes but must register with the city secretary prior to the start of the meeting in order to speak. Then residents also have the option to speak on scheduled agenda items. Those include comment on consent agenda items, comment on individual consideration items, and then residents currently have the option to speak once on each individual public hearing item. So the requested revisions that we've been asked to consider and kind of work through what those mechanisms to revise the rules of procedure and/or code of ordinances include potentially having unlimited open microphone or a dedicated public comment meeting. In the ISR that's included in your backup materials there are other cities that do have dedicated town hall where it's essentially a meeting dedicated to open microphone. We could certainly do that here. I know Frisco does that. If we were to proceed with having an unlimited open microphone option at city council meetings, that would require a rules of procedure revision because currently it does stipulate that only two speakers would be allowed for that. So moving on to public hearing, there has been a request recently to allow residents to speak more than once during each individual public hearing item. If the city council wanted us to proceed with that, we would need to bring forward a revision to the rules of procedure in order to allow individual residents to speak more than once per public hearing item. So that concludes kind of the public participation and meetings component. Moving on to a motion for reconsideration, the rules of procedure currently requires that motions for reconsideration be made at the next deceiving official council meeting. We've been asked to clarify does that include luncheons and it does. I know there was a legal status report that went out in April to that effect. That really limits the amount of time that elected officials have to make or request a motion for reconsideration on agendas. So the question we have for council is do you want to make a revision to your current rules of procedure to allow for additional time to make that motion for reconsideration? And the city attorney's office actually prepared suggested ordinance revision language and that's included as one of your exhibits recommending there be a 14 day deadline to make that motion or to place the motion on an agenda. So moving on to leave of absence, on April 2nd, we discussed leave of absence with you at length regarding the board of ethics where we had two members of the board of ethics report a leave of absence. The code of ordinances is currently silent on leaves of absence and really only identifies two types of absences, excused or unexcused. And those are outlined in section 2-83C of the code of ordinances. So currently more than three unexcused absences or missing more than 50% of meetings in a calendar year is constituted as cause for removal. Or there's also excused absences outlined in the code and those excused absences include things such as personal or family illness, needing to be out for matters related to employment, or anything that the committee finds qualifies as an excused absence and that's important. So right now, the code stipulates that the committee can determine if an absence is excused. The conversation we had on April 2nd seemed to lean towards the city council wanting to have that ultimate discretion regarding is an absence, be it a leave of absence or just an absence made by a board commission or committee member considered excused or unexcused. So if the city council did want to make it clear that it was ultimately up to the city council to make that decision, then a code of ordinances revision would be required to make that the case. So tie votes, as I know many of you are aware, under the current rules of procedure, matters which end in a tie vote are automatically placed on each subsequent agenda until that tie is broken. And back in December, you all passed a revision to the Denton Development Code that at least under the Planning and Zoning Commission treated tie votes as a denial by that commission. And so those denials would then come forward to the city council. That revision also removed the super majority requirement for council approval, making a simple majority apply. So the decision point we have for you on this is should the tie vote provision that's currently in the DDC be extended to all boards, commissions, and committees? Extending this provision would ultimately require rules of procedure revision in order to proceed. The next item isn't really a requested revision. This is an item where we've been asked to provide clarification. And this is on the mayor's ability to make or second a motion. So under Robert's Rules of Order, I'm sorry, I got ahead of myself there. So our current rules of procedure is silent on the mayor's ability to make or second a motion. And under instances where the rules of procedure is silent, Robert's Rules of Orders apply. So per Robert's Rules of Order, the mayor is considered a voting member of the body and has all the same rights, including making or seconding motions, that all other members of the city council have. Unless city council wants to change that, we're just providing clarification that that is currently the case. So nominations to boards, commissions, and committees, we have had a request recently to clarify if turnover on council constitutes a reason for or cause for removal from a board. Section 14.16 of the charter currently states that members of such boards and commissions may be removed only for cause and only after being given notice by the city council. And then sections 2-61 through 2-65 of the Code of Ordinances outline qualifications for board commission committee members and also outlines the removal process. Currently it's our interpretation that turnover on the city council does not constitute cause for removal. And so if we were to proceed with revising that, it would require both a charter amendment as well as associated Code of Ordinances revisions in order to have that apply. So the last item that we've been asked to further research and kind of provide that revision mechanism on is reading constituent emails during city council meetings. So from time to time, elected officials will read aloud constituent emails associated with various agenda items, and our typical process has been if full council didn't have access to that email going into the meeting, we'll attach the email in that week's Friday report so that full council as well as the general public has access to that item. If the city council wanted to formalize that requirement, that would require a Rules of Procedure revision, either stating that any emails read aloud during meetings would need to go in the Friday report, or you could require it going out in some other mechanism other than the Friday report. So quick reminder, these are the eight items that we just went through. And then today we're really seeking feedback from you all, how you would like us to proceed, if you would like for us to proceed on any of these items. Pending your feedback will then draft the necessary revisions and place those revisions on a future city council agenda for your consideration. Okay, everybody's got the summary sheet. I believe that's your chair. So we'll just go down the list and just open it up for discussion and direction. Okay, so the first one is the public comment, which is either unlimited public comment at a council meeting or to have a dedicated town hall. Okay. All right. Councilmember Meltzer. I think unlimited comment in the regular meeting isn't really practical. I mean, I know our meetings are pretty short and wouldn't mind extending five or six hours, but probably not practical, but I'd be quite open to trying a dedicated town hall for public comment. I think it could be time limited, not necessarily be unlimited as in we're going to have it from 630 to nine or something. And I think you could have both types of comments at that, those that are pre-submitted where councilmembers can respond and then those that are purely open mic. I don't think we know what the demand would be if there's a demand to do it weekly, monthly, quarterly. I think it'd be interesting to try and sort of see what the demand is. And I think if the demand is robust, probably the next step would be to go for something like quarterly. I wouldn't take the position that councilmembers should all feel obligated to attend that, but I would say we would want to make sure that we have a quorum, that those would be on the record. Those are my thoughts on that. >> Councilmember Briggs, and then who's requesting that, councilmember Davis? Okay. Okay. We'll just go around the horn. We'll go with councilmember Briggs. Is it okay, Jess, if we just go this way? Is that okay? All right. Thank you. Councilmember Briggs. >> Yeah, I don't really have a complete comment yet. My question is, is this in addition to what is current on our agenda, or would it completely take the place of? So open mic would go away on our regular agenda, because I'm not necessarily in favor of that, but I would be in favor of having an extra town hall. So I'm just not sure what we're being asked here to consider. >> That would all depend on the revision that we bring forward. We could leave the current public comment allowances and then add to that the dedicated town hall meeting. Would that just be based on the direction that we're given from you today? >> Well, then that would be my suggestion here would be just to leave the two as it is on our regular scheduled agenda and not take those or remove those open mics away, but have an additional town hall as listed here. >> Okay. >> Councilmember Ryan. >> Well, looking at how many people we normally have, I don't know how often, because we were limited to two on the open mic, if we ever end up with more than that, that we turn away. I don't see it, but it's rare that we ever have four that pre-register, so I think we were allowing some time. If we were going to make a change, I would think about the fact that, for the most part, we do meet four Tuesdays out of the month, but only two of them are regular meetings and the other two are special call, so I'd be open to adding it to our special call onto those agendas to allow citizen reports and open mics. >> Councilmember Armitage. >> Yeah, and I would like -- so I'm fine with the scheduled citizens' reports as they are. I'd also be okay with adding one, too, but as for the open mic, I'm fine with unlimited because, as Councilmember Ryan said, you know, we do only realistically have two sessions per month, generally, where speakers, members of the public can address the council without having signed up in advance, and I would propose for anyone skeptical about, you know, whether or not this would take up too much time, I would propose a test period where we could come up with a date certain, you know, by which we could decide if this works or not. As for -- Councilmember Meltzer had mentioned, you know, well, what if we have a time limit because each person is limited to four minutes, assuming that we stick with that time, then a time limit would also provide a finite limit to the number of speakers because, you know, because of how that's measured, so, you know, I think that it would be to our benefit to see who would come out and speak. I don't think it would be too many, but if we have a definite, definitive test period, that would be a good way to test it without committing ourselves to, you know, doing this permanently if we think it doesn't work out. Mayor Pro Tem? No, I think I would like a mechanism for citizens to speak twice, just because the applicants speak a number of times and there's new information that then they're almost frozen out of speaking, so I don't -- I've not heard anyone else want to visit that, but that's my individual request. And then -- I think we're going to get to that. I think we're just talking about the open mic and the unlimited and then the extra day, yeah. Okay. So then the extra -- I would advocate for the monthly -- I'm okay with the town hall, but I would ask that we swap it out for a Monday, so Monday's -- Monday luncheons would go away and then we'd have some sort of evening that -- on one of those special call meetings as -- because we have those monthly anyway and those with different community groups, so I would consider citizens amongst that, so just like we meet with the school board periodically in those type groups, put the citizens in that bucket and shift it to a Tuesday evening versus a Monday afternoon meeting. So yes, I would -- I'm okay with the town hall style, but as a caveat, I'd like to see it replace that month. There would be no Monday -- first Monday meeting because we're meeting with the citizens Tuesday evening. Okay. All right. Councilmember Davis. I guess for me, I'm not convinced of the inadequacy of what we already have. We have an opportunity for folks to pre-register before Thursday to speak on a specific item. The benefit of that is that we get to interact with them. We get to talk about that item at that point. We have some forewarning of what it's going to be. We get to do our research and get to ask that person questions when they come and speak. Then on each and every individual item, and we'll address the number of times you get to speak at a public hearing in a moment, but on each item, folks can then come forward and voice their thoughts on each agenda item. In addition to that, I'm sure that y'all's email inboxes are just as full as mine are, and you spend just as much time as I do responding to emails with folks. I find that when I'm able to have a conversation with somebody about their issue, when I'm able to interact with them about their issue, by the time that we bring that issue forward for the full council to consider, it's better fleshed out, it's better thought through. Sometimes it's as simple as we don't really need to talk about that on camera and in front of the whole town. That's an issue that we should put you off to someone who can address it right then, a person on the city staff who can address the issue and fix it for you, rather than putting it into an open forum. I'm not in favor of a town hall meeting once a month. I think we have lots of opportunities for folks to talk and comment, and I'm even leaving aside the private avenues that we have through Facebook and social media and all of those kind of ways that people have to bring their concerns forward. I think we've got a system that works pretty well. We can talk about how often you get to speak in a council meeting in a second. I don't see the failure of the current system. I don't see a reason to change it. >> Yeah, I would concur with that. I mean, I've been on council a long time, and I think there's -- in fact, we increased the number -- you raised your -- okay. All right. First -- on this subject? Okay. Yeah, I concur, I think, right now, especially for an open mic. We can't respond. We can't say anything, so it's just people getting up, and I appreciate their ability to come talk to us, but to have that unlimited when we're unable to do anything except in concluding items. So if there was a meeting, a separate town hall meeting, I would certainly want to understand what the purpose is. We've had the quorum issue. Is it going to be posted? If people are going to be pre-registered, does that mean we're going to take action at that? I mean, it basically just turns into another council meeting, which is okay if that's what people want to do, but I haven't seen necessarily a groundswell of people saying that they don't have accessibility to this body, but I'm certainly okay with -- if the decision is to have a separate meeting. I just don't think we need to do anything different in our current meetings. I think the structure we have now, which for me, it wouldn't change. That all stays the same. If we add another meeting, we add another meeting. If not, we don't. And so we've got eight items to go through, so I'm going to really ask you to limit yourself to two rounds of discussion and make them as concise and brief as possible, and then we'll try to figure out what kind of direction to give. Councilmember Briggs? Just another question for clarity, because I remember when I first was elected and got on council, I believe at one time it was four open mics, and then it was decreased to the two. So I'm wondering if a happy medium would be just to maybe put those back up instead of having a separate town hall and not make it unlimited, just add those two that were originally in, just throwing that out there as a -- Well, I need to understand more of the context of that, because I think what we did is we increased the number of registered or increased the amount of time that each person had. So it wasn't like we were decreasing something. I think we were balancing it with people who wanted to speak on something that they've registered for that we could actually respond to, because in the past, with citizen registered comments -- reports, we still couldn't -- we didn't talk to them. And so, yeah, I appreciate that, but I want to make sure we have the historical context of -- we just didn't all of a sudden say, we want to hear from less people. Yeah. Okay. Councilmember Armitage. So just to respond to just a couple points that have been made, yes, I recall that as well. In fact, I was present at the meeting as a member of the public when that change was made, and you're right that it wasn't just a decrease, it was also an increase of time for the scheduled reports, but for those who were dependent on the ability to be able to at the last minute come in and speak to a timely issue, their opportunity to do that was taken away. So I agree with Councilmember Briggs that at the very least, we should reinstitute that without changing the increase that we have in time and number of scheduled citizen reports. And secondly, as for those who have mentioned that they don't anticipate that there would be much of a change, that there's much of a need for a number of open mic reports beyond what we currently have, I would say that if that turns out to be the case, then expanding it to unlimited would not change anything substantively from what we currently have. But there's only one way to find out, and because we exist for the public, and it's our job to listen to them, they know that if they want to hear from us directly, they need to do a scheduled citizen report. If all they want is to speak to us, and also to speak to their fellow constituents publicly on camera, I think that we owe them that, and I think we should do a trial period. I'm fine with the town hall, if that's what people want, I can't get enough of listening to members of the public, so as far as that goes, it's just what the majority of my colleagues feels as for the town hall. >> Councilmember Davis. >> Very briefly, just in response, I like the happy medium idea, if there really is a perceived need for more opportunities for public comment, I'm fine with adding some additional open mic slots. Sometimes they'll be filled, sometimes they won't, we'll kind of see what the need is there. I just want to note though, I think that we owe our constituents and the public our attention, our ears, I don't know that we owe each of them a bully pulpit. I think we owe them the opportunity to be heard by their council members. We don't owe each and every one of them the time to be heard by the rest of the town. >> Okay. Anybody else? Yes, councilmember Ryan. >> Well, a happy medium might be that since we currently allow four scheduled and two open mics, just to say that it's a total of six speakers. So if you have just three, if you have three people that sign up, pre-register, then you've got three slots for open mic or such, and we were still allotting the same amount of potential time, but it would increase your open mic abilities up, as you would say. >> So what if, though, you had six registered speakers? >> Then that would be it. >> Okay. >> That's what I'm saying. We've allot that amount of time, and I don't know that I've ever seen more than three registered at any time when there's actually four slots there. >> What is the time that we allow for open mic? Is it four minutes the same? >> Four minutes. >> Yeah. I'm absolutely against unlimited time, even in a trial period, because we've seen by this body already today how difficult it is to walk something back that you put into place. We put an unlimited time in, and who's going to be willing to say, oh, we're going to take that away? It doesn't matter if there's five people that show up or three or four, so I'm adamantly opposed to that, for sure. I don't have an issue with maybe raising to three the number of open mic speakers. If that means, you know, but not adding an additional town hall meeting, as I think Council Member Briggs had advocated for, or had mentioned, not advocated for, but had mentioned that she'd be okay with moving that, increasing that number if it meant doing that in lieu of an additional town hall public meeting. I can go along with that in that regard. So we've got several things on the table, so I'm not sure exactly -- yes, Council Member Miller. >> What's your sense of the tally? Because you usually take notes when people talk. >> Well, I mean, what I'm hearing is I think everybody wants to keep it the same, say from Council Member Armitter and Briggs, what we currently have, but with the caveat of let's open up on this particular item, not any of the other ones, maybe allowing for more open mic speakers on our regular council meetings that we have. As far as a town hall meeting, public town hall meeting, actually, I think you probably got four to do that. I think -- did you advocate for -- if you got an additional or whatever, a number amount of open mics in addition to a regular