Nov 05, 2019 City Council on 2019-11-05 1:00 PM

Welcome everyone to this meeting of the Denton City Council on Tuesday, November the 5th, 2019. It is 1.02 p.m. We do have a quorum, so we'll call this meeting to order. We'll move through our work session reports. First item under work session is agenda item number one, which is citizen comments on consent agenda items. Do we have any citizen comments? No citizen comments? Just for clarification of agenda items listed on this agenda, councilmember Armitage. I was wondering if there's someone here just to say a little bit about AG. That's about the consultant for economic development strategic plan. Councilmember Joseph Rogers, director of economic development. Do you have a specific question? Yes. I was wondering if you could just explain the typical question of why do we need a consultant for this? Because I know that you are very well skilled and knowledgeable, so what's the case for a consultant? Sure. I appreciate that compliment. What we're looking at is doing an in-depth study and analysis on the full comprehensive economic development strategy. While certainly we have many staff members who are talented and capable of doing that, getting an outside perspective is crucial such that it's an independent analysis and we're getting someone taking an outside perspective and a real assessment of what we're doing and we're not showing any inherent biases in our assessment of ourselves. Thank you so much. That's the kind of answer that makes me want to vote yes to it. Thank you. Councilmember Briggs. So I have questions on our, before it says real waves radio network, and I'm not sure what that is. I know we have Kuzu and then we also have Denton radio, which I'm familiar with in our city, but I wasn't sure if either one of these was that and I'm just looking for top funds. Oh, so you don't know? David Gaines, Director of Finance. I'm not sure of the specific question, but we'll follow up with you and get an answer for that. Okay. Great. Okay. So we have AAB on consent as well. So this is about the change order and so I know, looking back at the AIS, we had two change orders for around $65,000 already and this one is for $178,000 and so is this just for overruns and I'm just curious about the original contract if, like, contingency was built in because it seems kind of like a lot for the different change orders. Pritam Deshmukh, Deputy City Engineer. Quickly answer that question. I think this is a larger amount due to unforeseen groundwater issues. When we dug up, when we went under, a lot of groundwater was rising up. We had to take precautions. We had some geo grid installed and designed so we had to go back and redesign and reengineer some of the components for the drain and that's why this change order is slightly higher because of unforeseen circumstances at the site and we're wrapping up the project so this is the last change order. We'll be closing the project after this. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. I have just a few more. So on AC, it's the DME poles so I may want to pull this. I'm not sure. We did get an answer from city staff about that it's required maintenance of the poles but my question is I know that we have poles being replaced right now and as we do, then there's stub poles that aren't getting replaced so where there was once one, now there's two and if this study is going to recommend a lot of poles being replaced, I would like to make sure we have some sort of agreement in place with the other utilities if that's possible and is this kind of study something that may require those poles to be changed? Brent Heath, executive manager for energy delivery. That's a great question and that is actually a different topic than this agenda item. This is strictly to allow us to test and inspect the poles to see if they are decayed or about to fall. Replacing the poles would be something that would be under either our contractors or our workers would do and we do acknowledge the stub pole issue and we're working with the communication companies to try to resolve that. Okay. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. I believe we have an answer to your question for R. Good afternoon. Randy Klingle for the treasury department and I believe your question was regarding real waves radio versus Denton radio. Real waves radio is a low frequency radio station here in Denton that usually does a mile or a mile or two radius outside. It's completely separate from the Dentonradio.com and we are only funding or requesting funding here for your permission for the hot funds is to support a quarterly event. They have four quarters that they provide to show to the city of Denton in different locations so we'll be supporting the arts category in only one quarter of the four quarters that they present some type of music venue for. Okay. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Just two more. Sure. Okay. So this is about the library and I know that when we switched over before there were questions about several card holders not being able to use their Kindle whites anymore and so I was just curious if this was something to address that or if this is completely different. Right on cue. Thank you. I'm Jennifer Becker, Director of Libraries. I didn't hear the last part. Could you repeat it? Well, so it's for Blue Biotech and then I saw Cloud Library and I know that when we switched over to software there were issues with Kindle paper whites and several card holders couldn't use our online catalog anymore and seeing this, is this what that is or is this something to address that issue? So when we switched from Overdrive to Cloud Library, it's our digital content provider so downloadable ebooks and audiobooks, we brought that to you and this part that we're coming back with was inadvertently left off. This is the cloud link service that you can share content with other Texas libraries. So instead of our 17 plus thousand items in our collection, you'll have access to 136,000 items from other libraries. So it's an interlocal to do that. Okay. So it's not necessarily? We've already converted to cloud. Okay. This is just the interlocal to share the content. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. That's all. Okay. Any other clarifications for? Yes. Council Member Meltzer. I would take it under advisement from the City Manager if there's privacy issues involved that would make this request inappropriate, but I think the public is very concerned about Officer Rodriguez and it might be appropriate to take AR as an individual item just so we can get a little update. I'd like to defer to City Attorney on whether he feels it's appropriate. I think we can do that as part of the concluding items. Okay. If you'd like, I think we can fit it under there. That works. I'm happy to ask Chief to give us an update on the concluding items, if you don't mind. Okay. All right. Okay. So let me make sure I just understood. Okay. We've got a resolution on AR. Yeah. And you're saying you wanted to do what? Well, I would have made it a separate item, but in order to create an opportunity for an update for the public if that were appropriate, the counterproposal was to do that in concluding items, and that's fine with me. So AR is still on the consent agenda? Yeah. And the difference is, is we're simply, staff has been in the process of updating the city's employee ethics policy. We're not ready to bring it to council yet, but I wanted to be sure that in light of all the fundraising that's going on for Officer Rodriguez that we were in no way violating anything. So we're just clearing the way. Great. Yep. Thanks. Appreciate that. Yes, Council Member Armitage. Just to make a suggestion, if I may, if this would be amenable, that since the chief is here right now, because we don't know how late the meeting is going to run, if instead of waiting until the end of the meeting, concluding items, that maybe just give an update now while he's here, if that's amenable. I guess I need to check with city attorney to see if that's- You'd have to call item seven during the work session. Yeah, for a request for further information. Or at the beginning of the meeting, the regular session, that's part of the regular session. Generally, you'd have to call it at the beginning of the meeting to move into the work session. It's technically a separate meeting, the work session, but we could do it at the beginning of the regular meeting, if that would work for everybody. Or maybe just be at a later time, just not to inconvenience staff. Well, and I certainly want to be very sensitive to the wishes, and I'm going to defer to the chief or somebody else other than myself or even the city manager on, if somebody says we need to just keep the status quo, I'm real okay with that, and because it's just one of those situations. So we'll figure that out from between now and the meeting, and we may or may not address it. Okay, any other clarifications on the agenda item? I will be recusing on agenda item, which one is that? What is it, I'm sorry? 5J. I'm sorry. You want to move it to IC? Oh, you're talking about my recusing? Oh, yeah, no. Oh, yeah, I was just announcing that I would be. Okay, any other questions for clarification? I do want to address one of the questions for clarification about the economic development strategic study. We just spent some time in audit finance going over an audit of economic development, and that study played a large part in just not necessarily deferring, but understanding that study's coming to really take a look at policies and procedures and best practices. So I think that's a good thing. All right, we'll move on now to our work session reports. Work session 3A, receive report, hold discussion, give staff direction regarding a fee grant or a fee reimbursement program for nonprofit development fees. Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, Danny Shaw, Community Development. Today we're here to ask Council for some policy directions regarding a development fees assistance program that has been recommended. We're going to talk about about six different areas where we're going to ask Council for a little bit more direction to help us build out the program before we present it to you for final approval. Just a little bit of background, there are two existing programs that currently provide opportunities to give assistance to nonprofits for development fees. The CDBG at Home program does allow that within the program, and in fact, we did fund a Grace Lake Rain project that's upcoming with CDBG funding for 2019-20. And then there's the new Affordable Housing Fee Grant program that Council just approved. We did actually get $18,000 in funding in the 2018-19 year, and we're able to allocate $12,000 of that. And then we're now in our first full year of that funding of $75,000. And then what we're here to talk about today is the Nonprofit Development Fee Grant program that has been proposed with funding that was made available in the budget. We do have six areas in which we're looking for a little bit more policy guidance where this differs from the Affordable Housing Fee Grant program. It was a very narrow slice looking at just single-family homes. So when we start to talk about nonprofits, we have a lot of variety in what's happening in the community around those services, so we want to kind of address that. So our first question is about who is eligible. We are going to talk about some direction about what assistance should be offered, how much, if there's any compliance that Council would like in exchange for that grant, if there are any limitations you'd like to put on it, and ultimately what the process that you would prefer to see as we build out the program. So the first question about who is eligible, what types of nonprofits, who do they serve, and are there any other qualifications that you'd like to consider? As you well know, 501(c)(3) has crossed the gamut of services from charitable organizations to religious to nonprofits that serve sports programs in the community or animals, so there's a lot of variety across nonprofits. What we did in the presentation here is you'll see different programs that we already have and how they address those questions, and then some options and recommendations for the new program. We certainly are recommending that it definitely be a 501(c)(3) that's been in operation for two years. It's consistent with other programs that we have where we're offering grants to nonprofits, but a couple of the questions we have today about this particular item is, do we want to narrow that slice of nonprofits who are eligible for this funding? Our recommendation is human services and housing, but I would like to open it up to our Council to kind of offer some guidance here, and then we'll kind of do it with each slide if that's okay. Could you give just a couple examples of human services and housing? Yes. For existing programs that receive social service funding in the human services grant, that could be anything from health care to housing and homelessness to child care programs like our Fred Moore and Denton City County Day School, Denton Christopher School, so there's a lot of variety in the human services, and then our housing program's more familiar with our Denton Affordable Housing Corporation, Habitat for Humanity. Okay. All right. Councilmember Davis. I just wanted to say I think that's an appropriate limitation. I'm struggling to think of a nonprofit that we would, you know, the kinds of projects that we've discussed before, we've discussed this, I'm trying to think of one that would not fall under that category and would be appropriate to receive a grant for development fees, or even have a project of the type that would need that kind of grant, so I think it's an appropriate limitation. Yes, so just as when we were having these conversations, we started to kind of go to all the different areas, so if we had a sports league team that wanted to develop a building to store their equipment for that, that would be a nonprofit that potentially could be eligible, and would that be where you'd want those fees to be included? That was one of the extreme examples that we thought of, but again, in the gamut, a church could come forward and ask for funding for a new church building because it is a nonprofit, so what kinds of eligibility do you want to look at here? It was kind of where we were seeking a little bit more direction to make sure we were clear. When I first read in sequence, I thought that's really great guidance and I'm comfortable with it. I'm now considering the limitation on the funds and how much each individual party is going to need to make a dent, I would say I'd prioritize housing, I think that was the intent. Okay. We can look at that as well. We did sort of initially draft some prioritizations, but again, after we got into it, we thought we just needed a little bit more direction from you. Any other comments on this? Okay. All right. So I'm hearing housing and human services at a minimum? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we ... Yeah, as far as prioritizing the housing ... Yes. Go ahead, Councilmember Archer. I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you. Sure. Okay. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem. Sorry. So I have general thoughts, are we going ... What are those kinds of ... Probably what I'd like to do is if she's going to ... She's basically got six questions for us, so let's go through each one and if you have specific questions on ... I believe it was six. Six. There are six areas. On each one of these that they're needing ... And then after that, we can go into general questions concepts that may alter some of that feedback, but does that give any guidance? Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. I'm okay with the recommendation with housing as a focus, but my question would be so targeted human services, so if that means that somebody wanted to open up a rehab facility or something that necessarily wasn't housing but helped in certain categories, that would qualify if it was a structure? If we extended to human services, right? That would allow a little bit more of an open door, so for instance, one of the programs that's been assisted, Monsignor King, make an example, that's obviously emergency shelter and human services, but Serve Denton is not housing currently, and it was one of the programs that we highlighted as far as development fee costs, so that would be one that would not be eligible if you just restricted it to housing. Okay. I'm okay keeping human services on there, but a priority of housing would -- Okay. -- would be -- Thank you. Well, and I think that all -- I think we're sort of thinking of it in the affirmative of housing that's needed, but human services could also be preventing people from needing emergency housing. Correct. Delivery of services to humans. Absolutely. Yes. That would be sort of homeless. Well, I'm just saying from homelessness prevention, in other words, if somebody's got an issue that they need some help with to keep them from being evicted, that's not directly related to putting them in some type of housing, but it's directly related to keeping them in their current housing. Right, where the services would be delivered in that building. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. You bet. So item number two is about what assistance we might offer in this program. So Council Member Melser had already brought it forward, and this will probably come up in each of the sections. There's a conversation about having the limit of $150,000, but also the potential that we may not spend that $150,000, depending on what rules and regulations we put in. So there are challenges on both sides. Could we make it so wide that we spend it very quickly and not have enough for multiple projects to benefit, or could we make it so narrow that we can't spend it all? Or will there be years where programs won't be able to be coming forward anyway? So there's just a lot of complexity in that conversation. So that being said, when we have $150,000, what kind of assistance do we want to make sure is available? Because the more of these categories that are available, the more those fees go up. It would be eligible. So as you can see in CDBG, the majority of our planning and development fees are available home, the same with the exception of some of those others. They have to be directly related to the construction. The affordable housing fee grant, we left it broad as well with the downtown redevelopment grant, only impact fees are eligible when they're doing renovations. So our recommendation here is to make all of those available, but when we have the later conversation about limits as to what caps you may put, that may address this as well. >> Okay, Councilmember Armitage. >> I was wondering if you could speak to how this $150,000 amount was settled on. To me, it sounds rather small, given the many services that humans need here in Denton and our great housing needs. How was that determined? What was the process? >> I'm going to throw that to the top. >> We did approve this amount in the budget, is that correct? >> You did. >> Okay. All right. >> I think we initially started out with a $75,000 budget just to see how many entities would actually take advantage of it. The idea here is if we expand it, we'll see how far $150,000 takes us. You always have the ability to go back in and amend the budget. So it's a complete discretion. I wouldn't focus so much on the amount right now in it as much as the usage. If it turns out we need to add a little bit more money to it, that's certainly a decision you can make at a later time. >> Okay. Okay, so it's not a kind of deciding on this is not a fixed amount for the year, it's just kind of it is what we would start with, maybe end with, but if there's a need for more that could come before Council. >> That's right. >> Okay. >> We haven't even seen what the affordable housing grant program is going to do yet either. And historically, there were years where it was not spent because no projects came forward in years where we spent all of it. So I think we're going to, as we're learning how these programs work, we may see that fluctuation. >> May I ask a follow-up question to that? >> Sure. >> So what's the plan for getting the word out to nonprofits? How can we help and also how often will Council be updated on the progress of this? >> We can address more of that when we actually build the program out and answer a lot of those questions. And generally, we will approach it like we do with all of our projects. We will communicate it through our different channels of social media and other sources and then promote from there and then you will have the opportunity to promote the program to your constituents. >> I would just add that under all of these programs, when you typically see these nonprofit projects come through, that's one of the very first questions they ask is what programs do you have for us. We will certainly make sure it's available to the building development services folks as well as CDBG folks. But I think staff does a pretty good job of letting people know that, hey, there could be a program here. In fact, if you recall, this program was actually developed because we didn't have another program in place. So it's iterative. We'll get the word out and we'll certainly make sure our permit technicians are aware of it as well. >> Awesome. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem and then Councilmember Davis. >> I'm not okay with the planning fees, impact fees. I guess the only thing I really settle in on is the building permit fees. I just think the impact fees are for infrastructure traditionally, that sort of thing. So to make that optional or make that kind of, where we're paying for it ourself anyway, I just settle in on the building fees as the most manageable way to help and the planning department work, we're tasking them with being more efficient, cranking out more projects. And so I just, in my mind, kind of have a hard time if someone's utilizing that service at no cost or reduced cost and what is that down the road or what does it do to other projects that we have to get out that are paying a premium. I just, there's some conflicts there that I need to work through in my mind. So at this stage, a building permit seems the most equitable approach that doesn't hurt projects down the line in my estimation. >> Councilmember Davis. >> So my thinking on the development side and the impact fee side, you know, we budgeted this money knowing that if we spend it in this way, we're not getting those impact fees. I mean, we're not really, if we're paying through the grant program, we're paying the impact fees. We're not really out those impact fees. We're using the grant to pay those impact fees. So I'm okay with that. I guess my big question was if there's any reason not to include, I guess in the staff recommendation there you've got development and impact fees and it doesn't appear, are the check boxes things to consider or that you are recommending the building permit also? >> Yes. We're recommending all of them at this point that we can narrow it back if we find that the expenditures are too high or would it, again, depending on what you decide in a couple of other areas, it may direct that too. >> Sure. And that's kind of my overall feeling about it, I guess, is that I think we should begin with obviously limitations on the amounts and, you know, if we're depleting the fund year after year, maybe look at it, but if we do just one and not the other, if we fund just development fees and not say building fees, well then we're encouraging new construction in the non-profits but not necessarily renovation of existing structures. And if we just do building fees, well, the big barriers to entry for some of these non-profits are the new construction. What we're trying to do is soften the blow and help them repurpose spaces and build new stuff. So I'm fine with, I don't want to exclude anything categorically, maybe in an individual application based on caps, we're only covering part of it, but I don't want to exclude anything categorically just because of the type of fee it is. >> Councilmember Briggs. >> Yeah. So I'm great with the recommendations on all of those and that's a great comment Councilmember Davis said on repurposing and reusing structures as well. >> Okay. >> Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. >> Yeah, I'm inclined to include everything on the list and I think ultimately the calculation is what is the get in the door cost to this project and then, you know, we're going to have a judgment to make about, you know, do you want to do two and a half projects and cover all of it or do you want to, you know, say up to 50% of your in the door costs and cover a few more of that kind of thing, but I think it's really just everything that goes into the in the door costs that are fees from the city. >> Okay. >> All right. >> Okay. All right. The next question also related is how much should be awarded to each project, so again you sort of led us into that next question about do we want to cap it at a smaller amount and do more or ensure more projects can be completed or a larger amount to really make an impact on each project but maybe only doing one or two a year, so we did provide that in the AIS, the backup for the range of fees across the section and the newest one we approved with Grayside Crane is already at $80,000 in pre-development costs, so there's a wide range between just a permit for a flag to, you know, depending what the nonprofit needs to that, you know, that $80,000, $90,000 range. >> Have we funded that much of that? >> We will, I mean, Grayside Crane, yeah, we will, that's what they've been approved for for funding. >> Through this program? >> Through CDBG. >> CDBG, yeah. >> Right. This program doesn't exist yet, so be an example of a project that could come. >> Okay. Yes, Councilmember Meltzer. >> About how many such projects would you imagine would come to our, come to you for consideration over the course of a year, impossible to know, but some kind of a range? >> Well, when we did the analysis and development services kind of pulled a different number of nonprofits, so we're looking at three or four in the past. We do have some knowledge that there will be some larger development projects that will likely come forward in the next couple of years from organizations that would be high cost brand new construction, so sort of thinking both of those ways, it's hard to determine how many would come forward, but I wouldn't imagine that we would be looking at a ton a year. Yeah, four or five. >> It's not dozens. >> No, I think, yeah, I mean, even with CDBG, when we come back with them asking for public facility projects, we're only seeing three or four a year on average, and those aren't for these types of fees, but they're more for the renovation or the reconstructions. >> Mayor Pro Tem. >> Yeah, I just looked at the kind of data you provided, and it's my affinity for the downtown reinvestment grants, well documented, and so I think that process is pretty stringent. It's, they're reimbursed, so I use that kind of as a guiding light and step it back a bit, so I'd say between 5,000 and 15,000 just because that process is very diligent about seeking input, it has a board, et cetera, it kind of looks that over, so I think it just, to have a, I just think out of respect for what they do, and I think it should be just a touch below that, so 5 to 15,000 is the number I arrived at, and I guess there could be exceptions to that, but I think also the thing to be careful about is the more flexibility seems like that puts staff in a tough spot, because then you're kind of on the, you're in the middle of policy and what to do, and it gets kind of ambiguous, so I would, hopefully we can, once it's finalized, it's something that's pretty succinct to keep staff out of the middle of that. >> Thank you. >> I think process is different to me than cap, and I'm happy, looking forward to the sort of next page or wherever it falls on process, and this is a pure gut feel, and I'd be curious to hear responses to it, but something like up to half of city fees feels like it's something that would be meaningful enough to make projects more doable for these organizations and also enable us to cover more projects. >> Councilmember Ryan. >> Thank you, and if I heard you right, there was about three of them in the past year that would have been. >> When we get CDBG applications, so we get nonprofits coming to us seeking help with their renovations or reconstructions or repairs