meeting, you're okay with not having a town hall meeting? >> Correct. >> Okay. Council Member Ryan, I'm not -- I can't recall. You're okay with where we are? Yeah. >> With where we are. >> Okay. So I'll retract that. So let's put the proposition out on the table of keeping it the way it is, save for and accept the open mic portion of our regular meetings to look at do we want to increase that number of actual speakers and do we want to provide the same amount of time or do we want to maybe say on the open mic when -- because we can't respond, we can't really say much, do we want to provide more people, reduce the time, provide more people, keep the time the same? Four minutes is a long time. I mean, if we started talking -- when each person started talking four minutes, you get a lot said in four minutes. So what's the council's pleasure? I'm okay with moving it -- somebody's got to start it. I'm okay with adding one to three at four minutes. We just keep it all the same but add an extra open mic for those additional four minutes. >> Yeah. I'm fine with that -- with the notion that, you know, we're going to keep an eye on it and see -- >> Sure. >> Is it filling up fast? >> Yeah. Okay. >> We're going to have to be making decisions for all time here. I think the gist of my comments really was let's see what the demand is. >> Yeah. Well, and I do want to add the caveat that Councilmember Davis said, and that is I certainly want it to be used efficiently and effectively for the public and what they want to talk about. Of course, they can talk about anything, and we just would have to ask that they respect the process. >> If I may add really quickly, Mayor, I've heard a few of you reference trials, and because it's currently stipulated in the rules of procedure, rules of procedure revisions do require two city council meetings to be adopted, so a trial would end up taking several weeks in order to implement, and then if you wanted to change the trial, that would subsequently take at least two more council meetings to either undo or alter. >> Okay. All right. >> Yeah, I would like to increase it by at least two. Again, my preference would be unlimited, but since it looks like now we're talking about the number, and the reason why is because, and I like Councilmember Ryan's idea that if the allotted number of scheduled citizens' reports aren't filled up to allow those to go to an open mic, I think that we should do that regardless. I think that's a really reasonable idea. But for some people, I want to say especially, maybe not especially, but certainly in any case for parents with young children who don't even know if they can attend a meeting until the last minute getting child care plans squared away, not everybody has the luxury of being able to plan and to schedule in advance, even if you do know what you want to talk about far in advance, so they're overlapping a cross-section of the public that would do open mic and scheduled citizens' reports, but I think that they're distinct to some extent because of child care issues and other scheduling issues that some people don't know about to the last minute. That's why I would request at least two more of the open mic. >> Anybody else? >> Yeah, so I think we basically got on the table three or four at the same time allotment. So Councilmember Davis. >> I kind of like Councilmember Ryan's suggestion about allowing the allotment to flex a little bit if we don't have, but then maybe we add an additional spot, so right now it's at six total and maybe we add the additional and allow the flex, so we've added an additional spot, but if there are not four people who have registered in advance, then those spots are available for open mic, and so we've only added, in theory, we've only added four minutes to the meeting. >> All right. >> Of course, administratively, I think we'd need to, I mean, obviously when the agenda comes out on Friday we know how many are scheduled, but we don't necessarily post, I mean we post the open mic agenda, but we'd somehow just have to make sure that everybody's educated in that regard. >> There's probably something we could do within the agenda system to note. For example, we've got four scheduled citizen reports, so there are two spaces available for open mic. >> Because I believe it's the public safety officer who takes those blue cards for the open mic, and we'd certainly need to let them know ahead of time what the slot number is, so that we don't sign people up who aren't going to be able to speak, because that would create a situation in and of itself. Okay. So what I'm hearing is maybe with Councilmember Ryan's suggestion of creating just sort of the number of slots, and right now we have six between citizens report and open mic, moving that up to seven, and having that flexible ability to flex as far as what number is with each one of those items. Is that -- I mean, I'm okay with that. I'm seeing heads shaking, so I'm not hearing -- first of all, I've not heard any affirmative objection to that, so we're going to go ahead and go with that. Okay, then, speaking more than once at a public hearing. Councilmember Briggs. >> I believe that the individuals who come to speak should be allowed to speak again if after they've heard a developer or a comment or a staff response. I know it's happened before where the applicant has been able to come up several different times, and then you have somebody in the audience that are waving their hand, or some new information has come up, and we're like, sorry, you know, and I think it's kind of -- I don't like that feeling and I'd like to allow them the opportunity to come back up if they're requesting it. >> Okay. Who else? Councilmember Davis. >> I agree with that. I certainly agree with the spirit of -- I worry a little bit about the implementation and how that would work. You know, it's easy enough when it's, you know, one kind of spokesperson for one neighborhood, but when you have a big issue and you've got a number of people and now everyone kind of gets back in the queue to go again without some kind of precipitating event, you know, a developer coming to -- or an applicant coming to speak again or a question changing the thinking of the council. So I'd be really careful about the procedure. The other thing I worry about is it kind of puts the chair in a tough spot to say, well, how -- you know, who gets to speak next if there's this many of you? How many of you actually get to speak and how long does this public hearing go on? Is it just ad infinitum because now we've allowed everybody to here's your first three minutes and here's your next three minutes and here's your next three minutes. So there's got to be some kind of precipitating event that gives someone another opportunity to speak. And I think we've got to put a limit on the number of times, yes, maybe speaking one more time towards the conclusion after the applicant, after a round of questions, something like that. >> Councilmember Meltzer. >> I think with the applicant, there's a total on the amount of time they can speak. And I don't know if that -- if we kind of decrement that budget each time they come up. If we do, you know, that might be a model, right, where you're saying, yes, you can come back, but nobody can speak for more than ten minutes or something. >> Well, my understanding is the applicant on their original presentation gets -- is it ten minutes? Ten minutes? Is that right? Yeah. Ten minutes. I think the question -- the genesis of this is when council enters into discussion with the developer -- or the applicant, excuse me, with questions and potential remedies based upon public hearing that was before. So most of that time frame is used in responding to council questions and discussion. So they can speak for ten minutes straight in their presentation and, of course, entertain questions. Just like -- I mean, I think the public gets four minutes per person in a public hearing. I believe it's four minutes. And then, of course, they can respond to questions from councilmembers as well. Councilmember Marmotter. >> So I think that each member of the public should get at least as much time as a developer gets. I think that's a good bare minimum standard. So if the developer gets ten minutes, then, you know, each member of the public should get two and a half of their currently allotted -- 250% of their currently allotted time. >> So you're saying each member of the public should get ten minutes to speak. >> Yeah. At least. Have the opportunity. Doesn't mean they're going to. In fact, my guess would be that most wouldn't. But I've seen it happen so many times that, you know, members of the public make a case and a developer will speak and you can just see the shockwaves through the audience and people whispering and sometimes they can't even contain themselves and they say that's not true because people are talking about their own neighborhood and they want to speak out about it. So I think that -- I mean, I would be for having an unlimited for public hearing because I actually think that people would not go on and on forever. But as a bare minimum, I would say at least give them each -- I think that allotting it would be too complicated a job for the city secretary to have to consider, okay, here's this person, here's how long they spoke for but to say that you get, you know, maybe two times to speak for four minutes and then one time to speak for two minutes and then every person can know that they have that opportunity to speak as much as a developer. That would be my bare minimum. >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> So I -- jump the gun, but yeah, so I like this approach. I agree with Councilmember Davis as I process the -- how we would enact that. So I guess my answer would be to have that availability and delegate that to the -- who's ever chairing the meeting. So because oftentimes that gives you the flexibility you need if there is a substantive kind of feedback from a particular speaker, it allows you that -- empowers you to then allow them to come back versus tying your hands saying I'm sorry, I can't. So it gives you kind of an opportunity to reach a room, fill out the speaker and what's going to be added, that type of thing. So that's kind of my fix to it. It would be that it's nebulous and that there's not a hard and fast rule, but the chair kind of has that authority to run the meeting. >> I think we've got a process in place and it doesn't necessarily go this way always, but it seems that the primary time that this occurs is after the public speaks, then the applicant gets up, makes a presentation, then we enter into all this council discussion with staff and all that, and then it raises additional questions out in the public. So I think -- and I don't think we need to change this part of it in the rules, that every time in a public hearing, the application is the first to speak. Because then that means you get as much of that information up out front as you can, and council can have an opportunity to ask questions, and then after the applicant sits down -- and it's not just make a presentation. We flush it out. We have our discussion up there to try to understand what's being asked for. And then the public can come up to speak at the end. After four minutes. If for some reason the applicant is pulled back up for questioning and discussion, I'm real okay with after the end of that, that the public have an opportunity to respond, but I know that sometimes in a courtroom, you can only respond as a rebuttal. You can't come back and make your whole argument again, which was the first one that you made, that you need to respond to the new information that has been presented. And I think that's fair. But it would not be used to have a whole other platform to just simply repeat everything you said before, because you had an opportunity to do that. And if the applicant did not come up a second time, and the public spoke after the applicant, public hearing is closed, because everybody has heard the information and the public has had the last opportunity to speak on that. So I'm okay with some form of that. I'm not okay with giving each person in the public ten minutes. However, what I just proposed is almost giving them eight, because they can come up and talk again if there's other conditions that are brought up that they did not know about and did not have an opportunity to speak. But it's limited to the rebuttal. And that would be at the discretion of the chair, because you just have to -- I mean, you know what's been brought forward before, and you know what's new information. So you had your hand up. >> Well, I was waiting to hear if you had in mind an amount of time. >> Yeah. >> You're saying they get another four minutes. >> Yeah. They get to four minutes. But my hunch is, if it's limited to rebuttal, then they might not need four minutes. Councilmember Ryan? >> Well, I would say if it's limited to rebuttal, we could go well below that four minutes. It could be a minute. We can always ask additional questions that extends their time out. So they -- you know, the public easily can end up being up at that podium for a total of over ten minutes just based on questions and responses. >> Sure. Sure. >> Okay. All right. Yes. Councilmember Armitage? >> So I like what was proposed as a second choice to what I had recommended. My one qualifier would be that -- and if I understand you correctly, maybe I didn't hear correctly. So I like the idea that the developer gets to speak first so that the public can essentially have the last word. That's how I put it. I like that. But as I understand it, you had mentioned that the developer or the applicant would speak, council would discuss it, and then the public gets to speak. And I wouldn't want to -- and I don't know if that was just an example or something that we want to make a concrete policy, but I would want to make sure that the public has a chance to comment before we have our official kind of first discussion of the substance of the application. If that makes any sense. >> Yes. Well, I think that discussion as far as specific questions the council has, there's a distinction between our discussions with the applicant on questions we have, questions of clarification, and then our deliberations on how we want to handle the issue. So I think that we would just need to know that during the applicant's presentation, whatever we think is dispositive for the public to know as far as what I need from the applicant, the questions that I need to get answered, and if they're not answers I like, how to continue to probe that with the applicant. I think the crosstalk, the deliberation between ourselves would be something that would occur outside the public hearing. >> That makes sense. Councilman Ryan, I understand what you're saying about the reduction in time. I hesitate to do that -- I mean, it certainly would make the chair's job easier because then in two minutes, you're done. But I mean, the chair would just need to make sure that they are holding them to the rebuttal. And it's going to really take a concerted effort on all of our parts to make sure that we have some very clear questions and some very clear answers from the applicant. I think sometimes this negotiation at the Diocese, sometimes we've done in the past, we need to really limit that because I think that will frustrate what we're trying to achieve here. So I mean, I would go ahead and keep it to the four minutes. That's what I would propose, just understanding that if it's kept to that -- and people may use the whole four minutes and if they do, they do. We've been here a long time in public hearings before. In essence, the public gets the last word outside of once the public hearing is closed, if we have deliberations, now what we have to be cautious about is in those deliberations after the public hearing is closed that we really don't introduce a whole lot of new information or requests to the applicant. It's really going to be incumbent upon this body to keep in mind the intent of what we're trying to do here so that a lot of those discussions and deliberations may occur within that public hearing so that the public is able to respond at the end. Is that something that people could live with? I mean, I say on a trial basis, I totally understand what you're saying. If we saw that it got out of hand and that the chair just -- it's too difficult to have to just really rein people in on, hey, this isn't rebuttal, and then you get into a discussion or an argument about why it is or why it isn't, then we might go ahead and have to put in a little bit more formal time limit. I totally get that. >> Just really quick to clarify, Mayor, totally tracking everything that's been said, but the rules of procedure does currently outline the process for public hearings, so this would require a revision that we have to bring forward. >> Yes. Okay. Okay. Motion for reconsideration? Councilmember Briggs. >> Question. So it said in the presentation that there was -- the 14 days was suggested. Does that line up with the open meetings requirement? >> It does. >> Okay. So it's -- >> Yeah. The agenda would be posted. It would be a posted item on the agenda for whichever agenda is requested within that 14-day period. >> Yeah. So I'm fine with it lining up with the open meeting requirements? >> Yeah, the requirement, there's just the 72-hour posting. >> Councilmember Armitage and then Councilmember Davis. >> So I don't want to make a change on this, you know, and the reason why is because I like that there's a short period and I like that the default is if you're not entirely sure how you want to vote, you always have the option of voting no and making it clear in your words to the public, look, I'm going to vote no, but here's why. And I worry -- and my worry might be unfounded, quite frankly. So I'm not 100% confident in this, but I would worry that people would vote yes to something if they're not sure, thinking, well, if something comes up or, you know, I get a lot of angry letters, I can always, you know, move to reconsider. I don't want that to be the default, again, I don't mean to say that I'm confident that everybody would use it that way, I just feel like it opens up that possibility. So that's why I'm against making a change in that. >> Councilmember Davis. >> So in my mind, and I think in Mr. Roberts' mind also, a motion to reconsider is because something has changed, not necessarily that the person who votes' mind has changed, but the facts on the ground have changed, and our current procedure, if you have a meeting on a Tuesday, a vote is undertaken, and then new information comes to light, you only have until the next posting, the 72-hour posting, which is not even the entire rest of that week to kind of absorb the new information and make a decision on reconsideration. So I think 14 days is enough time to, you know, for new information to come to light. I don't -- I hope that nobody takes this as the opportunity to change their mind a lot, I don't think they will. I think it's when things are different than we thought they were, and remember, you have to be a person who voted in the majority to introduce the motion to reconsider. So it wouldn't be, you know, a second bite of the apple for the vote, it would be things change, something's different, and I think 14 days is an appropriate length of time to do that. >> Mayor Pro Tem? >> Yeah, no, I'd like to do -- and this is no secret, I'd like to do away with the whole thing. It's to say 14 days, you start a project, you have planning, you have schedules, you have construction going forward, and you could move forward with a yes vote from this council, and then to think that 14 days later this council could then come back and say, wait a minute, we've had a change of heart. And then also, for anyone that would say that they're advocates of open meetings, this is the polar opposite of it. You have an open conversation, an open vote, an open dialogue, then you have private, private consideration that then triggers a revisit of your vote. What is that private? What is that? None of us have webcams on 24 hours a day. This is absolutely anti everything that is open meetings, and I want to do away with the entire thing. Everyone I talk to is shocked that it's an option. Your word is your word. If something significantly changes, then that's incumbent upon us to -- I don't know what that situation would be that between the seven members of this body that would not unearth what needs to be addressed. So yeah, I absolutely -- I'm against it holistically. I'm against the 14 days, absolutely. >> Yes, Councilmember Ryan. >> I think 14 days seems a little bit long. I think I'd be fine with seven because that gives you seven days to actually add it to the agenda the way I'm reading it up there. I think our current system is a little short because of the turnaround time, and you've got to get notifications so it can get posted. Similarly speaking, if we're meeting every Tuesday, if it's a seven day, the next Tuesday you can request something from the previous week, go into that. It's not used that often, that it's pretty much only going to be when there's a four or three vote that that's going to come into play. And I think I was one of the ones who kind of suggested a slightly longer time period. Another question I have, I guess, for legal would be, is it possible, much like we have the ability to go into closed session, the ability to, you know, we've got some kind of open items, so to speak, to add on to our agenda where you could make the motion to reconsider at the next meeting as opposed to in concluding items, that it would just be a posted item to make comment on something, kind of like our concluding, but it would You're talking about having a standing item on the agenda for prior items from the previous meeting if the council person wants to take action and reconsider. Yeah, and considering how infrequent it happens, I'm just wondering if there's something that could be put into one of the, you know, if it's something that could be added in to something or obviously concluding items you could ask for it if we went to seven days, we get it, we could include that and we just had to modify the rules procedure to do that. Okay. So I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but, you know, my question would be, I mean, I would be skeptical that that would adhere to TOMA if not the actual, you know, guidelines as TOMA as it's written the precedent, which I don't know all about, but I'm guessing that there's, I would at least want to know and to have legal look into kind of precedent on motions to reconsider that have been made, you know, without posting and what the rulings have been from the attorney general or, you know, whoever on that, that would be a consideration of mine. I also want to say along the lines of what council member Hudspeth said. I think he, I agree with the point that, and I didn't mention this, but it's true that it's also feels to me kind of an offense to the idea of open meetings. If we extend it, you know, I'm fine having it there as a possibility, since it's pretty standard and things happen, things change, as council member Davis mentioned. That's why I'm not for extending it, but if a majority does want to extend it, which I hope doesn't happen, I would want some sort of requirement and I'm not going to pretend to lay all this out, have this spelled out right now, but something where it could be assured in public, the public would have to see, you know, here is who I spoke to, you know, did you speak to the applicant during this time, yes or no, you know, who did you speak to on council, yes or no, even outside of a rolling quorum, walking quorum, whatever it's called. You know, who, even who did you speak to on staff? I think that would be good to know if we're going to extend it. I just have a question. Is it possible within the same meeting where an item is voted on to make a motion to reconsider? Is that, I don't think it's ever come up, but is that available? I don't think it is under a rules procedure at that point. I'm trying to think under -- you're talking about actually there's been formal action on the item. It's been approved by council. Yeah. We're going to fall back into our rules procedure that we had to follow at that point. We've got that set out in the rules procedure, so that's going to trump Robert's rules on that. If I could ask a follow-up to that? So here's an example. So I'm assuming you're saying make a motion to reconsider within the same meeting? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, within the same meeting. We take a vote on X, and somewhere in the next 30 minutes or an hour something happens and people realize something -- I don't know what the example would be, but is there availability because you will be making a motion to reconsider within the timeframe of our current ordinance, but the thing is, is there a posting issue if you make a motion to reconsider a posted item within that same agenda, within that same meeting? Is that -- That's exactly it. Yeah. What you have to look at is council has deliberated on the item, they've taken a formal vote on the item, they've concluded their action on the item at that point, and now what you walk into is square into the teeth of the rules procedure that you've already set out for yourself, and that's going to be having to go through the posting on the motion to reconsider. We're going to get thrown back into that. I guess what I would suggest to you is that it would be within the same -- conceptually within the same posting, right? You're still talking about that item that the public has been posted to come to a meeting about. And again, I don't know if this will ever come up, but I think the thing that we want to protect for is the possibility that we suddenly find out this person had a false identity or, I don't know, something sudden would you be able to say, hold on. Well, I think what you could do is we could modify the rules procedure to allow that to happen at the same meeting, and if it doesn't, then we fall back into the current process that we have. Yeah. Okay. Then, you know, I don't know if it would ever come up, but if it ever did, I think that ought to be possible. Other than that, I'm really against changing this. I think it opens the door to mischief, frankly. I think my only concern with having the opportunity for a motion to reconsider during the same meeting after counsel has taken a vote, and if it happens further on down in the meeting, then if there was anybody there from the public to talk about this, they've left, and then we're going to all of a sudden bring something back up and have a whole other discussion about it. That would be my only hesitation to do that is that it would -- I don't know if it would be proper notice. I don't even know if it's -- it might not even -- it might be legal, but I think we need to be careful of that. Okay. I've got a couple more. Go ahead. I've just got a couple more comments. Well, I was just going to say, on a motion to reconsider, you're not voting if it was something that was approved, and that motion, which you vote on on that motion, puts it on a future agenda if -- If that's how you want to do it, yes. Yes. If the motion to reconsider passes. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like we'd take it up right then and there. That's a good point. That's a good point. Okay. I stand correct. But out of that, I don't necessarily have a desire to change this. The notion that, you know, are people going to talk? Are council members going to talk to people during this short timeframe that we currently have prescribed? I mean, we've passed something that really encourages us or prohibits us from doing that. Additionally, Mayor Pro Tem, to your point on the opposite end of the spectrum of, you know, hey, if something comes up, I remember way back when that we could -- somebody could have a vote and there could be a representative there for the applicant that just wholly messes it up. I mean, they just get it wrong. In other words, they ask for something that they're confused, and I had that happen one time where, you know, someone called me up and said, that is not what he was supposed to do or he or she was supposed to do. Then you wonder, does that mean they can't come back and change it for a year? Because it really wouldn't be a substantial change other than, no, this is -- he shouldn't have done this, then we'd have to figure out, is it a substantial change? So I get it. I don't disagree with the concept or the principle of what you're saying. I think on the opposite, I wouldn't want to necessarily lock somebody out where there's been an egregious mistake that we aren't even aware of unless you just want to say, hey, you should have -- your consultant should have got it right. You sort of bear the risk and danger of that. I certainly want to make sure that we provide -- I mean, we're here to do the business of the city in a way that tries to meet the interests of everybody we're trying to protect and promote. And I think sometimes too much rigidity can impact that, and I think too much flexibility can impact that. But I'm okay with leaving it the same. If it's okay to make a motion to reconsider within the same meeting, not to re-deliberate on the issue, but just to put it on the next one -- I mean, we make motions to postpone that aren't posted. We do all these kinds of things. I would be open to that. I think that just provides more flexibility. And it's public. I mean, it's public. You're not asking for it from the city manager or the city attorney to, hey, add this to the agenda. So I'm okay with that. But other than that, I'm fine with the rules the way they are. So I'm trying to keep an understanding -- not a tally, not a poll, trying to understand the direction. So who would give the direction that we may consider modifying the rules and procedure to add additional time? I think Councilmember Davis, you expressed a desire that you would be okay with additional time. Councilmember Ryan, but yours wasn't 14 days. >> Yeah, it wasn't 14. I thought it was 7 because that's basically meeting the meeting. It takes out that 72-hour window that we actually have to pronounce in advance. >> So let me ask the question in the opposite. Who's okay with just sort of leaving it the same? I'm okay with just leaving it the same. And then we'll address your caveat. Councilmember Barmiter seems to express -- okay. So it seems like -- yes, Councilmember Davis. >> I think I can be okay with leaving it the same. And I'll tell you why. I looked at the rule, and it says the motion can be made not later than. I think you can already make it in the meeting, and really, my only real concern of this whole thing is that we leave the mechanism. It has an important parliamentary function, that we leave it there. It's not just for when a developer wants another bite of the apple. It's for when we mess up, when we pass the wrong ordinance. We pass something that needs a typo fixed, and if we don't do it this way, we've got another six months to wait until we can take it up again. So I'm okay with leaving it as it is if we have the understanding that you can make the motion not later than the next meeting. >> Yes. >> Let me start with a question. So Larry, can you help me understand the process is in place because in the eyes of the ordinance/laws, once we vote, an item is concluded directions given that ship is sailed. Is that correct? >> Correct. >> Yeah. And so the issue I have with the example laid out by Councilmember Davis is as the rules stipulate, it is a done deal. And so, and then when you're talking about, it's apples to oranges in your comparison. You're talking about a clerical error, which would be obvious. Because we would say, hey, we need to reconsider this for a document error. Now, that's wholly different from me in private recollection saying, hey, I want a do-over. So if you're talking about a clerical error that we need to fix or someone has to give me an example of an actual issue that fits that model, who went home and how do we know who you talked to, what you did, what you thought about, who called you, who text you, who emailed you, you have no idea. So a clerical error is obvious. There's a recorded meeting. Someone documented it. Here's how we got that wrong. That is totally different from someone just going home and it's happened with great frequency last year to me. And you're talking about thousands of dollars for people putting up and starting work and then having to stop the work and come back, re-notice. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of money. And I've not heard one example where it's transparent leading up to that process. There's been no -- of the votes in the three years I've been here, none of those votes have been transparent. It was all, oh, by the way, this is back. And we have no idea why. We just know who did it. So I'm listening, but I don't hear an example of a transparent process that led to a reconsideration. That's what I'm listening for. >> So it sounds like to me what you're saying is that you don't want this as a protection against -- I'm not sure quite how to say it, but kind of inappropriate activity behind the scenes, either deal making or -- you certainly don't want it if somebody just says, you know what, I've sort of had a change of heart. I want to change my vote based upon whatever it is. I mean, is that what I'm understanding you to say? >> Yes, sir. >> I'm looking for a mechanism that follows the open meeting spirit of things. How do I know when you left the open meeting who you talked to, who contacted you, et cetera, that triggered the reconsideration? >> Okay. Well, I do know that when you take up a motion for reconsideration, the individual who has asked for that is required, I believe, to give a reason for that motion for reconsideration. Now you could say, are they being truthful? We don't know what happened behind the scenes and are they going to tell us, well, I met with so-and-so or I had this person email me, this citizen email me. So I understand what you're saying and I don't necessarily disagree with the spirit of what you're saying. I think for me, well, first of all, the example you gave was before this body voted on a resolution to try to dissuade any conversation with applicants until that we made a vote on until the expiration of the motion for reconsideration. So number one, we're prohibited from doing that. Now based upon your comments, that doesn't necessarily mean that people don't do it. But I guess I'm going to put more stock in that if you haven't, then whoever is asking for it is going to have to give a reason. So I get it. I just can't go that far. It's a little bridge too far for me as far as saying we don't have it at all. And I think, though, they are used a little bit more judiciously and introspectively because of I think our conversation in the past about it. So that's why I'm okay with and additionally, if the motion for reconsideration is made during the meeting that the actual item has taken place, well, then there's no I mean, it's all public. It's all open. There's I mean, you might make a phone call during a break, I guess, you know, but somebody's going to have to give a reason on why they want to do that. But I totally understand your position. Absolutely. Yes, Councilmember Marmotor. So question for whoever can answer it. So I know that one has to give a reason for a motion to reconsider, but is it specified in the rules of procedure what those possible reasons can be or are we just kind of, you know, assuming on good faith, you know, that it would, you know, be for X kind of reasons and not Y kind of reasons? Well, looking at looking at the rule, I mean, it states such motion can only even be made by a member who voted with the failing side and there's nothing in here. And that's that's my memory of so I, I would like to see. This is not something I had originally said, but but it's an addition that's consistent also with my not wanting to extend it that I think it would be nice to have, you know, it has to be this kind of reason and you have to provide it in writing, you know, a form to fill out like our recusal form, you know, not pages and pages of paperwork, but to say who you talk to something that a piece of work that should take less than a minute for anybody who knows what they've themselves have done in the past 24 hours and what their reasons are, you don't have to argue the case, just state your reason and or maybe even circle, you know, which one of the following and then write what it is. I would be in favor of that if others would agree that that would do a lot to ensure the public's trust because member, I am in favor of leaving it the same without any other kind of requirements added when we do request that, like you said, Mayor, we do have to come before this Council, we have to present our case, I have done the one motion to reconsider and it had to do with the car wash in the neighborhood and it was because of that presentation with the developer at the time, there wasn't information, I didn't think all of it was clear, I went ahead and voted yes, it wasn't, I didn't go off home and have some meeting in the dark, you know, with a developer and all of this stuff or something, it was because I took solace with myself and I didn't have all the questions that I wanted answered and so that is why I did that and then this Council allowed that reconsideration to come up forward and I think that process worked fine, it worked the way that it should have worked and I didn't see any issues with it at the time and I don't now. >> Okay. We're going to wrap this up. So I guess I need -- it sounds like there's consensus to keep it the same with the caveat of is there availability and the opportunity to make that motion during the same meeting if that's a violation of either Open Meetings Act as far as regarding specificity of postings, I think that's the only question to research. >> Correct. I think Councilmember Davis hit on something. I think you could probably do it but I don't think the rule is artfully drafted to get us exactly to where we want to go on that. I think we probably want to revisit drafting that to make sure it's clear in there. >> So if you could -- when we come back with the ordinance, if you could provide that, that would be wonderful because it's going to be in the ordinance anyway. We've been going for about an hour and a half, 15 minutes. Let's take a quick break and we'll come back and take up the rest of these. Welcome, everybody, back to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, September the 24th, 2019. It is 3.24 p.m. We are moving down through our work session items, returning from a break. We are on still work session item 3A, which is our first work session. So I just want to let everybody know we still have six or seven work sessions and I think we'll get through it but we'll plow forward. So we're moving through our list of potential rules of procedure changes, asking for Council direction on, I believe, eight items. So we've gone through the first three. We're now on the leave of absence. Yes, Council Member Meltzer. I think I actually laid out a way forward on this last time we discussed it. I didn't really see capture of the notes, frankly, which is that a member of one of these bodies should be able to request a leave of absence for whatever reason. Council can say, yes, we grant the leave of absence or we don't. If it's granted, that's excused. If it's not granted and they take it anyway, that's unexcused. And that the granting of leave of absence would also trigger the opportunity for the Council Member who was the appointing member to make a temporary appointment for the duration of that leave of absence. In other words, I need a three-month leave of absence because I'm going to be on jeopardy and I intend to win every week, which you probably would never anticipate and put in the rules, but I bet if it came up, you'd grant that leave. And then, you know, that would grant it. That's an awful big assumption. If somebody came up and said, I'm going to leave three months, don't be on jeopardy, I think I'd be like, well... I think they'd get five votes. So I don't know if we need to settle that now, but in any event, once the leave of absence is granted, that's an excused absence, then let's say that was, you know, Council Member Davis's appointee, he could then make a temporary appointment, someone whose term is the duration of that leave, a three-month, you know, you could have -- then the reason for that is the issue was with leaves of absence, you know, we have trouble making quorum for some of these bodies, so that's a protection against running -- lack of quorum risk. So generally, you have alternates in some of these bodies that would move into that position, but you could, you know, appoint another alternate to cover for that leave. So that's what I propose. >> Okay. >> So really quickly, Council Member Meltzer, just to, I guess, help clarify why this item is on today's agenda, right now, our interpretation of Section 2-83C is it's ultimately up to the board commissioner committee to determine what qualifies an excused absence, and so if I heard you correctly, you're suggesting that Council should ultimately make that recommendation, so that would require a revision to that section of the code. >> For a leave of absence. >> We can specify. >> Which is like an extended thing, you know, not a one-time thing. >> I'm not for leave of absences. I think they can be -- I'm okay with Council determining if it's an excused or an unexcused absence, and I think the Council could do that if somebody is asking for three months of excused absences, simply because I think it's -- this isn't an all-inclusive list. This isn't an exhaustive list up here. But I think that if somebody is going to be gone for a pretty long length of time, I mean, you're going to miss a lot of what is going on in that particular -- and this really hasn't come up, honestly, until the leave of absences that were taken on the Ethics Board. I mean, I don't recall this coming up, at least that I can recall before, so -- and the Council can have the decision, can make the determination, hey, this is an excused absence for whatever reason. But I just -- I'm not for adding another category of leave of absence. I think we can accomplish your goal or that goal within this policy if we change it to Council, and then also with the caveat of if the Council is going to provide that, then the appointing member could provide a temporary or an alternate -- because that's when we have alternates, is in case somebody's not able to make it. But I don't think this is going to be a really big issue, but it's certainly something we need to prepare for. Councilmember Davis? So the thing that I think is most important about this question is really where the determination lies on who has an excused or unexcused absence and when folks ought to be asked to step down from a committee that they can't fulfill the obligations of or that we actually, hopefully, don't have to remove them for that reason. I agree with you, Mr. Mayor, that I don't think a leave of absence -- what's the saying? If you love something, you have to be able to let it go. If you want to serve on this board but you can't meet the obligations, then the duty of a person serving on these boards who can't help that board meet a quorum is to step down, is to move on and do something different. So I think the Council, as our appointees, we should make the determination on who is excused and unexcused, but I don't think