to their facilities, it's usually three or four. If you get 150,000 and we had three applications, that's 50,000 each, otherwise we, in the bigger the project, the more impact it's gonna have, so I would be more comfortable with maybe a percentage of, whether it's a 50% or an 80% of what their fees were being covered, maybe put a 50,000 cap overall on it, and it might be something, I don't know if this has been considered or not, but under a certain dollar amount, five or 10,000 can go through staff approval and above that come through council. >> Okay. >> Councilmember Briggs? >> Yeah, I think that's a great idea, because looking at the history and the different projects, some could potentially be, you know, 65,000 and some are just a hundred, right, so I mean, it's. >> It's a lot of variety. >> It is a lot of variety, but for those who have a really heavy investment, I think we should be able to help them out more than others, so I'm in favor of a percentage with a maximum cap as well. >> Okay. So I heard 50 and then 80 as well, is there any? >> Councilmember Davis? >> I had in mind a $50,000 cap. I'm kind of, I'm okay with doing it without a percentage, you know, I don't mind if we cover, if it's a worthy project, we have an approval process for it. I'm okay with covering their entire fees if that's what's, if that's what's necessary for the project and if we have that kind of budget, I don't know that we're going to have three $50,000 projects come through in a single year. I'm also okay, though, if the majority of the council wants to do the percentage, you know, up to half or up to three quarters of their total city fees, I'm okay with that. My preference would be as many as we've got funding for, just pay the fees, get the projects done. >> Councilmember Briggs? >> Yeah, no, that's great, I mean, because there's some projects that are more expensive, so could we do maximum $50,000 as a cap, but if there is, whichever reaches first, I guess, so. >> Yeah, we could manage that. >> Okay. >> Yeah. So if there's a cap, definitely need the cap probably to give us that guidance to say at this point it stops, otherwise we could be proving really high dollar projects without it, but. >> Yeah. >> So what I think I'm hearing is a $50,000 cap, and there's a lot of discussion underneath that, but then it sounds like the discussion really is how do you get to that $50,000. In other words, okay, you got your cap, but then what's the process in which you evaluate that amount that you judge against the cap, and I've heard percentage, I've heard no percentage that you fund up to 100%. Question I have, and we can go back to that, but because we're seeing more where some non-profits are partnering with for-profit developers, and I'm going to be very hesitant to want to give city dollars to a partnership that contains a for-profit entity. >> Okay. >> Based upon some of the experiences that we've had in the past, so that would be my only concern and objection is that they have to be, you know, full non-profit throughout the whole project, and then so that's one of my concerns. >> Okay. So in the case of a multi-family development then. >> Yeah, if you've got a for-profit developer and a non-profit, it may just be the non-profit status. I mean, we're already, if that's the case, the developer already gets an exemption from property taxes, so I'm very hesitant to pile on to that, as we saw in one of our previous projects. >> We can add that to the limitations then, too. >> Councilmember Armitage. >> Yeah, so I'd be curious to know if there's consensus for that limitation, you know, I'd certainly be open to, you know, if anything is red flagged, if it seems like it's too much of a for-profit deal, then have it come before council, but, you know, if there's not consensus for that on council, I wouldn't want to limit it in that way, precisely because housing is so expensive to build, actual brick and mortar. >> Well, let's find out. Let's find out what the direction is on that. So that's been the proposal on the floor. Councilmember Briggs. >> No, I would definitely be in favor of putting some sort of wording in there about for-profit partnerships, and that way, because if it's a strictly non-profit, they may get overlooked and the for-profit may go forward. So right now we're doing this to help our non-profits so that they can help serve and help the community. >> Okay. >> Any other comments on that? Councilmember Davis. >> I agree with that general sentiment. I think we're helped out some by limiting it to 501(c)(3)s, you know, if you're 501(c)(3), you're not a church, you're not a lobbying organization, you've got a lot of limitations, but if there exists those partnerships between 501(c)(3)s and for-profits, the benefit to the non-profit of that partnership is you've got somebody with some deeper pockets who can help pay for some of these things. We don't need to be helping those projects. Those aren't the ones that need our help. >> Councilmember Ryan. >> I agree on -- >> Okay. >> It sounds like we've got a consensus on that. All right. Councilmember Baumgartner. >> Yeah, I would just want to be sure that we clearly define what is meant by a partnership because we have, you know, non-profits who need to contract with, you know, service providers. >> I think we can look at that as far as the -- or the development that is happening. >> Yeah. >> If there's a partnership in that actual activity. >> Yeah. >> And keep that limited. >> Just to be really clear. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> If we're using a max of 50K, I'm still a little unsure about the percentages. >> Yeah, so let's talk about that so we can give clear direction. There's been a proposal -- there's basically been two proposals. One is a 50% maximum or 50% of the development fees or city fees up to the cap and then we've had a proposal where there is no percentage, the cap is just the cap based upon city fees. So comment on that. >> Okay, Mayor Pro Tem. >> And out of those two options, I would say the cap is the cap to add predictability so that the developer or project manager comes in knowing what's available to them and they can govern according to them. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Council Member Nelson. >> If it really is three or four projects is the caseload, then the percentage is less important. >> Okay. >> So I'm okay with just the cap. >> Thanks. >> Council Member Griggs. >> Yeah. A cap's good. >> Okay. What? You mean no percentage? >> Just the cap, yeah, because I mean if you have a percentage and then you're missing out on certain funds if you're doing a percentage, but the cap is $50,000, you might as well be able to go up to the cap for the per project. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> Then I have to do math. >> Right. It makes sense. >> Okay. >> I'm fine with just the cap. I mentioned $80,000 because $50,000 had already been thrown out. I was trying to step it up. >> Well, and my understanding is these that are over -- well, that's another thing. Is there -- what comes back to council if anything, what discretion does staff have? >> Well, just some of the questions we have later. >> Okay. >> We can address it now, though, too. >> Fair enough. Okay. >> Yeah. >> Council Member Metzler, I'm sorry. Interrupted you. Yeah. Okay. >> Okay. All right. And then the -- one of the bigger questions is, and this is where it comes into how much staff resource we have available to us specifically, but there are a couple of other complexities to this one. But what does council want in exchange for this grant? What kind of compliance, what kind of rules do you want to put on the back end of once they receive this grant, how do we do it? So there's a couple of questions in here about that. First is, how do we do it? Is it reimbursement, which means do they have to have the money up front, or is it a grant, like the Affordable Housing Fee Grant where we literally give them the grant? There's just a transfer of money internally, so the nonprofit is not out of pocket. Or the rest of the programs where it's reimbursement, they have to spend the money first and be reimbursed for it. It's easier with smaller amounts, but once we get to the larger amounts, that becomes a little bit of a consideration there, so we'll start with that one. I think this is quite different from the downtown grant targeting businesses. I would be opposed to reimbursement, just because the whole point is that these are cash strapped, pure nonprofits who have to fundraise everything they get, and if they're already able to get to the point where they can spend it and then get reimbursed, you're really limiting it to just big outfits that have a lot of access to resources anyway, so I would say not reimbursement. I think I would concur with that, just because of the amounts you've now put the cap at at $50,000. Had you kept it lower, we probably could have had a different conversation here, but I think I'm in agreement there, too. It was a recommendation. Okay. Councilmember Montero? Yeah, I concur 100% with Councilmember Meltzer and Danny, for the reasons just stated, really important points. Councilmember Davidson, we'll go to Councilmember Breeze, and then we'll go around to Horne. So I agree with that. I'm wondering if, and also because some of these other funds that we're talking about, they're not city money. They're grant money, separately-administrated funds. I could see why reimbursement, you can't just write yourself a check. You know, you're moving money around in a different way, because we're talking about an internal fund, the general fund. I'm okay with internal transfer. I'm wondering, though, from a comment you made a second ago, before we raised the cap, if we do it that way, what is the additional onus on staff, if it's an internal transfer versus, because otherwise I generally agree with the sentiment that these are zero-budget projects. They're starting from the absolute bottom and raising every single dollar they spend. But what's the burden we put on staff if we do internal transfer versus reimbursement? That, with the affordable housing fee grant, we've had that experience now, and so it really just takes just a little bit of communication between two departments. Forms being exchanged, email exchanged, so it's not that significant at this point. What the reimbursement offers, though, is the ability to ensure compliance before you dole out the money. So that's really why those are more in place in CDBG and home, specifically. So the more compliance we want in this later conversation, that could affect that. Councilmember Briggs and then Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah, I'm okay with the internal transfer. It's what we do for our other, in the other department. We do the internal transfer. Again, the downtown reinvestment grant is something a little bit different. So I don't really look to that reimbursement. And I think when you think about nonprofits, having $50,000 cash on hand is going to be a little bit difficult, especially if we're not allowing those partnerships. So I'm in favor of the internal transfer. Okay. Mayor Pro Tem and Councilmember Muster. Yeah. I will defer to staff, but I do want to put on the record, I don't know that just because you're a business owner, you're independently wealthy or have independent access to funds that a nonprofit wouldn't have. And I'm sure there's less donations to business owners. So I don't know that I follow the line straight across to that. And I do think, worst case scenario, we're going to have contracts in place and agreements in place. And so what's worse to say, we're documenting that we're going to give you this money, we're going to reimburse you versus someone having a misstep on purpose on accident and now the city has to go after this nonprofit because we owe it to the taxpayers. That to me is a really, really bad situation I'd like to avoid by just saying, do the work and we'll reimburse you. We'll give you a letter that stipulates you're not going to complete a project for $50,000 anyway. So they're going to have a line of credit and we're going to be able to stipulate we're coming to you with this. But that's my concern is if someone is a foul of the system, then the only way to recoup that for the taxpayers is to go after that person. And I never want to be in that situation because it's just less than great. So for me, the reimbursement in some sort of letter that says, hey, we're going to stipulate this and they can go to their lending institution and accomplish whatever financing they need. Councilmember Meltzer. Yeah, just sort of on the way to my other point, a for-profit entity has potentially access to a variety of forms of patient and/or inpatient money, partners, shareholders. But to stick on this topic, I think some of it -- some of this is related to what I think is on the next slide or maybe it's two down, which is who should govern it. And I think if it's with development services, they might be able to make a good recommendation for how far along do you have to go, what stage where you know the project is going to happen. I think the risk is that you write a check and then the project doesn't happen. So we need clearly some form of control and, you know, that's what would lead me to house it under development services just because they understand that process. Councilmember Ryan. Thank you, Mayor. I personally think reimbursement is a better way to go for a couple of different reasons. One of which is -- which has been stated is making sure that the project does move forward -- another one is for the nonprofit, if you're doing a $2 million project and your fees are $30,000, you're going to have $30,000 at the start because you're going to pay for that project as it goes along. It's the timeliness of that reimbursement that matters. But it's also for the bookkeeping purpose of it is that nonprofit is trying to do fundraising to be able to say that they got a grant to put on their books as opposed to the money was transferred inside the city and it never saw that project. Yeah. Okay. So internal transfer is -- yeah, I don't -- I don't agree with that. I think the problem becomes when you have -- unless you've built in this town, you don't understand that sometimes people start projects even to the point of paying their fees, their impact