we want to invite extended absences with a leave of absence policy. Councilmember Armitage? So first of all, as a small point, so the plural is leaves of absence and not leave of absences, but I want to throw something out here, so I'm okay with leaves of absence, but I do think that there should be some checks and balances to it. I'm fine with the idea of Council, as Councilmember Meltzer said, being the deciding factor on that, but as a Councilmember, what I would want to know is, well, what does the rest of the committee think? Is it inconveniencing their work for that member of the board or commission or committee for this leave of absence? So I would also be -- so I would be fine with Council deciding. I would also be fine with leaving it up to the committee and having it come back to Council, only if the committee says no, we're not okay with that, then Council could reconsider. But I would be in favor of empowering the committee in that way and having it come back to Council only if they said no. Okay. I'm not -- summarize that. So you're okay with a leave of absence category? So several things. So I'm okay with a leave of absence category that would either come back to Council or preferably -- so this would be my first choice would be that it would first go to the committee and the committee would get to decide, and only if the committee decided no, we don't think that's a sufficient excuse for a leave of absence or the leave is too long or whatever, only then would it come back to Council. But I think in most cases that I could think of, hypothetically, if the committee was okay with it, if it wasn't impeding their work too much as a collective body, then I would be okay with it. It would be if they said no, you know, I would want to look and see why. Council would be an appeal process. Okay. Council Member Ryan. I'm not in favor of the leave of absence on this. I think that can be done between the appointee and the council member. You just go to whoever appointed you, you say, look, I'm going to be gone for three months, you turn in your resignation, that council member could find somebody that they're going to ask to be on there for three months, then they resign and you reappoint the first one. So I think that's a better route because sometimes if you need three months off for something, it could end up being 6, 9, 12, 14 months. Anybody else? So, okay, well, I'm saying -- I've heard from -- okay. Council Member Meltzer, share your -- Well, I'm okay with the variations that people are discussing, you know, I think people are sort of beating on it and perfecting it. I mean, we're trying to find ways to accommodate that situation. And I don't have like a huge, you know, hard for like that it has to be council, that it can't be, you know, appeals process. Everything discussed so far seems fine with me, frankly. But they're all about accommodating the possibility that in a -- well, except for Council Member Davis, you know, in a four-year term, things can come up that might be three months. Well, I think what I heard Council Member Davis say and what I was subscribed to and I think I thought what I heard Council Member Ryan say is we're not necessarily for creating an official formal category of leave of absence. Yes, but there might be another way to accommodate those situations. Yeah, that it could be excused absence and -- okay. All right. And that the council -- now, the only -- as I think Council Member Davis pointed out, the primary question is right now that decision lies with the committees, boards, and commissions. Is that correct? For granting excused absences, correct. For granting excused absences, which would be, hey, I want an excused absence for a month for xx. And so the real question is do we let that rest with the council? And I guess for me, I don't necessarily have a great heartburn to take that on unless it extends beyond a certain amount. I mean, somebody's going to be absent two meetings. When does council take up that? I mean, do we want to be considering that's an excused absence, that's unexcused absence, but I think there's some threshold at least and I'm not saying I know exactly what it is or what could be agreed to. But if somebody formally says to the board and committee, hey, I'm going to be gone for a month or I'm going to be gone for two months or I'm going to be gone for three months. So -- but -- and I'm okay with it coming to council. I mean, yeah, the board and committee, they can obviously weigh in on it, but I think if you're gone, whether the board or commission wants to admit it or not, I think it does impact the deliberations of that board. I mean, I understand things come up and people have emergencies that come up, but I think we need to make sure that people can be there as much as possible. So council member Briggs, you haven't spoken yet. Yeah, I would -- I agree on that. Because for us, we have to have cause for removal or resignation, right? So if somebody were to miss, like, five meetings, which sometimes would be once a month, right? So that's five months. But then the commission granted those excused. But for us, that's not sufficient. What would be our -- you know, what would we do? That's a good point. That's a good point. So you're saying that we -- that the council, if they had the authority to determine excused or unexcused, then that goes towards what is cause and what's not cause? Because I think cause is -- how many absences? Three consecutive or up to 50% of meetings in a calendar year. Okay. All right. Yeah. And so if somebody -- if they have more than that 50% in a board and commission, but they say it's okay, we're precluded or foreclosed from taking any action from what I understand the way it currently is. If it's been granted as excused, correct? That's my understanding. So I'm okay with council having that. Right. So I would like for that to come back to us in a situation like that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And I will note that you do now get quarterly attendance reports for each of the boards and commissions so that you can have a better understanding of who has and has not been present. But at what time does the designation of excused or unexcused occur? In other words, do we look at these attendance records and reasons once a month and give a determination? Do we do it every week? Because people are -- I don't know -- I think procedurally, we need to flush that out a little bit more. I mean, I think what I'm hearing is philosophically it sounds like, you know, council, I mean, for the most part, council making those determinations and that we not have a formal leave of absence policy as far as definitionally. But then as far as how it's actually implemented, I think we need to -- at least I need to have a little bit more understanding of that. Councilmember? Well, you know, I'm -- I think I'm hearing between a couple of comments that there's some sense of an escalation point. You know, Councilmember Arminder said the escalation point is if it's a denial, but, you know, maybe the escalation point is if it's three. You know, but then it's -- like in other words, the Board of Commission makes its own determination until there's three, and then it requires council action. Three what? Absences. And then a little -- well, let's say three unexcused absences. Then it requires, you know, council to weigh in. Are you saying that we're going back retroactively in determining if we agree with the classification of that Board of Commission on the three unexcused absences? Well, it seems that -- it seems that -- no, I'm not exactly saying that. This says more than three, not just three, right? So three is not yet cause. It's got to be more than three. So if it's going to go -- you know, at three, then the decision needs to be made about -- I guess I'm amending my initial comment. At four, you know, council's got to make a determination whether, you know, whether that's cause, whether -- yeah, basically at four it's got to come to us. My only concern with that is I understand what you're trying to accomplish. I think when you're trying -- when a Board of Commission is trying to determine if a member of that Board of Commission has three unexcused or three excused, it can get interesting. I mean, you know people. You're working with them. I think the council provides a more objective criteria because, you know, we appoint or we nominate those people and then we vote on them to appoint them. But I think this maybe needs a little bit more flushing out, maybe come back with some processes either, you know, along with what Council Member Meltzer is saying, maybe an appeals thing, just some options that we might think about because we could spend the rest of our time trying to flush those options out. Council Member Armitage, real quick. Yeah. I mean, I think I see a possible consensus here that might take my weighing in, but I don't want to prolong it unnecessarily, but as I understood what you were saying, Council Member Meltzer, that it's a matter of, you know, when is the point at which it goes to council, is it? So what I had initially thrown out there was, okay, leave it up to the committee, just like for excuse, you know, leave the excused absences up to the committee, again, taking leaves of absence out of the picture, unless they say no. And then Council Member Briggs made the point, you know, well, you know, shouldn't it go up to council to begin with, and it seemed like you were essentially saying that, yeah, that that's essentially saying that if it's for, right, then it would go to council. And so I'm totally fine with that. I think that's reasonable. It seems to me that you two are saying the same thing, and that if that's okay with you, it seemed like that's what you were saying, I thought. No, no. What I'm saying is I think it should come to council. I mean, I think there shouldn't be any leave of absences and that it should come to, I was just trying to summarize what I thought I was hearing. I wasn't necessarily agreeing to that. Oh, I see. So you're saying that no excuse, no single excused absence should ever be determined by a committee, not one, not two. Okay. So I misunderstood. I think you could really get into, or what I'm saying is I think we need to have more discussion on how that would look procedurally, because if it's going to be such an entanglement and so difficult, it's just I like things clean. And right now it's all with the boards and commissions. And if we want to keep it there, that's fine. But the question before us is, do we want leave of absence? I'm hearing that nobody that the consensus is I'm not saying nobody, the consensus is we really don't want to have a formal process for leave of absence, that we want to categorize those requests as either excused or unexcused. I'm hearing a consensus of that. Now, I could be wrong. I'm hearing Councilmember Davis say that. I'm hearing myself say that. I'm hearing Councilmember Ryan say that. And I think I'm hearing Councilmember Briggs say that. As far as where that determination of excused or unexcused occurs, whatever type of appeal process, however many of those excused or unexcused occur at the Board of Commission level and then bounce up to council, I think that's I say that's up for debate. I mean, Councilmember Briggs, I just want a little clarification from you if you don't mind. What I thought I heard you say, so correct me if I'm wrong, is that you would like to have the determination of whether it's excused or unexcused made at the council level. Is that? Well, my clarification question was if anything were going to happen and we wanted to make sure that that seat was filled and there weren't excused absences, then it would need to -- if that committee was not going to grant or was going to make every absence an excused absence, then that would be trouble for us if we wanted to put someone else or nominate someone else in that seat that would show up. And so if it needed to be -- if we say four, then that would mean that that committee would have to agree on three unexcused absences and I'm not -- I don't know if committees would be willing to do that or not. So at some point it would need to come to council so that we can have the ability to renominate someone in that seat if we needed to. So yes, it would need to come to council. Okay. Just from the outset. If it's going to be a complicated process for a board and committee to determine an absence as unexcused, then yes, I would say it would need to come to council. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Councilmember Davis. I'm going to try to offer something helpful, I think. In my mind, it is not important to the board or the commission why those people missed the meeting. It's important to them that they missed the meeting. They weren't there to do the work. It's important to us why they missed the meeting because we have to decide whether they stay on the board or commission or not. So for me, the prerogative and the responsibility for sorting that out falls to us. It's not really the board or commission's job to kind of interrogate their own members and figure out why they weren't there or not or get into people's personal reasons, but we're the people who put them there. It's our job to have those committees full and working and going. So it's our job to know those things. So I think if we leave it the way it is, we're kind of burdening the board with something that's really -- shouldn't have been their responsibility in the first place, and it could be kind of contentious. It's our burden to take on. So I think we ought to do it. >> Okay. So you're in favor of us doing it starting out from excused or unexcused absence one? >> Correct. >> I am as well to give that direction. I think I thought I heard Councilmember Ryan saying that and I think I heard Councilmember Briggs saying that. So we do have a consensus, I think, to provide direction in that regard. But, again, we'll still need to develop some processes and procedures for analyzing those requests. We're not going to do them in real time. We're going to have to do them on some interval. But I trust that you guys will bring us back. Okay? Great. Great. All right. Mayor's ability to make a second -- to make or second a motion. If I had asked the city attorney just to give us a two-minute briefing on why this is even here and so forth. >> There have been questions come up whether the mayor could make motions or seconds. And we default to Robert's rules since that's not specifically laid out. In the rules procedure, this deliberative body being less than 12, you kind of fall under Robert's rules for small committees, which allows the mayor to make motions -- >> Or the chair. >> Or the chair. >> Yeah. Great. >> Okay. Any objections to that? Councilmember Mastrom? >> I don't think you should be able to make the motion and second it and vote four times. I'm against that. >> All right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I can get by with that. Yeah. I think probably about three or four or six people would be screaming point of order before I could even get the next comment out. Okay. So resolve that. Tie voting. So just to summarize -- just to summarize again, so right now at P&Z, if it's a tie vote -- >> It's treated as a denial. >> It's treated as a denial. >> And automatically goes to council. >> But it's only on a majority vote. It's not a two-thirds vote. Because denials typically require a super majority from -- >> Correct. It only requires a simple majority. >> Okay. So we treat it, if it's a tie vote, then it comes back around until we have a full council. Is that correct? Is that how that is right now? >> No. If it's tie vote with planning and zoning, it's treated as a denial by planning and zoning, then it comes to you and it requires a simple majority from council. >> Right. But if we have a tie vote, currently right now -- >> It would just go on subsequent city council agendas until the tie is broken. >> Okay. But I thought we had also a caveat, because I think sometimes there's been -- I don't know if at this level, but I know at P&Z, that if somebody has to recuse themselves on a pending matter, and then it's a 3-3 tie, that person will continually have to recuse themselves. So if we keep placing it on the agenda. But I thought we had a time period there. If it stayed like that for some length of time, then something happens. But maybe I'm thinking of something else. So it just keeps coming back like an infinite loop until we get seven people. Is that how we do it? >> What I'm seeing in the rules of procedure, it just says, matters voted on by the city council which end in a tie vote shall automatically be placed on the meeting agenda until a full council is present. So I don't see anything regarding recusals. >> I think I'm confusing our discussion of all of this with what's actually there. So I apologize for that. So that's the state we are now. And the question is, do we want to make it look the same way as the city council -- the P&Z and/or Roberts rule of order? Yes. >> I'm fine leaving it the way that it is. I've been -- since I've been on there, hasn't been an issue. And so I'm fine leaving it the way it is on council. >> I think people -- I think there needs to be closure when items come up. And I have no problem following Roberts rules. Especially if we all know what the consequences are before the vote. >> So a tie vote -- >> Tie doesn't carry. Yeah. >> Okay. Anybody else? Mayor Pro Tem and councilmember Davis. >> I'd like to see it mirror the other process. >> P&Z? >> Yes. >> Councilmember Davis. >> I think affirmative action should require an affirmative vote. If the votes aren't there, if it's a tie vote, I think it's a failure of whatever the action is. Yeah. I was going to add some nuance. I don't -- you don't have the votes, you don't have the votes. >> Councilmember Ryan. >> I concur with that. >> It sounds like at that point we seem to have the tie at council should mirror P&Z, which would indicate a failure. It's denied. If there's a tie vote, it's a denial. >> Great. And just to clarify, we're referencing city council as well as all boards, commissions, and committees in that. >> Okay. That's a good question. So we've been talking about council. Is everybody okay with it applying to all boards and committees and commissions? >> And just to clarify, so that would include -- I forget what they're called now, but that category of nonpermanent, noncontinuing, you know, like ad hoc. Thank you. Ad hoc committees apply to ad hoc committees as well. I'm fine with that. >> Okay. Sounds like you've got a correction. New elected officials replacing existing board commission and committee members. Any desire to change it? Any desire to -- any comment? I mean, go ahead, Councilmember Peltzer. >> I'm a little curious like what the actual practice has been. You know, this states that the code of ordinance is asylum. I think anecdotally I know of someone in the history of Denton who was on P&Z and was invited to leave when there was a change over in the appointing council member. So yeah, I think it's a matter of practice it's happened. But, you know, is there a practice? >> Councilmember Pro Tem and I'll speak to that. >> Just in my own personal experience, so I was just able to appoint someone to PUB this year. So the previous person because of the timing had served. And so, yeah, I would like the elected officials to be able to appoint someone upon being reelected. Especially if that's your representative on that board so you should feel good about who that is or have that option to change that out. So I don't know what that looks like but in practice that's what I envision. >> I know from a practice perspective, I'm not sure the situation you're referring to, but I don't -- I mean, this conversation has come up over the years and the practice has been if you are elected and someone was appointed by your predecessor and their term is not up, that is not defined as cause and they cannot be -- you cannot replace them. So that's been my experience of the practice. Yes. Let me see. Did you speak already? No, no, go ahead. Yes. I'm sorry. I'm losing my mind. Go ahead, councilmember Davison. We'll come over here. >> So I understand, you know, as being the new person at the table, I understand the burden you take on when you inherit appointees to boards. But some of these boards, they're not necessarily individual members appointee. We may kind of by convention each nominate. Board of Ethics is a good example. There happen to be as many spots on the board as there are members of the council. But they're the council's nominees. Some of these we do individually appoint to our spots. We each have one spot set aside for us. But the kind of upheaval it would cause to every two years, in some cases every year, you reappoint the entire boards. And then, you know, the institutional memory that some of these boards build up really crosses political lines. It crosses any line you want to draw. There are folks who are on these boards and should be able to continue in that service regardless who put them there. So I'm in favor of leaving it the way that it is. And I think we owe it to the city. The folks that we put in these spots, you know, they have rights in this process as well. They are now members of the PNZ. They're part of the government just like we are. They're now members of the PUB. They have a seat in the government just like we do. So I think we live with a lot of choices made by past councils. And I think that's just the reality of how we have to do this and the best way to do it for our citizens. >> All right. Councilmember Briggs? >> Yeah, I would agree on the boards and commissions. But to Mayor Pro Tem Hutzpah's point on the PUB, that is four years and I believe a while ago when we were talking about this to begin with, I had asked if we could talk about the term of that to make it more in line with all of the others. Because it would just be more consistent with the other boards and commissions if it were two years instead of four years. So that may be a conversation for the future. But for me now, I believe if someone is put in a seat and they've committed to that two years, then they should be able to serve that two years. >> Okay. Councilmember Armitage? >> Yeah. So I agree that councilmembers should not be able to remove somebody just because the councilmember is new. If your predecessor appointed someone and their term is up, that's when you have an opportunity to ask them if they want to continue to serve and to decide for yourself if you want to reappoint them or appoint somebody else. But I want to second what Councilmember Briggs said. I'm pleased that you brought that up and speaking as somebody who's been on PUB myself and I know what an important committee that is. It's a really important one and they do a lot of important work. That said, the term limit for, I mean, the President of the United States can only serve two four-year terms. A member of public utility board can serve three four-year terms. That's 12 years. And so that was, I mean, I think that is too long for any committee. I think it would be fine to reduce it to two. Then you've got a good six-year possibility if you want to continue to serve. But I do think that that's a subject maybe would have to come back to us at another point. But I think that's a very good point to make. >> Okay. Anybody else? Sounds, Councilmember Ryan, have you? >> No, it sounds like we have most everybody on the same wavelength. So I'm on that same way. >> Okay. To just keep it the way it is? >> Yes. >> Okay. All right. Okay. Last one. Is reading constituent emails during Council meetings? Go ahead. >> So the question on this really is right now the standing practice has been if an email is read aloud during a Council meeting that full Council did not have access to prior to going into that meeting, we typically attach it in the Friday report. >> The next one. >> That week's Friday report, correct. So the question is, are we okay with that practice? If so, there's no action. But if we want to make it a formal requirement, then that would need to be a rules of procedure revision. So it's really the formality piece. >> Okay. Any questions on that? Yes, Councilmember Ryan. >> You know, I'm okay with leaving it as is. But I would also be open to making it a formal requirement. And the issue that really kind of highlighted that for me was something that came up on the hot funds committee where an email was referenced that two of it is the subcommittee. And there are three Councilmembers on that. And the other two Councilmembers had both seen that email. And I hadn't. And it ended up coming to us eventually. But it would have been nice to have some sort of policy in place where I would know that it would be coming to me. And again, I would not be in favor of having to disclose ahead of time what emails you're going to read, having been myself in a position where I got an email from a member of the public. It was a meeting we were having about a public hearing on mobile homes. And a member -- somebody who lives in a mobile home wrote to me and said I'm watching from home and I hear what people are saying about mobile homes. So I spontaneously read that person's email. But anyway, I would be in favor of either. >> Councilmember Meltzer? >> The outcomes ostensibly are the same. We do what we currently do or we do what we currently do. But make it an ordinance. And if it's working now, I just assume leave it just because there may be some unintended consequence to codifying it that we can't see now. So I see no reason to make a change. >> Anybody else? Councilmember Davis? >> I tend to agree with that. Just that there's not -- there's not a groundswell of need for this particular change. But if we do change it, I'd actually want it to be a little bit broader. If somebody references a Wikipedia article in their statement, well, I can go look that up. But if they reference anything, an email or a memo or anything else that I don't have access to, then I think that ought to be made available to the rest of the council. So if there's any kind of material that they reference that we can't easily go find ourselves, that I think ought to be made available. But it's just as easy to do that by practice or courtesy as it is to make it a formal rule. >> So it sounds like practice status quo. Is there -- because you mentioned other materials. So if we keep the practice, the status quo just means emails. Are you saying you want to expand that or if it was a formal process, you would want to expand it? >> I think if it was a formal process. Right now, if somebody references something I don't have access to, I can just as easily ask them, could you please send that around? >> All right. Fantastic. Okay. Any other questions on that particular item? All right. Staff has direction, I believe. We will now move on to agenda item 3B, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction on confidentiality agreements and non-disclosure agreements. >> Mayor, city council, Tony Puente, chief financial officer. You may recall that on September 10th, we were in front of you to discuss this item. Again, just to recap, this is related to non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality agreements related to economic development recruitment. As I mentioned to you previously, when the city gets contacted by -- through various avenues of companies that may be interested in relocating or expanding operations in the city, they may request confidentiality agreements. Those agreements are really intended to protect the company's proprietary information related to sales, financial information, site locations that they may be looking at. I did mention to you that in some cases, those confidential agreements do or may include project names or industry type descriptors when they originally come to us, and this is during the initial phases of us going and meeting with these companies with them coming here and sharing information with city staff. Project names have not been used over the last several months, actually a couple years now. Many times, at least in the last few months, in a couple of companies that we've talked to that have come either to the EDPB board or to the council, we've stipulated to them that project names is not something that the council is interested in utilizing, and at least in two instances, the companies were fine with that, and so we've not had any other request from companies that are requesting to keep their names confidential when they're coming to the council again, but they may appear during the initial phases, again, because we don't even know who the company might be, and so they might use a project name or an industry type descriptor. In addition, we also have NDAs associated primarily with our electric utility, but also Solid Waste has seen those. Again, these are also rare, but those are associated with new technology as we're going out and doing request for proposals or bids. Certain companies want to protect their information. Also, purchase power agreements are related to some of our wind and solar projects that we're engaging in as we're going through the proposal process. Again, they may also want to have NDAs or confidential agreements. And then finally, we have what we call enabling agreements related to our energy trading and risk management operation, and so that's really to protect counterparties. Also, they are sharing sensitive financial information with us, and so again, those companies are interested in keeping their information confidential as much as possible in that process. So some of the backgrounds, as I mentioned previously, most other cities do delegate the signature execution of NDAs and CAs to the city manager or their designee. That was the practice here in Denton in 2017. Staff ceased that practice, and we started to bring those directly to the council until a formal policy could be instituted. And again, as I mentioned, on the 10th, that's the purpose of us being here in front of you. So some of the things that you're in our last discussion with you that we heard, we've incorporated into a proposed ordinance that we've included in your backup. That proposed ordinance would grant the city manager or their designee the authority to execute these agreements with the approval or the review of the city attorney. Executed NDAs and CAs will be sent to the council on a weekly basis or as soon as they're executed. Again, timing with legal status report. Staff will maintain the listing of the executed agreements in written or electronic form. A couple things that we've added here as well to this draft ordinance is that these will be limited only to economic development and utilities, and specifically electric and solid waste only. And then the ordinance does not apply to your grant authority for employee severance agreements. That is one item that the council discussed last time. So the options that we have here in front of you for your consideration, as I mentioned, we do have a draft ordinance in your backup is to approve the ordinance and grant the authority to city manager. Option two would be to modify the ordinance and if there's some additional clarity the council would like us to include. Option three would be to just not allow staff to execute those. And then option four, if there's some other recommendations the council would like us to bring back or to consider. So with that, that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. I have some questions, though, but they're for our attorney. And I think it would be best served in executive session. And I would, with the council's indulgence, I'd like to do that now just so that if we get those questions answered instead of having a lot of discussion. So I think it's going to be questions that might be answered as well. So do I have to have a vote to do that or? No, we just go to executive session. Okay. For consultation with attorneys under Texas government code section 551. Is it 071? I'd have to look it up. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's 071. But consultation with attorneys according to Texas government code. It shouldn't take 10 minutes, 15 minutes. So that's the only reason that I want to do that. Is that, can you hold that question until after we? Yes. Is that okay? Okay. All right. So yeah, so if we could, all non essential personnel pursuant to that executive session, if, if we could just excuse yourself just for a moment, that would be, that would be wonderful. Welcome everybody back to this meeting of the Dent City Council on Tuesday, September 24th, 2019. It is 417. We are just reconvening from an executive session on agenda item three B. We've had staff presentation. We now will take questions. Councilman Briggs, you had a question. So on the page prior it said that it's been since 2017 since this has been any formal policy. So I'm curious, because of the two listed, the utilities and the economic development, have we been affected negatively in the city just by not doing business, by not having something like this in place and in either one of those categories? I think city manager, I can tell you on the economic development side in the last two years, we've had companies walk away when we, because we didn't have the ability to, to sign these and move quickly enough in the initial phase when they're screening us out. So that has, that has happened. Yes. Typically you'll get a number of opportunities to respond to certain deadline. If you don't sign it and get back, they move on. And that has happened. We have one particular that they were concerned about their employees finding out before they were ready to have a communication plan in place. So we were cut out of the process. On the, on the negotiations on the utilities, we have tended to kind of sign 30 day extensions to get us there so we can get into council on the NDAs. And I think the main issue there is we have little to no say in what we can, once the negotiation ends and how we effectuate pricing. So the sooner we lock in, the better the pricing, because there's always volatility between the time we agree and the time it's brought to you. So those are probably the two biggest issues. I've been concerned on the, just the practicality of managing our hedging operation and the EMO. It is not practical given the hedging trades and the, that have to go on a day to day basis to bring all of the various decisions on backing those hedges to you in a way that makes sense, in the way that their operations work and how they have to make just in time decisions and we're constantly monitoring credit checks, that sort of thing. So they need that flexibility to make sure that we've got a policy that requires I think triple B or A rated, it's A or double A rated. I think it's A rated. A rated. To move forward, but that is something that's always in flux as well. And we've got to have that flexibility in that particular business unit as well. Any follow up on that? Well so just, so in a couple years that we haven't had these, it feels like it's been negative and damaging to not have these in place? I think on the economic development side I can say that there's been companies that did not move forward with this because we couldn't move fast enough. On the utility side of the house I would say that we've continued to try to streamline the process and try to fill you in as soon as we can. Sometimes it's after the fact which I don't like. And so I'd prefer to have a policy in place how we notify you and when we notify you. Okay. Thank you. Councilmember Armitage. So I am still, as I was before, I am very adamantly against designating this authority that by default belongs to the city council to a city manager. Nothing particular about this one whom I like very much and trust or a unspecified designee. I'm fine with us not moving quickly enough on an economic development agreement that is a tax incentives deal. If we lose it because there's not enough time to have it go by council, then fine. The city's not going to go underground. And as the city manager just mentioned, when it comes to utilities, there's a streamlining issue that our E.M.O. has been able to do that. We've had some serious risk management issues come up about our E.M.O. and I appreciate having that council oversight and being able to have those decisions go by us. So I will be -- I'm giving my direction no. And if the council majority says yes, then I will be voting no when this comes to a vote. I think it's a betrayal of the public trust. >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> Again, I was one before. I'm one again. Hopefully we can get to at least one or two. And I base that on this. Round numbers, we have 1,600 employees that the city manager is charged with managing. We have a public utility that the city manager is charged with managing. Regardless of what the city manager's name is, that individual has that responsibility and growing. So to say that somehow that position can manage 1,600 employees, a multimillion-dollar institution, and not be trusted to do business as usual is troubling. That this body would -- especially when you're talking about the utility. I mean, that just happens quickly. And if we don't want to run the business, we need to get out of the business. But we can't then act like the city of Denton is going to change how the energy business is operated outside of Denton. It happens quickly. There are these restrictions. That's a fact. And so I just -- I guide -- my guiding light is this. The city -- when I ask directly, does this affect the city? The answer is unequivocally yes. So then the question then for me is am I okay with harming the city? Am I okay with putting more pressure on rooftops and forgoing businesses that I know we've lost? We've lost businesses before they even got to that point because of other comments. So we've lost opportunities to take pressure off of households via the vehicle of businesses. We have a report that says the -- we're -- you know, whatever number to the good on the deals that have been thus far as far as taxes coming back on the road, et cetera. So the justice of it is I am for option one for the express purpose -- or for the express reason is when I ask, the city manager says yes, this affects how we do business. And even if I don't believe him, I believe the energy trade happens, and we are tasked with running that and trying to keep the rates low and take care of our rate payers, and we need to be in the best position to do that. Or let's start raising rates and then see how that goes. But I don't think that's the prudent thing to do. >> Okay. Councilmember Melton. >> I don't know if I can answer all the pieces in one fell swoop, but let me try to take it a piece at a time. The idea that it's a betrayal of a public trust to protect another entity's proprietary information, I just don't agree with that. And if that is the price of -- you know, because there's different kinds of things that are being asked to consider. If one of the classes of kinds of information is other entities' proprietary information, like let's say they've got an invention or whatever. And I have no problem at all with the idea that as a matter of regular course of business, that we would empower the city manager to agree to protect another entity's proprietary information. It's a different category when you talk about concealing whether we're considering a deal. Right? Those are two different categories. And when we talked about this last time -- and we heard this again today, you know, the city manager has emphasized that some people won't even sit down and have an initial meeting with us. So I expressed an interest last time and I'm still interested in, you know, how narrowly can we tailor that so that you can have an initial meeting but just not get very far without bringing in the elected representatives. And whether that's 15 days prior to and following an initial meeting or something like that, you know, something that makes it possible for you to be nimble, because there might be something that, you know, we would all agree, like it would be terrible if, you know, Denton missed the opportunity to have the next great, you know, environmental breakthrough done here or something like that. So anyway, I'm interested in whether there's some way to narrowly tailor it so you can have an initial meeting but that it escalates quickly to council. And again, in case you missed it, if it's about protecting another entity's proprietary information, no problem with giving you that authority at all. >> Okay. Councilmember Davis. >> So I'm also comfortable with option number one. If we needed to go on option number two because there's not support going forward, I think it is to our detriment that we don't have these available to us now. The city manager can't be nimble now. I think there may be support for going with option one. If there's not, I'd be interested in seeing how, to councilmember Meltzer's point, if we could tailor things a little bit more narrowly. Some of the specific instances we've talked about, the city manager needing this flexibility. These are common in other places. They're common in other cities. I know we've had some bad experiences in Denton that kind of inform our conversation today on this. But they're exceedingly common in business, exceedingly common in other cities. And giving the authority to a city manager who we already, as councilmember, excuse me, mayor pro tim hudspeth said, we already entrust with a $1.22 billion budget to say that he could not enter into these kind of agreements, which are a matter of course in this kind of business. That's why I'm okay with option one. I'm also okay with option one. I mean, the ordinance that's in our backup is tailored down already into just the economic development and utilities. It's not authorizing him to enter into a contract that binds us for any dollar amount. It's strictly keeping things competent. So it's not really any budgetary type issue that could be hurt by this that I can see. It can only help our budget because we will have more entities that would be willing to discuss with us or in a more timely matter, be able to have discussions with them. Councilmember breaks. So thank you. And thank you for answering my question earlier, city manager. So I would be okay with option two, and I appreciate the severance agreements were left out of this. That was a bigger issue. For me, the initial meeting for economic development. I don't like that we are losing opportunities to, to grow our economic development there. I don't want that to be to negatively affect the city. It's extremely important for us. But I don't know that I feel comfortable with like, you know, 10, 11, 12 meetings happening and different agreements each time and then finally come to us and everything settled. The initial meeting, the numbers and then come back to us. I would I would be okay with that mostly. And then of course, proprietary information that is there's there's no reason for us not to be able to sign it for those, especially when we're talking about utilities and you know, things like that. So I would be I would like to refine it a little bit more just so I get more comfortable with it. But I'm not against them. And so I just I just don't I just don't like to be signed into something that I'm obligated to without knowing after the fact after the effect. But I could get more comfortable with it if I knew exactly how many times that was going to be done. Okay. I think I think unfortunately, there's a there's a conflation of different issues and different past experiences in this. So this is my