fees and everything, and then it doesn't happen. And I would not want to be in a position to have to claw back $50,000 from a nonprofit and I certainly don't want to be in a position where it's only an internal transfer. To me, however we want to do it, there needs to be a check written from the city on behalf of that nonprofit because I think that's just more transparent, it's more clean, and it is a grant, and I think that's how we do most of our grants. But I'm really concerned with -- and that's the worst case scenario, but it's -- I say it's the worst case scenario, not really, but these projects are very long. I mean, if you've got any kind of large building project, it's six to eight months in the planning, it's six to eight months in construction, anything can happen. So I don't know if reimbursement is specifically what I'm advocating for, but I'm saying I think it's something that's a little bit more complicated than just -- the timing issue is very important to me because I don't know exactly where that's going. I will go to Council Member Riggs and then Council Member Armitage. Well, yeah, I mean, I just assume the internal transfer would have been later on at the end of the project. I was curious about timing now, I mean, it's brought up, I just assumed that it would be later on and not at the very beginning of the project and it would just kind of act as a halt, but if you could explain how the other internal transfer works for our -- how does -- Yeah, still, in fact, theoretical, we did attempt to do -- we had to do reimbursement because Habitat wanted to get that project off the ground, so we did have them pay the fees and then reimburse them on the first one, which was the largest allocation. So it ended up being a reimbursement anyway. Okay. But with the internal transfer, they go through the development services, interviews do their planning project, those costs are assessed by development services, that information comes back to us, we approve it, and then there's just an internal transfer after all of that process is. So it would be the same, just not -- there's not an actual check written, so the process doesn't look that much different. Okay, Council Member Armitage and then Council Member Armitage. Yeah, so just a couple of points, so number one, you know, just to make sure that we're focused on what the goal is -- what the end goal is, you know, for each of us that might be different, you know, for me, it's -- I'm thinking in the case of housing, for instance, that we want to get -- if we just -- if the city is funding an affordable housing project, we want to get that on the ground as fast as we can, and then if something happens and they hit a wall, which often happens in construction and they need more money, they can come to us for money, and if we've already committed ourselves to the idea that this is an important project that's going to keep people off the streets, then, you know, it would be reasonable to come and ask -- my second statement, which is actually more of a question, is, you know, what about maybe we could get something in there to allay that concern, saying that if project doesn't follow through, you know, after a certain period of time that the city would get that -- would get that money back, I mean, I don't -- there might be a good argument against that, but I feel like there's something that we could do to allay that concern without requiring that they have that money up front and limiting it in the way that Council Member Milster said. >> We do have the mechanisms in place through the service agreement or contract process, but I think, too, the council member's comments, it has to do with that if we make those funds available, then -- and we do that in advance, the steps we would have to take in order to recoup those funds becomes a different conversation, meaning we're going to have to go after nonprofit with legal action to get those monies back, and I think that's what I was hearing concern from, from the council members, from that part of the process. >> So that would have to happen even if -- I mean, there could be some clause put in there? >> Well, there are, even in our reimbursements, if for some reason they're not in compliance over time, there are still mechanisms in every contract that we can recoup funds, even in our CDBG -- >> I see. So to enforce those -- >> The enforcement piece of it is the problem, I think, with that conversation, is once we have to enforce something, then we are taking legal action that doesn't necessarily feel like the best option in some cases. >> I would be fine with that as long as the nonprofits, they know that that's what they're getting into. I mean, you know, borrowing money, anybody who's borrowed money before knows it's a big deal, and applying for a grant is a big deal, and -- >> Yes, Councilmember Melchor. >> Yeah, I'm not sure we're thinking about this right, you know, about what the real kind of economics of it are. When you talk about you issue a check, and that's going to then be used to pay a bill from us, right, but if you -- it's -- it's -- you have more risk if you actually put cash in their hands, then it's just going to come cover a bill of your own, whereas it's -- in effect, you know, we're saying this is a bill that will be issued marked paid, and if they don't complete, you know, the real economics of it are we've expended staff time. That's the cost, right? It's not that we've laid out cash. It's a -- you know, it's a burden on our resources, but you know what I'm saying? In terms of where are we really stuck, we're stuck that we invested the staff hours, but we're not really stuck for cash. You follow me? >> Yeah, but I'll comment. I've got some other people that are -- that are fewed up. Did you have your hand up? Yes, go ahead. >> So I'm still -- even after this conversation, I still lean towards an internal transfer, and part of that -- I have a couple of reasons for that. One of them being project timing. I mean, depending on the fee that we're talking about, it comes due at a different time, and you don't get something if you don't pay your fee. So for planning, you know, you don't get your drawings and your approvals if you don't pay your planning fees. And if you don't pay your building permit fees and you don't get to build or you don't get your CO or -- it's all different project timing. And in some parts of that project, I think the nonprofit would have a line of credit to draw on, a construction note, or money in the bank for the project. Other parts of the project, planning stages especially, they may not have platted. They may not have done anything necessary. They may not have raised one dime for that part of the project. And those parts of a project are notoriously difficult to fundraise for because it seems a little speculative. I also feel like we can put the same controls on internal transfer as we can with reimbursement. There's nothing to say, kind of to Council Member Meltzer's point, we're moving the money internally regardless of whether we issue a paper check or not or do a wire transfer and then transfer it back to ourselves. We can have the same controls in place. A bill can still issue for the fee in question. You can still not get your planning process approved or your building permit issued or whatever it is until those controls are met. I think the bigger question -- I think we're kind of splitting the hair between reimbursement and internal transfer. I think the bigger question is what compliance are we really talking about? What are we requiring of them, whether we issue a paper check or whether we do the internal transfer? I think that's the bigger question. So for me, I'd like to hear more about what compliance we're really concerned about. Is it that your project gets built? Is it that your project gets built and remains in your hands for 10 years? Is it that your project accomplishes the goals that we have set out for the remainder of those 10 years? That I think is more important than how do we move the beans around. Yeah, I agree in part and disagree in part. I concur in dissent in part. Part of it -- and the reason is because of what's already been mentioned. That is the timing of all these different types of fees that are accrued. To me, it's about having skin in the game. It's about having a financial investment in a project, understanding that you're going to get some reimbursement back from the city. So whether it's reimbursement or internal transfer, to me, it's also about the compliance of -- because these things happen at very different times, so you could pay for a planning and permitting and platting kind of fees, well, then they could decide this really isn't worth it. Well, now you've got to -- and you say, well, we'll just go back and just transfer that money back. But the thing is, we have expended staff time. And it's not just insignificant staff time. It's not just the staff time of the actual internal transfer mechanism of hit this button and this cash comes back. Everybody has had to look at those, and many of these projects have very -- many iterations coming back and forth. So I really think if I'm looking at this from a nonprofit perspective, I would be concerned if somebody was so tight on a project that they needed the $20,000 from the city to even begin the process without having all this due diligence done, without having the necessary processes or funds in place to show that they can be sustained. You don't go to a bank and borrow money unless you can show that you have a sustainable project in place. So whether it's -- I mean, personally, I just think reimbursement is cleaner. Somebody has written a check. Because even if it's reimbursement, to me, there's still a timing issue. There's still an issue of when do you get -- so really, when do you get the internal transfer and when do you get the reimbursement? I think that needs to be as far along in the process as possible to the point where we can conclude with somewhat certainty, some level of certainty that this project is going to move forward. Because if somebody just has to say if we do an internal transfer, they get their bill marked paid and they've got it. And then they decide something's not going to work. It's a lot easier to say, you know, I really don't want to know if I want to do this when you haven't written the check expecting a reimbursement from the city. There's just something about you don't have that investment. And if we're going to be willing to give people up to $50,000 to reimburse their city fees, I think it's a small thing to ask that they be able to invest that at some point to where we can say we think you've gone far enough to where we feel comfortable to do it. So I really -- internal transfer is a good concept. I like it in general. But when it comes to this situation, I think -- and even with the housing, I didn't know that that's exactly how we did that. I mean, I'm more of a reimbursement kind of guy. It's just cleaner and it shows that someone's got a stake in the game by being willing to write that check and they know they're going to get it reimbursed, so I guess I'm pretty stuck on that, depending on the timing of it. >> Okay. >> Councilmember Meltzer. >> Yeah, I wonder if there's a kind of a -- this will be -- you won't like this because it's less clean, but I wonder if there's kind of a split the baby approach where either there's a phased reimbursement, like as you hit hurdles, you get it back, because you're talking about -- there's still nonprofits that are struggling, but phased reimbursement or portion of it is held back, you know, some version of -- portion of it is held back, because there's still a value, in my mind, to lowering the hurdle to get in. I take your point about not lowering it all the way to, you know, anybody can do it and don't have to care. But maybe there's something in between lowering the hurdle all the way and having some skin. >> Well, the projects that I've been involved in or at least been aware of on nonprofits who are building some kind of housing, they're not going to move into a project where they've not done either some type of capital campaign where they -- if somebody's going to start a project out with no money and they need the $50,000 to get through the permitting and the planning stage and they have nothing else, that is not a good thing, quite frankly. And for your very reason, if they're cash strapped, I just don't think -- I've heard a lot about these nonprofits, they're struggling, they're cash strapped. Yes, they may be, but when you enter into a capital improvement plan, like Grace Lackrain, like the Salvation Army is going to do or is planning on doing, like some of these other nonprofits are thinking to do, you're talking about $2 to $5 million projects. We're not talking about a $100,000 project. And when you're doing a $2 to $5 million project, $50,000 is pretty small in the grand scheme of things for a city where we're charged with being responsible and good stewards of our money to simply say we'd like for you to have some skin in that game before we give you back money. Staff recommended reimbursement for a reason. So we'll take a couple more comments and then we're just going to talk about reimbursement or no sense beating this drum too much because I think we've all said our piece. So Council Member Armitage, you're going to have the last word, make it real brief, and then we're going to take a consensus. Yes, so I just wanted to comment on the comment about, you know, we're not talking about $100,000. We don't know that. You know, a nonprofit could say, you know, we want to build two tiny homes here on this property for, you know, two families. I mean, we really don't know. And, you know, as far as skin in the game, you know, I want to make sure, again, that, you know, we understand what -- that we think about what is the game that we're playing here and that is we're talking about nonprofits who help poor people. And the way you prove you have skin in the game is by helping poor people. And if you've committed your time to that and spent the money and resources you do have, you know, towards that end and you've shown you can do it, I mean, if you have a nonprofit with no money and they say we want to build a, you know, multi-million dollar Taj Mahal, can you waive our permit fees, I mean, I think we're going to say right there, well, that's kind of silly. You need to scale it down. So, you know, we can have smaller scale projects. I think one reason why we have not seen as many smaller scale projects is because of precisely these hurdles that a program like this, you know, can potentially take care of, do away with. So I think we would see smaller scale projects that people can afford. You know, these are not empire builders, these are just folks who want to help poor people. >> Well, and let's say the end result is not -- you made it very generic, very general. The end result of what we're talking about here is for projects to be completed. Because if you don't have a project complete, you can't achieve the general goal that you stated. So that's the key to me is how do we ensure that the projects get completed. So we've got a question here we need to answer. So the direction is either internal transfer. Now I guess as far as timing, that's another compliance question, I believe. Is that correct? >> Yes, I think so. And I heard you say a couple of other things that we might build into the process as well. So yes. >> Okay. All right. So I went back in the home or the one that we do with the internal transfer. Is it internal transfer because the maximum is $12,000? >> Right. It's a low amount. >> Okay. >> And that was originally what we thought. We would just easily transfer those fees. >> Because it's a smaller project. >> Right. >> And so the amount is -- >> And some of them are city projects too. So it would happen that way anyway. >> Is it possible to bring that over for the smaller projects? >> I think I heard some of that in the process. I certainly heard also that in the development services process, there might be different phases in which the project is paying fees that we might look at in the process as well. So I heard you kind of loud and clear on that. >> Okay. So we need some direction on internal transfer or reimbursement. So where is everybody? I think we know. Councilmember Davis, internal transfer. Mayor Perkins, I'm not sure where you are. >> Yeah. No. Reimbursement. >> Yeah. I guess is that external versus internal. I don't know. >> Yeah. >> Councilmember Meltzer. >> I'm opening the idea of a hybrid approach. >> Okay. >> It's going to take a little more time. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> No, that is a position. >> Well, the hybrid approach -- >> In other words, some of it is done through internal transfer, some of it you've got to come up with, and that gets returned back to you, you know, as you hit the marks going through the development process. >> Okay. So hybrid approach. Councilmember Armitter. >> Internal transfer. >> Okay. >> Reimbursement is someone who has actually worked through a nonprofit doing a large-scale project, and knowing the paperwork that's required, the internal transfer is going to be a whole lot messier for them to prove up to the bank that it wasn't a grant given to them. You know, you've got to show that I've got an expense, and I've got a grant to cover that expense, and internal transfer is going to make that messy. >> Well, I like the internal transfer because some of the nonprofits I've spoken with have said that that makes it easier for their projects to get started. But I also like the idea of having the different projects. So if it's an extremely large project, like the $2 million to $5 million one, the reimbursement may make sense for some of them, but if it's an internal transfer, if it's a smaller project, and so, I mean, I like both options. I know that's probably not clean for it because it's harder -- >> And it would make it a little more difficult on staff. >> It would be, yeah. >> To work out internal versus reimbursement. >> So then I'm for internal. >> Okay. So it's basically -- it seems the direction is three for reimbursement and three for internal transfer. You didn't take a position. So if you're still not taking -- >> Take a position. >> Okay. >> For a hybrid option. >> That doesn't give any direction. >> Sure does. >> Okay. Here's the direction. Okay. So we have no direction. >> You can be a tiebreaker. >> We have -- >> We can move through some of the other questions and maybe -- >> Yeah. I mean, come on, Council Member Melser, how much clearer can I put it? You haven't gotten any traction on those. >> No. I thought you meant I didn't individually get traction. >> No, no. >> Yeah. Okay. Settle. Okay. I'm internal transfer. >> Okay. Internal transfer it is. >> All right. >> All right. >> Okay. >> So there's three other items that sort of come together but really are about the verification and compliance and ongoing reporting requirements. With this cap of $50,000 it is a larger amount from Council that you're awarding so it would lend itself to higher compliance but I will say that the higher the compliance the more staff time it will take and our ability to manage that will come into play. The first conversation is just about the project verification. Some of the ways in which we do it are listed in our other programs. So there's -- our staff go out and do inspections prior to the certificate of occupancy as well as other building staff. So there's a duplicate effort there when there's CDBG and home projects. With the affordable housing fee grant the same. With the downtown reinvestment grant the owner just sends photos of the completed project to staff and that's the completion of that to prove that it was completed. And then with the duration of the compliance this again varies by projects. We have internal requirements for longer affordability periods especially with housing programs the more money that's put into the program with the home. And then with the affordable housing fee grant program it's ten years affordability so just as a reminder for every year that it's affordable or that we have to monitor that, that means staff time. So we're monitoring 125 projects currently for 25 years. So as you can see the more these are done the more they add up. And then there's I guess no ongoing monitoring under the reinvestment grant and then the ongoing reporting requirements currently in our CDBG and home programs our staff do both annual checkups to make sure the homeowner is still in the home. We also do regular monthly checkups to make sure their utilities are current and their interest current. So again as we add more compliance in that the more staff time it takes to monitor. So the question for you all is if you could give us some guidance on what kind of verification compliance and ongoing reporting you'd like in exchange for this money. Well I think one of the first questions is is the duration because if we're giving to a nonprofit and if it's a piece of real estate that can be sold at some point. Correct. Which means that now we've sort of lost the benefit unless there's those affordability rules run with the land. Or the money gets turned so in some cases we put it in the contract that the money has to be repaid if it gets sold in the certain period of time. Okay. Shorter than that. Yeah okay so we got to first of all decide on that and if so what that time frame is. Okay. All right. Comments questions. Yes. Councilmember Davis. So I like I like a 10-year rule I think. I suppose I could think of a situation especially some of the smaller amounts where the project isn't anticipated to be a 10-year project you know maybe they're they're stair stepping into something else but then again we've got kind of smaller amounts on the line there so maybe they're more they're more capable of reimbursing us if we have to before the end of 10 years. I don't know that's just kind of the number that that seems to make the most sense in my head for projects that the kind of projects we want to back are going to have a long-term impact and are going to continue long-term that's I think what we're looking for. So if an organization doesn't anticipate that they can be in existence at this location for 10 years then I don't know that that's the kind of project we necessarily need to expend the resources on and then also that gets back into that timing question that we had before about you know with the reimbursement versus internal transfer when is the money due what do they have to show and when do they have to show it. I think for this particular program I favor an on-site inspection I don't think emailing some photos will quite do it. We already have because the kind of fees we're talking about we already have some staff involvement with the project anyway because we're not talking about helping somebody at their rent we're talking about helping somebody with development fees that we're already sending inspectors out to these sites and I think I've lost track of your other questions. Let some other people talk for a while just some ongoing reporting yeah. I think each one's going to be kind of individual they'll all be unique because if you think about Monsignor King they're on a lease from the city and if you put a 10-year limit in the city decides the future council decides not to do a lease to extend it to that 10 years then would they have to reimburse the city because they didn't fulfill it. So other direction what is what staff's recommendation is. I think we're fine with having some sort of ongoing compliance period if there's just minimal review of that which means just making sure it's still operating for what it was intended for that would be some of our recommendations where we have to start verifying individuals in the if it were housing for example that would become more complex. Our ability to do the inspections or rely on development services only I think would be fine too if we're running the program so I think the 10 years is good verification of us being able to review it throughout this process it's probably doable. Okay so when you come back with the actual ordinance just we're going to probably have a I would think we're going to have another either work set but your specific recommendations will be embodied in the ordinance right we just want to before we draft that build that program I just want to make sure you get at least a good idea from you all what you want to include. Staff. Council okay with that direction. Thanks for that clarification. Yeah under the recommendation it says higher compliance affects your capacity to oversee so would they in the other categories would that be considered higher compliance. Right when you're talking about client income eligibility beneficiaries annual inspections those kinds of things then add to the staff's capacity ability to do so what we just decided was that you'll come back with some specifics that in the ordinance that you will be able to do yes okay yeah what we present including the recommendation for at least 10 years of compliance okay all right and then the next question is on what kind of limitations we might want to put on this as well so there has been some experience with matching grants with the downtown reinvestment as an example if we want to make sure they're not how you're going to award this if they're receiving funding from other sources so can they receive both CDBG allocation and this grant program if the facility and this is to your question about Monsignor King or your comment can we do it for facilities that are owned and leased or just owned by the nonprofit do we want to have that conversation and then some other questions around project timing so are there any any guidance there any thoughts I think you kind of eliminate it by having the 50% cap that would probably matching is not a desire here you mean the $50,000 yeah when you said when you took out the percentage which would essentially be a match any guidance in on whether or not they can receive funding from both or different grant programs within the city our recommendation is not we think duplicating I would agree with that and then like the bigger question does the facility have to be owned or can it be leased and what stipulations would that lease have to have to bit customer Briggs question going back to the other one so say grace like rain they've received some CDBG funds but I don't think it's for their community home project is it okay so yes now that they've received funds in the past does that mean that they would not be eligible or does it mean same funds same I mean yeah I think that's a good question I think we could probably stipulate it that you're not currently receiving funds so with grace like rain they've been awarded those funds but they have not received reimbursement on those yet because they're not expending them yet they're not actually going through the process of development yet to receive those funds so the to me the question would be do you want to put a space in it like they can get it CDBG one year and then come back the next year and ask for this grant fund I think that's doable I think that's reasonable but in the same year I think that might be the question you want to well yeah I mean that that would be my preference I mean because there's a lot of these organizations that receive these funds and rely on these funds for different different things and but if they have a different project one year and they look for different funds I think that would be fine but I wouldn't want to hold it against them right what they had done in the past before yeah I think I understand that thank you yeah so I think it's really important that we leave it open to you know lead people leasing organizations leasing the buildings renting whatever we're not investing in the real estate market we're investing in putting people in homes and if that's our goal then it really it really shouldn't matter. Mayor Pro Tem yeah I think that it has to be ownership right because if not it's in direct conflict but we just said the 10-year component because you could say oh my lease was not renewed and therefore I cannot fulfill my 10-year requirement and you're in conflict so it has to be ownership if we're going to put the 10-year requirement in place or you could look at a long-term lease as long as it's in the length of the compliance period right so if they had a 25-year lease and they only had a 10-year compliance I think you could look at a lease agreement if you wanted to yeah yeah but I don't know that they have as much control over that am I missing that right because if they might get kicked