understanding of what is being asked of. And so if I'm incorrect, let me know. Even on option number one, prove the ordinance of grants authority, the city manager designated the signed agreements as needed. So when I'm reading this, I'm not hearing that what I'm hearing is that there's this fear that there's going to be something signed, and there's going to be a whole deal worked out. And then it's going to come to counsel one time for the final deal. And then we go to to, you know, the public comment, the public hearing for the and if we need to maybe provide clarity in the ordinance, that's not what I'm hearing is being asked for. I'm not hearing that you want a confidentiality agreement, let's say from an economic development perspective, to go from the initial meeting with Hey, give us your your your your financials. Let's see if we're we will even want to talk to you. And then all of a sudden, you start to enter into negotiations. It's not been my experience on counsel, that economic development incentive negotiations happen in a vacuum. I mean, I know that they're brought back to this council on several occasions. So if we need to further clarify, at what point those come to counsel, but the point being that those economic development discussions, even in closed session with counsel, are still going to be required at some point to stay somewhat confidential until there's a meeting of the minds, or you're really, or they won't agree to it. I mean, for the reasons that businesses do. So let's make sure we understand that every most every city. If they have the opportunity to do this, and we do not, we are at a distinct economic disadvantage. So I'm okay with like if we were to do the fist to five that we did in our retreat, I think for option number two to be considered, how can we further provide some direction to the city manager, whether it's this city manager, somebody else like, well, after your first, you know, once you start negotiations on an economic development package, we want to we want to know it, we want to talk about it, we want to be involved in it. And the discussion, I think that's the fear I'm hearing is that something's going to repeat itself like has perceived as happened in the past. And I think we can code around that. But it's imperative that I mean, we are a council manager form of government. And the city manager is charged with the day to day operations. And we can craft this in a way that creates some boundaries that provide for this council to be more involved. But this council to be more involved still at a confidential level. Once it comes to council, that doesn't mean that it's now but therefore public information if it meets an exception within the Open Meetings Act. So I'm not hearing this notion of we want to give the city manager carte blanche authority to come up and in one meeting tell us what they've agreed to and we have to give it, you know, an up or down. Is that what is that what you're proposing? Yeah, I think I'm kind of tagging on to comments both you and Councilmember Meltzer made. We're simply asking the authority to sign these things so we can take a look at the any financial or proprietary information a company might have to determine whether or not to even put a proposal together to share with you. That's really and if we want to limit it that much, we're fine with that. Okay, that's the only point the only part of the economic development side of this that we need. So Mayor, that's exactly the process. The process now is based on our current economic development policy. We will craft a proposal or an offer to a company based on based on discussions with them and we always disclose to them that that that requires consideration and approval by both the ADPB and recommendation to the council and ultimately the council has the final say on whether or not any incentive is going to be granted and so those are the types of discussions that we have with companies the types of disclosures that we make to them before we ever commit to to anything. It's just these this is the scope of what may be offered to you within the policies that the council has established already and the incentives that may be available to you. Right. So what I'm hearing is that if you if you execute one of these agreements to just get initial information and then it's like okay council in an executive session here's a company that wants this looking at this what do y'all think now if we're in closed session that's still confidential am I am I incorrect on that okay. So I would be curious as to see some options for maybe providing some language that would give some of our council members a little bit more comfort level as far as some some guardrails on on that which might be option two. Well it's so much not necessarily when to enter into it but at what point do you bring to council the discussions I think that's really what seems to be the question I will have to say I just absolutely disagree that to do something like what we're discussing right now is a betrayal of the public trust and I think a betrayal of the public trust is if we do things that really preclude us from being able to take advantage of all the opportunities that may count come to us because in the end all seven of us have to give some level of trust to each other to the community to staff and trust is not something that you can regulate with ordinance you can put guardrails around it but at some point and then if something happens you take decisive action but I think to try to make sure that we provide the best opportunity for our citizens economically with the quality of life is is one of is basically our duty to make sure that we are doing that in a very transparent very responsible very professional way and I don't see what I don't see anything that we're asking to do here today as anything that would fall outside of that duty councilmember armature so just to speak to a couple things that have been mentioned so far so first just to clarify when I said it what I consider a betrayal of the public trust is not confidentiality agreements and nondisclosure agreements in general across the board it is specifically the debt the authorizing in unelected official member of the government body to authorize those agreements and that carte blanche that you know Mr. Mayor it was just talking about an option one if we and it looks like we're leaning towards option by we I mean consensus leaning towards option two unless I'm misunderstanding but I encourage everybody to read the ordinance as is to really read it because it's a brief ordinance and the ordinance extends carte blanche as I see it to the city manager as it is now the ordinance as is the draft ordinance would be option one correct yes ma'am and that's and that would be specific to just economic development yes a lot of tricks always that's it so you're right so but just but within those within the utilities and within economic development that is you know tax incentives agreements it says that the city manager or his designee is authorized to execute nondisclosure or concept confidentiality agreements as needed for those particular categories but there's no definition of as needed and and and as far as trust goes you know I hope that it are seeing a city manager would trust that I don't think any that the anybody's trying to trick us into anything and I trust our you know current city manager in such decisions but I don't trust some you know hypothetical future city manager or any designee to make these decisions in fact even if there was someone who I trusted in fact which they're in the future and there is now I because I take so seriously the fact that we are democratically elected to represent that's what I consider I just want to be clear a betrayal of the public trust the other thing I want to mention is that I've heard no evidence mentioned of how it has harmed us in any way not being able not being able to do this I've only heard kind of talk of potential harm but it's a form that we read the ordinance as it is if you can't even talk to a company because you're unable to do this there's no way you're going to have any evidence of harm other than well somebody came and wanted to talk to us and guess what they left because we didn't have some opportunity to say we can even enter into an initial conversation with you and harm how is that yeah well that's we could debate that I mean that's now let's move on from that if I think people can understand that fact so if because still what I'm still hearing see we're I mean to read this ordinance as needed that's that's not that's not saying that you don't bring it back to counsel it's not saying that counsel is not involved what it's saying is what was brought up as what's negatively harming us and that is if there's a need to execute a non an NDA or confidentiality agreement so we can even begin to talk that's what I but if we need to put a few more guardrails about discussion on that but in no way do I recognize and everybody's entitled to their opinion in no way do I recognize this ordinance as a betrayal of the public trust as written if we want to refine it if we want to get people more comfortable with it I'm real okay with that because I think if anything it helps the city manager out to understand exactly what can I do and what can I not do and and I'm okay with that as much information as we can give staff to make their job effective in running this city I'm all for it and then we're gonna wrap this up after the next couple of comments councilmember Meltzer I think it'd be helpful to do to acknowledge that there are kind of a couple of rings of inclusion and you initially you've got management right where you want to be able to have that initial conversation and hopefully we'll see some good ideas about creating guardrails and when does it go to council but you know as you've as you as the mayor's mentioned you you still have an element of confidentiality but then to also have pretty good agreed clarity on at what point must you take it to the public I mean there isn't there there are elements of our you know of our constituency that really go nuts about the idea that there's some kind of secret deals being made that's and I think we want to know that we're like I think I think it'd be helpful for everyone to know that we have we follow we follow a set of guidelines so right and I don't think that and I think that's true that we do but I think it'd be good to make that clear you know that city manager is only going to go so far before he brings in the elected representatives and then we're only going to go so far before you know it can't be confidential it's got to be public I think that help everyone yeah I just wish this body would touch on the fact that we're at the lowest rate or our tax rate is what it was 15 years ago as often as we talk about these conspiracy theories so just like there's some fear of future harm to the negative that you can't there's no tangible evidence of that but there are conversations there are experts that say economic development is hindered and I believe economic development takes pressure off houses and allows us to continue to lower the rate and so that's my focus is making we have programs we're giving Monsignor King $400,000 and that comes from us being good stewards of the money and making wise decisions and taking that pressure off the house rooftops transitioning it to businesses and then sharing the benefit of that sharing the benefit of the development cost increase and pushing it down so those those are the I just wish that we would again just give credit what credits do because there's there's a lot of good things being done that I don't think get highlighted as much as this I mean again they're black helicopters they're hard to see and they're go ergo people point to them but I don't see them so do you have enough to come back with some alterations or modifications to the ordinance based upon the discussion here I believe somewhere okay fantastic all right thank you very much we'll move on to agenda item 3c receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding manufactured home financial disclosures financial risk disclosures Fair Council Ryan Adams public affairs just to give a little bit of background on this topic manufactured homes are basically factory built homes single family factory built homes that are constructed in a factory and with non removable chassis so they are intended to be transportable but also not transported frequently so they are intended to move to one spot and stay in that spot long term the construction of manufactured homes is regulated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD and they do this through the Safety Standards Act of 1974 with all manufactured homes receiving a HUD tag so you know you have a certified inspected approved manufactured home if it does have that HUD tag on the outside of it this presentation today is to address the topic of disclosures for manufactured homes specifically with their long-term financial risks and whether or not the city should require or encourage such disclosures of those financial risks this was previously addressed in ISR 2019-052 which came out back in March it was included in your packet for this presentation currently any type of disclosure by ordinance is not preempted by the state so cities municipalities do have the ability to enact ordinances requiring a type of financial risk disclosure and these are specifically disclosures on the unique financial risks of manufactured homes specifically how they depreciate in value over time generally rather than appreciate as you see with site built single-family homes sometimes sometimes generally I don't want to speak for all homes we've been through a couple of recessions this is true this is true the HUD standards are administered in the state of Texas by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs and when we initially looked at this issue we did find that TDHCA does provide a disclosure form for the retail sales of manufactured homes now this disclosure form the purchaser will acknowledge financial options and the overall risks that are not specific to manufacturers homes but are generally for home ownership risks and responsibilities essentially that you are taking on a financial obligation you do have to keep up with your home and that's not specific to manufactured homes that is applicable to all types of homes what this form and this form was included in your packet I believe it was sent out today what it does not do does not address non retail sales of manufactured homes so if you purchase a manufactured home from a dealer you will fill out this form however if you buy it from some other person secondhand you are not required to fill out this form and it does not highlight specific risks that are unique to manufactured homes so if there is a unique financial risk such as the depreciation of asset of the asset generally over time that's not specifically noted in that form that TDHCA requires be signed so in looking at this and we we discussed this in your AIS and in the previous the previous ISR the city can does have the ability to enact a local ordinance requiring certain disclosures specific to manufactured homes at the point of sale we did not go into much detail whether that would be specific to retail sales of new manufactured homes or all sales to include point to point person to person sales of manufactured homes we did find that doing so might open the city I say the word might might open the city up to several legal challenges specifically torsion interference with a business or contract essentially someone can make the claim that the city is interfering in their business of selling a manufactured home by creating a burden there's also the possibility of someone bringing forth an equal protection claim so why would we do this for manufactured homes but not any other similarly situated asset any other asset that depreciates say a car we did look at the possibility of even enacting a voluntary program so in a voluntary program say the city could provide information to the managers mobile home parks real estate associations in the area giving them the information but not legally binding them to give out or or require a disclosure on the part of the buyer in doing that questions also came up at how much we could gauge even the effectiveness of of this action since we would have no way of tracking whether or not they were being distributed or we'd also have the challenge of the increases in staff time and cost with creating the materials and going out and interacting with these various groups so this presentation is merely to open up the discussion on whether this is a policy that the council would like to explore I'm happy to answer any other questions other than that I'll take your feedback council mayor Melcer you asked for this so you're lucky you're getting more than one minute part of our new process so go ahead so this for those of you who are new this came up in the context of a fairly contentious case that came before us about approving a mobile home park and some of the conversation both in the public and from members of council was about whether mobile homes are really kind of a bad deal for people who you know particularly for people have low income and that the way they think of it might not might not be the way it turns out for them particularly because of this issue of declining like there's not I don't think there's any history of of mobile home values rising right with with site-built homes sometimes they go down not mostly they go up but I think there's any history of mobile homes going up I could be maybe not in Texas but I guarantee you probably around the country there are places places where they go up yes Florida that's all they have well you know I try to keep a little card in my pocket that's that I check once in a while it says maybe he's right okay because I was hearing I vote in favor of that development but I thought maybe the folks were talking about this not being a good deal for people are right and the example was raised at the time of I took the position of people can make decisions for themselves but the example is raised about payday lenders that we have some regulation locally about so I raised this in that context would we be doing a public service to let make people make make people aware of the risks when they consider this now I had just gone a little longer I had a conversation with Ryan about the fact that they're already required disclosures I thought oh well maybe this there's really no point to this if there's already required disclosures and he pretty much talked me out of it and then I went home and read it and it's been provided to us today and there's nothing in there about the sort of financial outlook the risks the fence was yes it disclosed you might have to pay taxes there might be fees and so on but nothing that really goes to the heart of this issue so that's why I bring it and I I don't know how serious the risk of tortuous interferences I don't know if we got that from other lenders when we acted on payday lenders you know apparently there's some room to act on the public interest you know in requiring disclosures so I speak on this issue with some authority I lived in a mobile home for full or part-time for about 15 years of my early life my parents owned that mobile home they purchased it used and in full disclosure my grandparents other members of my family also owned a mobile home park outside of town and then subsequently owned an RV park so I feel like I come to it with some perspective I think that to assume that one that one demographic of people or one income level of people live in manufactured home would be incorrect I think you could go to any manufactured home community in Denton or anywhere else and you'd find people from kind of surprising income brackets you might be surprised they make a certain decision to live in a certain place because they maybe have different priorities and how they spend their money it's a very viable form of affordable housing either as a renter or as an owner of a mobile home whether you're somebody who put your mobile home on a big piece of land or in a mobile home park so I think it's also a mistake to assume that the folks who live in these places one are our owners I think in a lot of mobile home parks you have primarily renters two that the people who make the purchase of a mobile home use because that's what we're more concerned about there are the disclosures that happen if you buy one new but the folks that buy they make this purchase that they're less knowledgeable about what they're getting into I think it is generally understood a mobile home is a less durable than a site-built home it's less safe in a tornado than a site-built home that it's going to depreciate in value it's not going to get nicer you know even if you keep up with it that it's going to depreciate in value I think that the people who make these purchases are a little more sophisticated than we maybe give them credit for they understand what they're getting into and the flip side of that is there are folks who make these purchases because that is what the viable option is for them that if they're going to have any kind of control over the color paint on the outside of their house it's that kind of house if they're going to have control over where their house is it's got to be that kind of house so I don't see the need for the city to get involved in this kind of consumer regulation I think it's a it's a heavily regulated space I understand your concerns I certainly do but I don't know that it's in the city of Dentons Lane to kind of overregulate this kind of housing if we're concerned about some of the things that come up with you know where we cite mobile home parks and that kind of