out earlier or if something goes south and you can't maintain that or someone else comes and says hey we're going to buy this whole development you know I just I don't know how they'd be able to be accountable to that we are able to manage it in the federal programs but it does have to be a long-term lease yeah yeah just to that point I mean could the nonprofit be the owner I'm just going to go back to Grace like rain because that's the one that I'm most familiar with at the moment but their intention is to have those homes but do leases on those homes but the yeah this is really about the land and the facility the building so grace like rain will be the owner and that's right so they would be qualified so they could do whatever they they could still lease the homes and yeah yeah what activities they do with those properties on their own wouldn't I feel like the the nonprofit should be the owner or the home should be owner occupied is that right yeah I mean because as long as the nonprofit has the right to do what they want on their property if they hold that and they it's ownership then I'm okay with that but just as an example this would eliminate a monsignor king because they lease the building so if they were to come in to do improvements on that building and needed to pay development fees just want to make sure that's clear right you have a follow-up because councilmember Davis it's queued up so it's councilmember I can read I can talk after they're done okay let me go with councilmember Davis so thank you for bringing on senior king that was my first example the veterans mental health center that just got put together with community funding not our funding but community funding that's a long-term lease I don't know if the wheeler house situation is that's no doubt right or long-term lease our daily bread is a long-term lease we'll call it that's different but there are a lot of situations where specifically a building fee building permit fee might be necessary you know long-term lease facility so I'm okay with a long-term lease as long as it falls within or you know lines up with the compliance period that we're talking about and again we're looking at these projects kind of case by cases they're applying if it looks like somebody's in you know some some kind of lease that is says it's long-term but is obviously that building is not going to be there in some period of time or they're not going to be able to afford the rent over some period of time then I think we can factor that in as we're looking at these applications but I'm okay in general principle I don't want to categorically deny somebody because they're in a long-term lease situation versus outright ownership on some of these others you know the services begin I think I need to hear some more from staff and what that but that really entails I think most of what I'm hearing what most of what I'm seeing here on the slide I'm okay with the staff recommendation for the rest of those thank you just to say that's right just as am I'm fine with the staff recommendation well I'm going to throw wrench in the works here to separate into owned and long-term lease and on the owned we do the fifty thousand in the ten-year in our long on a lease we do ten thousand maximum in a five-year compliance I don't know what the temperature is with the rest of the council member on that but it's just kind of a it's a hybrid approach well those are so popular okay so we'll just take a temperature of that anybody want to support councilmember Ryan's proposal councilmember can you repeat that and flesh that out a little bit that's interesting if it's because we said we raised the limit from 25,000 was what staff had originally recommended to 50,000 so if we use that number only for owned property and then do it for long-term lease a ten thousand dollar maximum and then your compliance period on an owned where you could get up to 50,000 would be the ten-year compliance and if you're a long-term lease and in limited your compliance is only a five-year so it's half you get less grant but less time that you have to be in compliance and that would handle your monsignor kings and those types of things that sounds pretty interesting because if you're making improvements to a lease building and so then when they moved out those improvements stay with the building but the use that that we've approved the grants for don't so I'm interested in in your idea but I don't know if the amounts you said would be enough for say like our daily bread or monsignor king if you're doing a lease most likely it's going in your nonprofit most likely the building already exists so your cost in doing that development is going to be much less as well versus if you are you own the property you're going ground up that's when you're going to get more into those forty fifty thousand dollars overall costs so on a leased property ten thousand dollars and then you'd only have a five-year compliance instead of a ten-year so thanks for flushing that out and explaining it I like the part about that it could be for a smaller lease a shorter lease I don't like the part about limiting the amount I understand I understand it I understand the rationale behind it but that's the part I'm worried about anybody else so I'm just some questions so if a building is already built and it's a lease then the whomever built that building more than likely has already paid the impact fees which won't be asked for the there's some other fees that won't be I mean are you that what you're saying the fees will be more minimized and so then the reimbursement won't be needed as much correct I mean it's not saying that there wouldn't be impact fees because it depends on the type of remodel you may need to up size the water line or sewer line or something like that there be the difference of what the impact it's not going to be a full impact with the building already exists what about 20,000 in five years action what yeah I don't want to I don't want to get into distributive bargaining aspect of this so I mean I'm okay with staff recommendations my question would be help me understand the interest or the factors in determining either a ten or twenty thousand dollar amount I mean if we're just pulling that number out of the air and I'm not saying that's what we're doing but I'm trying to understand what's the rationale behind each one of those numbers okay my rationale was the backups or the items emailed to us earlier in the actual fees were solutions in North Texas their total fees were fifty thousand nine oh six served in forty five thousand one seventy one in my senior king was ten thousand seven sixty two okay so I'm looking at some data that that experience oh kind of gotcha shows the experience of nonprofits yep I appreciate that appreciate that that's my breaks well I'm twenty is less than fifty and it's more than ten and when he brought up a water tap or unforeseen thing is within lease buildings and sometimes owners require certain build outs and they'll they'll be more fees and I didn't even though the the fees could be twelve thousand if we did if we set it at ten I just didn't want to limit the amount so I felt more comfortable personally with twenty but I don't have any data from the chart to back that up just to say I don't really understand what you're trying to accomplish with that what is the benefit of doing what you're proposing well again going back to Monsignor King where they're on a lease with the city and if you're going to require a ten year compliance technically this you know their lease is ends in another year or two I believe if if if they don't if they don't have a lease for ten years then they could potentially go out of compliance so by reducing the amount of time a nonprofit is more likely to stay where they're at if they own the property than if they lease it but sometimes it's not their choice as to whether or not they can renew the lease so by reducing the amount of taxpayer money that we're putting out there and reducing the amount of time that they have to comply it opens up that opportunity for some of the others that just couldn't do it couldn't prove up that they were going to be in that building for ten years. I guess I'm a little ambivalent I think it's a good a good suggestion but my intention with this money is to go after the big fish if we're if we're using the money primarily for groups that are asking for five hundred ten five thousand two thousand dollars for some minor thing I mean if they're just doing a building permit project if they're redoing a space they need building permits we're not talking about the huge amount of money that we're talking about if you are doing an entire planning process and impact fees and new construction so I for me it's kind of a distinction without a difference if you're doing a long-term lease and you're the kind of project that is coming after this kind of money then I want to see ten years out of it and maybe there's something in the contract that if you're relocating you know because Monsignor King maybe something happens we've got a better spot form they find a better spot whatever maybe a bad example but they need to move maybe there's something in the contract that we can you are still in compliance as a service to the city we helped you get on your feet at this location but you are still doing the service it just doesn't happen to be at this particular location I just don't see this being a big problem I think our applications are going to be the serve Denton's the Salvation Army's the grace like rains that's that's where I'd like to see this money go in the first place a little bit less to the hundred dollar five hundred dollar ten thousand dollar projects thank you all right so anyone staff has made some recommendations we had proposals thrown out there so let's go with the staff recommendations on these I do have one clarifying question when you said can they receive funds if they're receiving funds from other city programs let's just use an example so I can understand this somebody's building a project right so they're already receiving funds from CDBG now either for or for what or not for that project and then they apply for this as well and you're saying that if they're receiving funds for that project already that you would recommend that they be foreclosed on receiving funds for that project in the same calendar year that they're receiving funds from the city for that same project right for just the same year yes but for the same project if they're receiving funds for something else they can still apply for this to get it okay I'm good with that okay okay staff recommendation who's in favor of just a consensus on the staff recommendations without the two go ahead yes would there be some way that wouldn't make your life hell to provide some flexibility for staff you know to address individual cases because I think we're you know trying to kind of micromanage the policy for these variations it's just tough we just don't know what you know what we're gonna what we're gonna encounter so so that's what my question to you is is there some degree of flexibility that would help you and not just you know not necessarily flexibility but what we're talking about here if you can give us those parameters that we can work within I think that's what we're looking for so you're wanting predictability you're wanting a set of hard principles and policies that say here's the guidelines did they fit in the guidelines and I think what Councilmember Meltzer is saying is that do you want that or do you want a little bit more I think we do I think it'd be easier for us to have some of those those more firm decisions than having options or multiple options within the same grant understanding that these will come to council if they're over well that's our next slide so okay I'm okay with the staff I'm okay with staff recommendation Councilmember Davis you're shaking your head you okay with staff recommendation mayor protein all right final slide then okay so this is the question about the process and what what we should be doing within the process and some of that conversation has to do with who has the authority to to do some of these things within the grant process the first question though is which department really should manage it we certainly offer the consistency with it because we're managing the affordable housing fee grant program but a lot of this work happens right in development services so there is the opportunity or option to recommend them as well to run this program since those things are happening so those are just the two options we were looking at there with who oversees the overall grant program I see you shaking your head I've heard the development services suggestion for I don't think their ability to keep tabs on these not-for-profits and have the relationships that Danny and her staff with them is is even close now based on what I'm saying community development's got a much better way of tracking these things for us so development services undergoing way too many changes right now and processes and I have a lot of trust in Danny and her staff to coordinate all these various programs I think she's got this system down path you know in a way like I don't think that's like a council question it's a management question you figured out how you want to manage it it's fine with me it's not a policy issue policy issue is the last three year a real more policy so so there's some occasionally some ambiguity about whether or not a contract is over $50,000 or less than $50,000 who has the authority to kind of run through what needs to come back to council so just wanted to get a little bit of clarity on this program so we could go up to $50,000 based on the cap that you're recommending in the policy so the question here is you know do we have the ability to for staff to approve these applications and then can the city manager sign these contracts without bringing them to City Council and then the approval of the fee and what we're talking about is potentially an internal transfer so approving that process so that it's transparent and trackable do you want that to come back to you as well so those are the questions so just and maybe somebody might say something that convinced me to change my mind but I feel that you know I trust the committee and staff to make these decisions in an objective way and I would want to see something come back to council if there's any kind of potential even potential controversy or maybe you're thinking about saying no to something or something doesn't quite meet you know if something is is close to being ineligible and there's a question that's the kind of thing I want to come before us but customer right I think I'd like to see if it's over 10,000 to come back to council and that's more so we can highlight what we are doing within the community as opposed to whether it's a you know us actually having to approve it's kind of a you know we'll all be on board but it's again just letting the community be aware of what we're doing I feel the same I mean especially with the conversation earlier about the internal transfer being not as transparent that having it that in the process would would highlight what's going on I just want to voice my support for the $10,000 also especially because as you get bigger in the projects these are kind of existential projects for some of these entities for them to do what they're going to do we're putting our it's more than just a grant program that you apply for and you get some money it's we're putting our tacit stamp of approval and what they do and what these projects are in our community so for those kind of decisions I think they belong with the council I want to make sure I understand what we have before on and that is when you say comes back to council and Councilman Ryan you said hey they see what we're doing but we're coming back for approval in other words the applications coming to us like they do in the development reimbursement grants or downtown reimbursement grants and so if there's some questions or there's some issues that the council can deny that application as well is that that's a question to you so is that my understanding of those who are agreeing with it coming back to council that's what I'm hearing you say okay so we would review them but then present them for your approval yes okay so that built in the process to make sure there's time built in okay got it yep all right so that's really it our next step would then to have take this direction that you've given us today we'll draft a policy build that program out for you to review we'll try to get it in we were being ambitious with November but with the holidays we'll see we'll try to bring something back to you pretty quickly for your review of the policies and then be able to lie to review and consider the policy for approval in December so work session yes yeah my one thing and I just want to have a clear record Maya when I attend the southeast Denton neighborhood association meetings they are and have said a lot that low and moderate income houses in the area do not have garages and that's a pain point I don't know if there's a way to wait the type of houses townhouse not townhomes you know I don't know a way to wait those but I'm just carrying that message forward and I'll look at what you what comes back but just letting you know that's consistently an issue raised in those meetings every month and so maybe it's an opportunity for me to have our CIS officer kind of follow up with you and he can stipulate and kind of share what he's hearing okay because he attends all those as well and then whatever you do with that data is what you do but yeah we'd be happy to listen to it from the department's perspective as well for our programs thank you thank you anybody else all right thank you thank you so much you bet let's take about a 10-minute break till we get started again five or ten minutes welcome everybody excuse me welcome everyone back to this meeting of the Dent City Council Tuesday November 5 2019 it is 2 50 we're resuming our work session reports agenda item 3b receive report hold discussion give staff direction regarding creating an ordinance for the allowance of horse-drawn carriages good afternoon mayor and City Council my name is Charlie Rosendahl with the Development Services Department I'm here today to provide a framework for an ordinance to allow horse-drawn carriages and seek Council's direction on whether the city should allow horse-drawn carriages and what regulations that should be included this item started as a council request for information in 2018 there were two ISRs issued on the topic again in September part of the work session prioritization this item came forward to have a discussion and work session we presented this information to the Animal Services Advisory Committee back in October just to get their feedbacks included a little bit later in the presentation so currently the city does not allow horse-drawn carriages on paved or improved surfaces of the right of way except for during a parade we went on research a number of other cities across the metroplex and state that allow horse-drawn carriages and found that these are the typical elements of an ordinance and we'll walk through each of these as we move through the presentation here if as far as administration goes this would be a an application process in the Development Services Department and then like many of our other applications we would send it out to other internal departments for review including Animal Services the police department and other cities other city departments and then ultimately this these regulations would be enforced by the Denton Police Department and Animal Services so the first area that we're seeking council direction on is operational regulations there was a couple models that we saw when we looked at other cities the more prevalent one was to allow people submitting an application to propose the routes days and times that they'd like to operate and then the city would review that for traffic and safety impacts similar to when somebody proposes a route for a fun run or a parade the other option that we didn't see as often would be to set a boundary or restrictions on locations that somebody could operate limiting days and times and whether it's year-round or seasonal that these these horse-drawn carriages could operate so I'd see council direction on on that topic this might seem a little unusual but because I think you probably got several things that you're gonna need council direction on in this regard I think that probably what would be important or what would be efficient use of time is I don't know what the council's sentiments are on this but we've received a lot of emails about this I just really sort of want to take a fist of five or something like that that says if we if some of us are already clear that we don't necessarily want to have a horse drawn ordinance if there's four of us or more I mean I'd hate to go through a whole presentation if that's the situation certainly understanding this was your this was your request so obviously not no disrespect in that regard I'm just trying to understand if we can have this presentation we're gonna give direction here so part of it may be the direction we give on this one so I'll just go ahead and start since I brought it up I'm probably not going to be able to support a horse drawn carriage ordinance because I just don't know if I want that in the city but that's just me so my direction is going to be sort of a little skewed here so and if there's not four of us then we'll move through the presentation and I'll sort of be silent so yes councilmember Davis I can support a horse drawn carriage ordinance fair warning I would have wanted to be pretty restrictive I would want I want us to basically go out and model the most restrictive ordinance we could find but in general principle I'm in favor of and I guess that's what I'm asking for general principle yes so I I was one that wanted to bring this to the council just because I believe everybody's request needs to be heard full council I mean at first it does seem you know very romantic prince and princess carriage rides around town then you think about the reality right and it's it's not a very large downtown it's small there's abuse potential abuse for the animals there's lots of poop everywhere so I have I'm not going to be supporting an ordinance for horse drawn carriages and I'm going to be voting no and well we're not voting in here I'm just trying to get a sentiment of moving forward in the okay well so I'm yeah I mean I'm I'm against it I will I will add that I originally hearing the idea you know I have very fond memories of you know of course and carriage rides in in New York City and just I have you know fun fun memories of that but as soon as I started hearing about and reading about not just from emails we got but other sources you know animal rights experts that about the risk to the animals and when I asked for a model ordinance I was searching for one what's a good one you know and I was told that there isn't one so I'm I am trusting the people who know about this and anyway that's why I am I am sadly voting against it because of the risk to animals and I'm assuming we don't have one now right correct but we do have horses that are in parades and things such as that so that's that doesn't come under the purview of this particular proposal okay yeah I'm okay with the current ordinance because I think the fundamental issues they don't really it doesn't really mix well with automobile traffic so if you're on an unapproved right of way or parade where you don't have regular traffic you know I'm okay with the current ordinance but you know I said I was open to having the work session I am I'm happy to hear it but my inclination is against any comment okay all right so let's go ahead and we're gonna move through the presentation I just wanted to get some some temperature on that because we did vote to hear it but I think it helps I think give staff some understanding of as we move go ahead Councilmember Briggs we have what what we have now with the parades and stuff my my direction wasn't to get rid of that as well I just thought it was just to add the yeah okay well I guess everybody automatically assumes that this is a on the square type of situation that's what part of this discussion should be about in my opinion is where what areas of the city do we allow you know and so I mean you could do the historic district where you turn on Denton and never get over to Carroll and circle through there you might have instances again based on option one where they would have to get a permit ahead of time you could do certain neighborhoods that are very well lit at the holiday season that that are riding through there and you know as far as the poop on the streets most every city requires that that's that there's for lack of a better word a diaper that's correct that the horses have to wear so it's you know we are again as I stated when we brought this forward we're in the middle of horse country we're known for horse country we do horse country tours but yet you can't can't actually get involved in horses within the city and yeah so we don't really have a clear consensus either way so we'll move through the presentation so he's asking for direction on operational regulations yes I like I like option one I think it makes the most the most sense that the operator would make a proposal and we'd say that works for us or it doesn't work for us that's safe it's not safe I think the times of operation you know year-round or seasonal should be a part of that application you know like I I intend to operate a horse drawn carriage business in these areas at these times during these months and then that's part of the review process if it's somebody who wants to take a horse carriage down Carroll Boulevard at high summer obviously we're going to reject that application if it's somebody who wants to during the Christmas season from Thanksgiving to Christmas or New Year's do carriages around the square at certain times maybe that's a more attractive route and we approve that application any other directions for staff on operational regulations I've already stated option one okay all right okay all right as I mentioned earlier we did take this to the animal services advisory committee during their prioritization work session there was a request that we get the stance of animal advocacy groups when we bring this back so so we sought their feedback on this and they're strongly opposed for the reasons that are listed up here they're concerned for the treatment the fact that we currently don't have staff that are certified in horse care they felt the the industry was declining it's not a good time for the city to begin allowing carriages and then the traffic impacts one question I do have if if the concern is for the treatment of horses do we have a person that's we don't have an expert for horses for parades either that's correct so horses are in our city same scenario just all these things are true but we allow it except for maybe the traffic impact because the route would be closed right but other than that everything else is true during a parade and we're okay with it as a city generally maybe maybe the working conditions that the hours worked would be slightly different but but overall generally they would be the same yeah yeah I mean I have to respectfully say I'm not sure I'd agree with that total generalization because we have a horse that's in a parade that it's the same thing as what we're discussing here so I appreciate that I don't I don't agree with that necessarily conclusion yeah and if I may sure yeah no I think that's a valid point I just I think you I would only ask that there's some give in that right there's there's kind of like we don't know what the horse was doing before it entered the parade we don't know where they rode it from we don't know any of those things and so there could be the situation could be absolutely dire and we're okay with it the situation could be fantastic and we're okay with it and so that's I just wanted to understand I just trying to flush out the prohibitions just kind of understand those better because I do believe there's an there's an air of inconsistency not it's not a one-for-one rarely are things and so I concede that but I think it's shame on me if I don't point out that for myself that there's some inconsistencies in this this approach if that is our focus then I think we need to drill down that and explore that further to say hey well maybe it's not a good idea for parades and so do we want to go that far