thing we have a process for that but I think it'd be a mistake to assume a different a different class or a different knowledge base for the folks who are purchasing manufactured homes okay anybody else yeah I'm actually I agree with a lot of what both councilmember Davis and councilmember Melzer I I'm all for consumer awareness but as far as you know what the hazards are of investing any large amount of money in anything I don't see how the investment in a mobile home is all that different from the investment in a car or the investment in rent that people make I know that's not an asset that you can't write off but precisely for that reason you know there's a good argument to be made that all tenants should have renters should have you know a notification from the city that says you know you're getting into this agreement you might have your security deposit withheld for this following reasons be aware that these are your rights etc. so I kind of feel like in this case I'm not against informing people about what the issues are although I do agree with councilmember Davis from my experience just talking to people who live in mobile homes they made this decision knowing you know without illusions and for a lot of people it's they want to be able to raise a family and have four walls separating themselves from their four walls in space not more than just four walls rather separating themselves from between them and their neighbors so I'd be for kind of looking at a broader you know housing notification policy maybe it should come at the point of the loan you know there's been nationwide history of predatory lending policies that targeting low income people especially you know people of color there's a housing bubble that happened and it could happen again but I'm kind of throwing all those out there to say that focusing on this one issue I don't quite feel comfortable you know doing that for that for the reasons that I just mentioned I hope I made that clear thank you anybody else okay so I've always said that silence is not indicative of the scent of agreement so I'm what I'm understanding is I haven't heard anybody talk about wanting to move forward with this kind of disclosure so if that's not correct now is the time to correct me but hearing none no objections or corrections I think we'll move forward without necessarily implement implementing this policy all right thank you appreciate it council you bet all right the next one is agenda item I guess dinner will be here soon so we'll we'll take a break when we need to agenda 3d receive report hold discussion of staff direction on the FY 20 19 20 20 City Council priorities as discussed during the August 17 2019 City Council retreat August 27 so we've got about an hour and a half left we've got one two three of course the last one is going to only be about you know it's our it's our priority list so that's gonna go by quickly so I think we've got enough time just wanting to keep track okay good afternoon mayor City Council Sarah Keickler chief of staff by way of quick background not the right one hold on wrong presentation on one second I apologize that is the last one you do not want to go through that one again okay this is the correct presentation so by quick way of recap the council held a retreat on August 17th and as part of that retreat there was an exercise to identify what are some priority areas that council would be interested in identifying for staff and those council priorities really helped to inform staff what should be our primary focus for the year and then really help serve as a foundation for budget development so following the council retreat on August 27th staff held a work session to go over what were the top priorities that had received three or more votes at the retreat staff received direction from council at that time that they that you would like some more information on each one of these priority areas and what were the steps needed to undergo that priority as well as some actions that are already taking place so staff has put that information together that is included in exhibit 2 in your backup with some further details but for this presentation I'm going to focus a little bit more on the top seven priorities that had received three or more votes so the the first priority to go over was the development of affordable housing assessment and strategy and so staff has just kicked off this project is in the initial phases and we've released an RFP and to select a consultant to help us with phase one of an affordable housing assessment and really this is a crucial first step to do that data collection community wide to understand our housing environment today and then projected needs and go through that initial analysis and then subsequently see if Council is interested in a phase two to use that data to then inform what should be goals policies available tools and kind of facilitate that policy discussion. We do expect that the responses will come back in October and then could contract with the consultant and undergo that phase one assessment. We've also reached out to the Denton Housing Authority in United Way of Denton County who have indicated interest in participating and contributing to phase one. The second priority here listed on this slide is City Hall West so right now staff is going through and reviewing options that were presented previously from the consultant architectus in the fall of last year and as well as reviewing the recommendations from the City Hall West Committee we do have a work session scheduled in October next month to review proposed next steps on the City Hall West project so going into the next slide the next priority identified was to complete revision of the mobility plan that project is in progress and we are in the final stages of the data gathering analysis so the next step will be actually to draft the various components of the master plan as you see identified in the second bullet point here as those are developed additional public meetings will be scheduled probably in November December timeframe to review with the public with the ultimate goal of having a full draft plan ready to review with council in February of next year and then adopt by May of 2020 so that's the current status of that project and proposed next steps. The next priority the last row here is to update the sustainable denton plan this project is in progress as well they've gone through the initial data collection and analysis phase and held the public meetings public input and based upon that data and public input have drafted a plan that is going to be reviewed with the committee on environment and council this fall we'll take staff will take the recommendations and the feedback from council and the committee on the environment to get to a final draft plan for adoption and then begin implementation of that plan in the next fiscal year as well as we think it could be adopted later this year early next year by council. The fifth priority here or not in order any order but the next priority is the county wide homelessness strategy so a number of steps are underway regionally with our partners with the denton county homeless leadership team to take the next steps and actions identified in the strategic plan we're also continuing all of our existing initiatives and actions of the homeless leadership team through our various work groups including the homeless coalition the data work group housing work group and shelter work group and beginning to plan for our 2020 point in time count which will take place in January staff is also working on we'll also begin to manage the supplementals that were approved in this next fiscal year's budget from the enhanced shelter to the barriers fund street outreach rapid rehousing and their grants to our daily bread for additional security. One additional item I want to highlight here is that we will be working with our partners to begin long term planning for a co located center or a day center in this next year that will be a major initiative of this priority so the next priority to highlight is the hunter coal ranch this involves many of our departments and they're currently undergoing the analysis and the studies related to the facilities the infrastructure financial feasibility and so forth we have proposed a tentative meeting schedule with the planning and zoning commission as well as council there are two council work sessions planned for this fall the first one would be on October 22nd and would focus on the master plan community aspect as well as gas wells and then that November 19th council work session would focus more on the operating agreements and the fiscal impact analysis so those are tentatively proposed and on the schedule for next steps to consider that development further. The next item this last row here is to continue to explore public private partnership opportunities and this is really across all operations and departments in the cities where we can identify how we can improve services reduce costs address a need enhancement for our community so we're looking in multiple areas just wanted to highlight parks and rec social services downtown economic development or some key areas where we are looking for that private investment and private partnership. So based upon the additional information we received from staff and based upon the council direction last time we tried to take a stab at putting some verbs more action oriented to these count these top seven council priorities that were identified as listed here on the screen and just described so today we're seeking feedback on any necessary revisions to that prior slide and the proposed priorities from council once agreed upon we'll bring back a formal resolution to formally adopt those priorities. Yeah on the sustainable dentin plan it just says in fall but all the other items have a a month which make it more specific and I know that a lot of the individual items that we had some must a lot of those fell into the sustainable sustainable plan and so I'm just kind of wondering if you could drill down that a little bit more for me and if there's already a drafted plan if if we could see that the full council even at the same time before the committee also sees it just so that we all have the same information. Yeah our goal right now is to have something to council for you to review but late October mid-November somewhere in that room so we just met with Dr. Banks last week and he's in the process of putting together the update for COE and also kind of breaking down that plan into some action steps and some topics that need to be addressed in order to make that happen so I would expect quite a bit of progress to be made in terms of informing you what's where we are in the next six weeks. Thank you. Mayor Potem. Thank you Mayor. My focus is going to be on the the affordable housing assessment I know it's going out to the consultant it may be after a consultant thing but I really would like to look at that naming right I mean it or at least be able to define that right I mean that's always kind of the trick and so I don't know if we could either leave this as a placeholder until the consultants get on board and then make that kind of task number one because I think if that's the name that's fine but then there how do you define that right I mean and it vacillates and maybe there's a combination of all things that roll into that but I just want to if we're going to give it that title I want to be able to then communicate what that means or at least what their what algorithm they're using to to come to that conclusion because I think that's step one for me you know you've heard workforce housing just you know in it and so if we had just a scenario that said it maybe in parens after the name it says assuming this much income you know whatever it is just kind of a math equation to that. I would think that the study would they would have to define that because the whole study would based be based upon some plan and we would have to know the specific metrics and criteria so that can be one of the requirements is you got to tell us what do you mean by affordable housing and then we get a chance to either agree with that or in other words it's going to it's going to determine the scope of the of the report. And based upon the data collected what does affordable housing mean to Denton and what's the common agreement that will be part of the facilitation as well coming to this common definition and terms based upon the data gathered and the recommendations from a consultant. Right and I just want to kind of front load that as best we can so so who's ever watching can react to it and say no that's inaccurate whatever but the earlier we can give that kind of segment of information out it gives people time to you know if they're going to take issue or raise concerns or ask us to revisit that they're able to do that. Thank you. Member Davis so I really appreciate the verbs I think that framing them in this way helps us kind of understand what are we what are we deciding as a priority you know not just the name of a building but what are we doing with the building and I think you did a good job whoever wants to take responsibility for did a good job of lining out what each of these bullets mean my only criticism is not really a criticism it's just you know seven is a lot of priorities and some of these receive more votes than others. I'm I guess generally okay with it because some of these we're going to knock out pretty soon in the fiscal year that's our intention you know mobility plan we're going to get to pretty soon sustainability plan we're going to hopefully get to pretty soon but the final two you know if there's any kind of low-hanging fruit for taking off the list the last one public private partnerships that's almost like an SOP for me that's almost like a standard procedure like in any project well let's figure out if somebody else wants to help pay for it not necessarily a new a new initiative that we want to undertake it's just something we ought to do for everything and then Hunter Cole ranch you know it's we're going to have to can make some decisions and undergo some considerations for that regardless of whether we decide it's a priority or not it has it has become a priority because of the nature of it so I don't know that we necessarily need to enshrine it as one of our council initiative priorities we're going to have to make decisions regardless councilman Meltzer I'm fine with with pretty much everything that was just said the the continue implementation of countywide homelessness strategic plan strikes me as a little less muscular than maybe what was intended I guess I would have expected something more along the lines of assess this is too long okay assess current implement assess implementation and I and identify next elements of you know something that suggests you know that we're going to figure out where do we go from here I mentioned in a previous council meeting the idea of reassembling the the emergency shelter task force on the assumption that what we just approved did get approved to say what would be the next step after that I mean you've teed up you know a thought that I think is very constructive but you know I don't know if that's it you know if that's that reflects you know a lot of input or or what so anyway I just have that comment on that to the extent that public private partnership opportunities remains up there which is I don't think terrible either I would just offer a little like sub bullet or thought you know might that include adding grant writing capabilities into the city there's a way to pursue that okay the only thing I would have I'm okay with this I mean I know that the homelessness leadership team is constantly continuing to look at gaps and things such as that but if we want to change it that's fine but I'm and I understand the explore public private partnership opportunities I think we're doing that daily I think we're so this is going to be codified at an ordinance it's just I'm okay with any of those changes but it's to me it's just more form than substance I do have a question on the continue implementation of county-wide homelessness strategic plan it's my understanding that the city that didn't housing authority was recommended for some additional veterans additional bash vouchers and I can't remember now that doesn't mean we're necessarily going to get the funding on it just means that we might be in that mix I think was it five was it do you remember if not that's okay I do remember some so I just wanted to to share that with the public that doesn't mean that if they're given but that's a really good first step when you can get in there so I really just appreciate over the last few years the help of staff didn't housing authority because five years ago we were getting zero and now I think we're getting we've got 20 and we're looking at you know maybe some additional one so I appreciate everybody's hard work in that because I think it's doing a tremendous job to help our homeless veterans so any more discussion on this this will come back to us in the form of an ordinance with any changes that staff feels based upon the input are warranted and then we'll be looking at that as a formal resolution is it resolution or ordinance resolution resolution okay any other questions comments okay thank you very much appreciate it all right moving on to agenda item three let's take a is let's go ahead and take a quick break and grab some dinner and then we'll punch through these last two welcome back to this meeting of the Dent City Council Tuesday September 24 2019 we're moving through our work session agenda items we're on agenda item 3e receive a report hold discussion give staff direction on the use of certified mailings and public hearing notifications good afternoon mayor and City Council my name is Charlie Rosendahl and with the Development Services Department I'd like to discuss with you today the city's use of certified mail for public hearing notifications as a reminder back in May we had a work session to discuss using utility service addresses in our courtesy 500 foot notification and at that work session there was a request that we bring back our use of certified mail we had a discussion with P&Z in June and they agreed with staff's recommendation to to cease the use of certified mailings and only use first-class mailings in the 200 foot notification I'm sorry legal requirement by the local government code is that we mail a notice to owners within 200 feet of a rezoning and we publish that that notice in the local paper in addition to what's legally legally required the city didn't policy is that we use certified mail in those 200 foot notifications and that we also send a 500 foot postcard we add signs on the property and we put those public hearings on the city's website the actual cost of mailing is passed on to the developer the city sends out the mailings and they pay for it initially and then we charge that fee back to the developer prior to the public hearing some considerations on this item the advantages of using certified mail is that it allows us to track and have that proof of the item being delivered some of the disadvantages are that if the mail isn't picked up at the post office if the individuals not at their home when the letter first comes they get a notice and then they have to go to the post office to retrieve that mail and then following a second notice that mails return back to the city so we found since we've been tracking beginning in April that 32 percent of those mailings end up coming back to the city so a third of those notifications aren't getting to the residents the second disadvantage of using certified mail is it's almost five dollars more than a regular first-class mail so we looked over the last three years on what the change what the effect of this change would be so we sent almost a little over 2,000 notices and that's 23 on average per case and so on average per case it would save a hundred and ten dollars and that cost the developer for those mailings with that staff seeking direction from the council on whether we should continue to use certified mails in the 200 foot notices councilmember Ryan I believe did you not instigate originate this yes I do and for some of the reasons even mentioned on here if you're not there when that notice comes and you have to go to the post office as we see 32 percent of the people are never even being informed because they don't get down there quick enough I mean it's not to me the cost factor is immaterial based on what it costed to do a rezoning or alternate plan you know that's very small yeah but I think we would have a more informed public via the regular mail person you have you asked for it to discuss whether we want to continue this practice right okay so I agree and thank you for bringing that to our attention and that's that 32 percent is this a huge amount of it's not you're not even seeing these notices so to me it's kind of a no-brainer you know I would be curious to know if the if the council consensus is to move to first class which I hope it will be what people imagine the the envelope saying you know will it be one of those to the recipient and only the recipient I forget exactly how that's worded but or you know what the wording would be if it would be any different than we'd have with a certified mail because for a certified mail you know that if it gets to the person in which we see you know about 90% of the case it's 68% it's not getting there but if it does get to them you know we know that they're gonna see it but with it but with first class you know what is it gonna say on the envelope that'll encourage them to open it and not just to throw it in the in the junk pile so I need some clarification are you saying that you're in support of moving away from certified mail yeah okay yeah to first class and I'm just saying what you know I'd be curious to know if like if staff had a plan or if other members of council had a suggestion about what to put on the envelope to make sure or we can't make ensure make sure that somebody reads it to at least not discourage to at least not encourage people to throw to toss it in the bin but that's not a deciding factor for me I'm for it regardless customer base I'll be brief because I agree with the last two speakers people kind of think of certified mail as this magical way of getting something something someplace it actually get makes it harder to get something someplace the only person purpose of sending something certified mail is to prove later on that somebody got it it doesn't mean that the post office is gonna try harder to get it there it's actually the opposite they're gonna work harder to make you come get it as councilmember Ryan said so I just don't any members of the public to think you know we're going away from something we're making it harder for people to be informed it's just the opposite I agree with a how many speakers to read with the previous two speakers three three agree with the previous three first class mail is underrated it's great and my suggestion would be to bring whatever's proposed before the committee on citizen engagement for an extra few pairs of eyes I'll just I'll just add on that that we're working in the department on on the notices piece and trying to create some kind of uniformity on that so if you see a sign posted on a property it should in the future look like the postcard that's mailed to you so there's a little bit of recognition and we can look at how we can add that to the letters as well yeah so I I agree on moving to the first class mail as well but I just want to make sure that we're still doing the 200 and the 500 that's not changing and the the envelope looks different than regular you know junk mail so that it's paid attention to you and not just thrown and recycling and that annexation is not including in this right because that's a different type of notice notification those are still going to be certified as they were until that discussion comes up again okay sounds like okay anybody else pro tem postcards because that's what I advocated for when I was on PNC I just think that works better to get a postcard with all the information up front and center versus the envelope that you got to open or you know I just think it communicates better and you can get a cheaper rate on the postage so if you were the owner of a property and you lived in that 500 foot but you would get a letter and a postcard the letter additionally contains the form that you can give back to the city in opposition or in favor of a development okay I'd be interested to see if there's if there's any savings in the referated but I just think that to councilmember Briggs point the the envelope sometimes you know maybe just communicate junk mail whereas if I'm engaging you from the beginning with some kind of postcard that you tear off and send in maybe you have a better chance and I just wanted to spell kind of certified mail lore the post the post person doesn't care I mean you could make an X on there you could draw a straight line whatever it is they're going to give you your mail so you don't really know who signed for it and and people were if you know there's just there's no it doesn't really help find out if it you find out someone received it but you have no idea the name they don't print they don't you know it's just kind of it's not great information that you get out of those so that's why I'm I'm for the regular mail thank you sounds like you have direction sir all right okay we'll move on to agenda item 3f receive a porthole discussion give staff direction on pending City Council request for information good afternoon mayor and council Stuart bird's eye assistant to the city manager and I'm here for your City Council pending request for information just reminder that all of these are submitted through writing and it's service clarification policy related or a report request it's going to take more than two staff hours we'll review up to seven of them we have three to review today I'll just briefly introduce the request and then the requesting elected officials will have one minute to state their case and then everybody will have one minute to respond if they so choose so that we can gain consensus direction so we'll jump into these the first item today is going to be revisiting back in parking this was requested by council member Melzer on September 11th and we'll turn it over I didn't anticipate that the full text of my pitch was going to be sent to you all in advance so assuming you've read it I'll use the time a little differently we were provided the statistics the theory was it's safer so now we have data so let's look at the data in 2014 before it was before this was instituted we we see that there were three traffic accidents in that area that's nine months of data so I'll grant you that it would trend to four years after that 13 8 10 8 it's up people hate it it's not meeting its intended purpose people are obviously capable of parking either way with the existing striping because we see it every day I don't think you need to change the thing with the sign all right who's up oh we need to reset hold on all right go I'm okay I'm okay listening to the conversation I think even if there's it's going to be beneficial for the public to hear the data and to hear us discuss it since it's been in place for so long and so I'm good with listening to whatever the presentation is okay but else yes because my mind yeah I support having this discussion I hear a lot of complaints about it too I understand from an engineering perspective why it makes sense but I'm for considering a serious change anybody else okay and I just want to reiterate that silence is you're not necessarily wanting to hear the conversation all right so we've got three people I believe I think I want to have more of the data in an ISR I don't necessarily want to have a work session because when you mention accidents I don't know if it's accidents people backing out that have pulled in the wrong way or people that have actually had an accident because they parked the right way but this yeah I mean this is a whole conversation that I mean it's it's unusual or anyway so my time's up it's not up but I'm up I don't I don't listen I don't want to have a full work session on this without more data anybody else okay so no work session on this I don't think I guess there's nothing else to do okay item number two today is the city of Dallas welcoming city information it was requested by councilmember armator hold on a second we is this a question for clarification or debate on this issue okay go ahead so are we not allowed to respond to your request okay I'm gonna I don't want to create a whole nother I will I will make that request on my own if that's what I want to do okay yeah thank you I'm sorry go ahead so the city of Dallas welcoming city information is our next item it was requested by councilmember armator thank you so what I was asking for is that Denton consider a resolution in support of being a welcoming city like Dallas is done and the staff report it mentions just a few cities but if you go to welcoming America org you'll see about a hundred it focuses on the contributions of immigrants to the economy and here's a quote and please correct me tell me when it's time to stop talking immigrants account for nearly one third of the city's entrepreneurs the twenty thousand four hundred five immigrants who own business generated four hundred ninety five point nine million in business income that's for Dallas that's the kind of information we could be putting forward about Denton I would like to get the CVB's opinion to see if they're on board but first I wanted to run this by my colleagues and there's no money involved we wouldn't have to pay for a welcoming city they help strategize nationwide plan over around a hundred cities doing it including three in Texas okay yes customer Davis so I 100% support the spirit behind becoming a welcoming city and wanting to have that you have that image as a city and be able to let people know how welcoming we are toward immigrants however I'll note that Dallas is number 20 on the list of what is called global cities destinations for international trade international travel immigrant populations are naturally going to settle someplace like a Dallas or a New York or Los Angeles to do something with city resources on the kind of scale to make it a program the city I just don't see a need for that in Denton maybe there's there's a chamber of commerce function we had there something like that but to adopt a whole initiative on the scale that that Dallas did scaled down to our size I just don't see a need for that we don't have the immigrant population for it all right that's me breaks yes I'm in favor of us listening to a conversation our resolution but really going over the overarching goals the five goals that are mentioned but as far as a plan the cost of it is really concerning because when I looked I think Dallas spent almost five hundred thousand dollars on the plan so when I heard you say that it was free or didn't cost anything I'm confused by that information because I didn't know that but I would be willing to listen to just a simple resolution of a welcoming city rather than like a large plan got some I'm also nice and very corny input this is a fast growing city we get new people every day from other cities other parts of the country and from other countries and I think we should be a welcoming city and back in the day there used to be something called welcome wagon and they actually came and visited us when we were new to town and it included pointers and orientation and a basket of goods and coupons from local businesses I think it was probably facilitated by the chamber but the idea of us exploring whether we could create something like that that would be enacted by local service organizations and if what that what that individual being welcome needs is bilingual information or things related to being from another country that's great but it's more about broadly welcoming newcomers anybody else so I'd be interested in a session about that anybody else okay I hear re okay yeah anybody any more comment okay thank you thank you all right our final item today is community public art grants and community tree grants it was requested on September 17th by Councilmember Davis so our program staff tells me probably already encompasses a neighborhood that say wants to plant a tree and get some matching funds from the city or wants to establish a piece of public art in their neighborhood however we have funds that we sometimes look at each other and think well how are we going to spend the tree fund how are we investing that how are we investing the public art money we have potentially a bond issue coming up with some additional public art money so my proposal is that we would talk about new and distinct programs that would tap these existing funds a neighborhood would apply for matching grants and they would have to establish whatever they're going to do on a piece of city property it would piece of public art would be could be the right of way could be a local park but it would be in their in their vicinity and they'd have to match the funds a tree would have to be planted on city property and then those things would stay and become city property and city responsibility but that's to kind of get the funds that we talked about out into the community and in the hands of the neighborhoods we had that time just right lots of practice Councilmember Briggs I'm willing to hear a presentation on any way that we can involve the residents in the community and provide grants to them I'm willing to listen to it so I love the idea the part of it that's about getting the word out about community improvement grant program what I'm wary about is you know the idea of limiting it to public art and trees to wonderful wonderful causes and uses of these funds but right now I like the way that the it's up to the creativity of those communities to determine how they want to use it so I guess I'd be for having the conversation but I would have to say no if it's going to limit the funds to just public art or trees but I think that we do need to really help to get the word out there about these grants. Anybody else? Councilmember Meltzer? Okay to have the conversation say that one more time yes I'm okay to have the conversation let's see so Councilmember Armintra I'm not quite sure how to tally your comment. I'm in favor of having the conversation I was just kind of giving a heads up that there's basically there's something I like about it something I don't like about it and that sounds like there's these four so yes sir all right fantastic thank you is that is that the end of the list all right fantastic well I believe that that concludes our work session we have no closed session that's scheduled on the agenda so we will adjourn our council meeting at 540 and reconvene in the council chambers at 630. Welcome everybody to this meeting of the Dent City Council on September the 24th 2019. We do have a quorum I will now open the meeting if you could for our first agenda item stand if you're able to pledge allegiance to the US and Texas flag. Under the Texas flag I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state under God one indivisible. Our next agenda item is consent agenda I believe we have a well we're gonna have one pooled so we'll wait on that Councilmember Ryan approval the consent agenda except for item B all right Mayor Pro Tem second we have a motion and a second for the agenda consent agenda except for agenda item 2B which we will take up as an item for individual consideration let's vote on the board please. Motion carries 7-0 we will now take up agenda item 2B as an item for individual consideration please let the record reflect the recusal of Councilmember Davis Mayor Pro Tem move approval item 2B Councilmember Ryan second we have a motion and a second for agenda item 2B let's vote on the board please motion carries 6-0 with one recusal moving on to agenda item three items for individual consideration consider approval of a resolution nominating members to the board of directors of the Denton Central Appraisal District and declaring an effective date. Good evening I'm Nancy toll I'm the Treasury Manager we have I have a quick recap of a presentation if you'd like to hear it but last time when Tony presented this to you on September 10th you were allowed up to five nominees for the board of directors two were listed or recommended at that meeting Rick Walfork and you got some information in the back up on him and John Baines unfortunately John declined due to other commitments. If you'd like I can go through the presentation which was simply a recap of what you had last time or we can open this up sure any Councilmember want to hear a presentation on this? So it's my understanding we have one nomination we're considering which is Rick Walfork is that correct yes okay all right seeing no questions thank you. Chair would entertain action Mayor Pro Tem. I move approval of the the allocation of our votes go to Rick Walfork because it's my understanding we have a few that we we have one nominee but I think we have yes yeah we can split the votes up everyone but you're saying you're you're is this a this is a resolution is that motion for a resolution is that correct yeah so you're saying your your motion for the resolution is to allocate all of our votes to Rick Walfork that is correct okay Councilmember Ryan second any discussion we have a motion a second let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero agenda item three be considered nominations appointments to the city's boards and commissions Councilmember Briggs I move approval of Brian back to the Planning and Zoning Commission. We have a motion Councilmember Meltzer I'll second so we have an emotion and a second for the nomination of Brian Beck to the Planning and Zoning Commissioner Commission excuse me made by Councilmember Briggs let's vote on that nomination and item 3B motion carries seven zero moving on to agenda item 3D as mentioned in the earlier work session C was inadvertently missed just because they pulled it so that's just a simply a clerical it's not even an error it's just it was just skipped over so we do not have an agenda item C we've got agenda item 3D consider adoption and ordinance of the City of Denton Texas amending the fiscal year 2018-19 budget and annual program of services to allow for adjustments to the risk fund of two hundred seventy thousand dollars good afternoon mayor city council members Nick Vincent city's budget manager have a quick presentation for you today to cover both proposed amendments to the fiscal year 18-19 budget feel free to ask me any questions you may have thought the presentation or staff is here also present help me answer any questions so as a mayor said the first amendment is an adjustment to the risk retention fund of two hundred seventy thousand we said we have seen an increase in liability claims this fiscal year and you can see the original budget was two hundred fifty thousand to date we've had six hundred eighty thousand actual expenses for a variance about four hundred and thirty I would like to point out that three of these claims are associated with three claims that we've had come into the city one of them being for a hundred eighty five thousand another for two hundred forty five thousand and a third one for sixty eight thousand the second amendment to the budget is for the fleet services fund of five hundred thousand the first one is for outside contract services this is to do with the second shop that the fleet facilities open at the solid waste facility and also related to outsourcing a vehicle and equipment repairs you can see the original budget was nine hundred thousand we are projecting end of year projections of expenses one point two million the variance being three hundred thousand and the second object code that's exceeded in their budget is fuel purchases the original budget was two point six million we are projecting this to come in at two point eight for a variance of two hundred in total five hundred thousand dollar amendment with that that concludes the presentation any questions just got one on the fuel is that did we have a price spike or is it just we just use more than what we thought the actual amount per gallon for fuel was actually down a little bit was originally budgeted but the volume was up for this fiscal year and this these funds will just come out of the fund balance or how will they be allocated so actually the fleet fund is an internal service fund so the increased expenses in fleet are offset by revenues from various departments around the city so for instance solid waste DME police and fire they'll make transfers to fleet to cover those expenses and then so in those particular departments it's either I mean the money's going to eventually flows down to the general fund if there's not enough in those budgets to handle that is that correct yeah absolutely so part of the process we do every year at the end of the fiscal year around September at this time period we go through all the funds in the city to make sure there's appropriations to handle the expenses through the end of September we've done that these are the two funds we've identified to exceed the appropriations good that's wonderful all right any more questions for staff council member Ryan move approval item 3d councilmember Briggs second we have a motion and a second for agenda item 3d let's vote on the board please motion carries 7-0 we'll now move on to our public hearings portion of the agenda agenda item 4a hold a public hearing consider adoption of an ordinance granting approval in accordance with chapter 26 of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Code of the non-park use of a part of Bowling Green Park for the purpose of installing and maintaining a water line for the fireside development project parallel to Windsor Drive oh well I guess I should turn the page over shouldn't I boy wow I was gonna want to keep y'all here so we're gonna post best been postponed so we will not do we need to since I called it do we need to since I called the item do we need to do something official or do we just I say okay so I should have read the other side of the paper this has been postponed indefinitely so we'll move forward on to our next agenda item which also has been postponed indefinitely all right so now we're moving on to concluding items councilmember Armitage so can I can I ask why they've been postponed indefinitely is this not as concluding item but is part of that section or well we would have we would need to we would need to recall the item yeah okay so never mind okay so we're on concluding items councilmember Briggs so I just want to mention to everyone out there that we won't be meeting next Tuesday because it's national night out and hopefully your neighborhoods have planned a party and we will see you then and there's I think Monday night beforehand there's a party for those residents who don't have a neighborhood party to come I believe is it the City Civic Center yeah yeah so hope to see you out okay thank you mayor pro tem yes so my alma mater NCTC has their grand opening of the exchange that's Friday at 10 a.m. and then also University of Houston is in town Saturday Saturday evening so there'll be a good football game so please come out okay anybody else any other concluding item well I've got to stretch this out a little bit further okay no all right so we will stand adjourned at 642 p.m.