where are we it's kind of my thought appreciate that absolutely yes that's my master I think the analogy is something like the noise ordinance we occasionally are asked to approve waivers of noise ordinances for a festival but there's no way you'd want that to be your your regular operating condition well I don't want to go pretty I'm not going to go back and forth but I will say this let's let's agree that a noise ordinance and a living breathing animal are two very different things it's so so that I think that's the only thing is I sure if you want to equate it to something inanimate I don't I get it so I'll just I just could not let that it's not a one-for-one councilmember Davis so I I've done the research as well and I've been through some of the advocacy groups resources on specifically concern for the welfare of the animal and I have confidence in our ability to regulate the folks who get an operator's license I have confidence in our ability to vet the people who get an operator's license and the facilities they have to care for the animals and their experience in caring for the animals many of these companies already exist many of these agencies already exist the impact on staff we can't say there's no not going to be any impact on staff I think that's a fair point from the animal services group however I don't think it's going to be I don't I don't think it's going to be a huge impact to staffing with animal services if if there's additional training or if there's outside experience that needs to be brought in I don't think we're just going to get a flood of these applications for operator's licenses I think it's going to be obviously a staffing impact but not not an overwhelming one I don't think that there's a need necessarily to have a veterinarian on staff who deals with equine issues to be able to responsibly operate a program like this we're talking about inspections we're talking about health checks things that can be done by lay people with the proper training and these these are the animal advocacy groups that we found that have policy statements on horse-drawn carriages the majority of these are in opposition with the exception of the ASPCA who's not opposed as long as the the horse is being well taken care of so as far as regulation for animal care and looking at the number of the other cities and consulting with the animal services department these are some of the application requirements they would have to submit as veterinary records and vaccination proof the animals should be a gelding or a mare of greater than a thousand pounds or three years old and less than six months pregnant their requirement for operations are listed here I won't go through all of these but they have the appropriate shoes to work on paved streets set an eight-hour maximum for working in a day where a special sanitary device to contain animal excrement and then there's limitations on the hour's work for temperatures exceeding 95 degrees and less than 30 degrees what we found in other cities that we would recommend also including is the authority for the city to remove a horse from service under certain conditions if the animal appeared to be lame or appeared to have some type of illness where we felt that the animal is in danger and then also the authority for the city to go out and inspect the stables where the the horses are being kept so it's not all clear if this is moving forward or not if it does my preference would be that the animal not work when the temperature exceeds 95 not work at all and that no pregnant animals be allowed to work and if you're saying authority for the city to remove a horse from service under certain conditions I would want to be very clear that it means immediately right then and there not you know the end of a shift or you know after getting some supervisor's approval that whoever's in charge of these things and issuing citations can take the animal out of service immediately on the spot at that moment trailer it and take it home. Yeah it would be. Councilmember Douglas she said to not work with a temperature of 95 degrees or greater not work and then you said something else after that was that addressing the low temperature? No that was the the pregnant animal. Okay gotcha I didn't understand all right. Yeah no no pregnant animal would work and in the cities that still have horse-drawn carriages the temperature requirement is pretty strictly enforced I mean they've got folks out there if they had they maintain the official temperature just like keeping the official time and if the official temperature is above a certain limit they're they don't do it. Okay these are other regulations that we would include and we would build these into an ordinance if council chose to move forward this carriage safety requirements lighting braking systems and the ability for the city to inspect those carriages before they go into operation fares that an operator submit their fares to the city and have that on display for passengers there's some requirements for drivers including conduct and then licensing through the city that they're of the appropriate age to work that they follow traffic regulations we would include an insurance requirement we would recommend a million dollar general or equine liability insurance that's similar to the special events insurance requirement and then guidelines for suspension or revocation of the permit. So as far as fees go here's a matrix of the fees that other cities charge the total is based on the initial year of operation and two horses carriages and two drivers the city's based their fees on a different structure sometimes they charge per driver per vehicle or or just an annual fee to that operator the estimated program costs that staff's calculated would be eleven hundred dollars in a one-time expenses and that's to get our animal service department trained and have equine certifications and we also estimated that it would be about seventeen hundred dollars per operator for the city to go out and inspect stables do random inspections throughout the year and perform a review on that application. The animal service advisory committee did make some recommendations if council chose to move forward that we make a requirement for rubber horseshoes that we would set a maximum age for the horse horses and not allow any horse that is pregnant to to work in the carriages in the city and with that I'll take any questions. Questions? Mayor Pro Tem. So for me it really would be in if we get to where we can shape the details I think there's a path forward that works I don't think I think I take council member Ryan's point and and I've experienced it firsthand so the the the horse tours I'm drawing a blank of the official name but the horse country tours I called them last month to book a a tour and they were able to squeeze me in for December 2020 so they're a year out and so it is it's significant what they're doing and and it's a and it's been that way for a while I just did not understand the the popularity of it and how much of how often and frequently it's used so I think if if shaped properly I think there's nothing wrong with with that level of transparency and kind of having some guidelines and protections in place everyone's sensitive to those and I just look at it no different than we do with the bikes program we had one operator that we selected that we felt we could trust come in and and get started and and evaluate and do a six month trial period there I just I the overall carte blanche labeling I just cannot get behind I cannot understand that I won't I don't want to accept that every operator is is working to the detriment of horses and and so I think there are good operators out there and so I think to label them all as though they're they're trying to do a disservice is is not right and I think we're already going above and beyond what we do four times a year because there's at least four parades a year here so if we're out if that's not okay which I believe it's okay but if it's not okay then why why are we I get it the shortened time but we're not inspecting their their living quarters we're not having we're not getting trained up so there's there's just a lot of questions they don't have the protective where they sweep it up you know so there's a lot of a lot this is going a lot further than we currently do for for that type of uh service I just want to just say a little something about the horse country so I I've been on the horse tour it was really interesting and um what what they've got out there is very different than a you know horse and carriage operation I didn't know what I was in for myself I brought my daughter because I figured we would get to ride horses but now we learned all about uh artificial insemination and you know the cost of billion dollar horse sperm was basically what it was about and so these are not the horses that they're going to be taking kids around on the square uh these are these you know it's this uh big it's a much bigger money-making operation and and these horses uh are really uh living large and uh you know in just very different kind of kind of conditions so I I do think that that's apples and oranges um I'm you know to me it sounds like you know like I said before my main concern is the uh the risk of the um animal animal cruelty and animal health issues again not saying that every operator I haven't seen any claim that every operator is uh you know bad for horses but that just that it's too much of a risk but also just from a financial point of view and staff point of view we'd kind of be getting into a whole new operation here and and why you know why why is there this need uh you know why horses why not we used to have um humans who would bring people around in petty cabs you know those were cool and people would get paid for those why not bring those back so it seems to me kind of arbitrary um also horse diapers you know what would that do to our landfill I was just googling some to see you know what what those even look like that sounds weird to me uh so anyway I'm even more against it than um I originally was and uh when I started today and like I said I I start out in favor because I like the idea of a horse horse ride yes council member uh council member yeah I just want to say when you're running a business you don't leave your tools out in the rain to get rusted you take care of those animals they they they're very responsible people that do this you're not going to have a two-year-old horse out there that's hasn't been well trained around vehicles uh you know yes you have insurance but you still have to be concerned about your own safety because the operator is the one driving this all the time so he's concerned about his own health as well as the health of the horse you know you probably do not want to ride a in a carriage when it's 95 degrees they're going to be more of the fall winter springtime period that that they'll do this type of operation you know a good list of regulations we've got plenty of cities that have good regulations already Arlington Fort Worth Fort Worth is not even listed in any of of our backup but uh these are people who take pride in in their animals there's different types of these are draft horses these are not what you even ride in the parade those are you know cutting horses some of the time and they're they can get wild on you that these horses are so well trained before they ever hit the streets that there's not those types of concerns as a matter of fact one of the emails that were against this they had to go to Australia to find an incident of someone having a fatality accident you know their their safety is is quite great in how they operate these things anybody else any other comments yes Council Member Davis sorry I don't want to go out too far a limb for this I think it would be a good addition to the city landscape I think it'd be a good entrepreneurial addition to the city landscape the opposition that I hear primarily if we have on the one side that it's a nostalgic and romantic idea to put a horse in harness and have them pull up a carriage on the opposite side I think we have some uninformed folks that are not familiar with animal husbandry who have not had horses themselves who have not spent a lot of time around horses now that's not universally true I don't want to paint with too broad a brush but at the same time most of the opposition I hear is from people who feel like putting an animal in harness at all is cruelty that the animals are there to if you go on the horse country tour those animals some of them are destined to be some rich little girl's pony and many others are destined to be race horses or to be working horses to be not working behind pulling a carriage but to be working jumping and showing and going through dressage and all the training that goes into that those are working animals also so it's it's not to me it's not cruelty to put an animal in harness that's been bred for that purpose to treat it properly to give it a good home to give it something to do with its time those are all things that are positive for the animal so I think I think we have the ability to properly regulate and responsibly regulate horse-drawn carriages in the city I think that we have operators who can be can be trusted under proper regulation to do the right things and to properly treat the animals I don't think it's out of line at all for a city like them to have this council member Melcer yeah the main objections are from the animal welfare organizations and the main objections that they have have to do with the mixture of horse traffic and and automobile traffic and I haven't seen anything in the presentation that would ameliorate that concern so I remain opposed council member Briggs yeah just a few things so I am still opposed to the ordinance and allowing carriages in the city but I would ask that if there is a majority here that it be introduced more as a pilot maybe in the holiday lighting where the streets are blocked off and they're not cars so they're not intermingling just to see how it goes you mentioned bikes we did start that off with a with a pilot that that would be my my ask my two comments are if we want to really protect the horse country we need to limit high density development out there that would be the way to do that and my second comment is I'm a little offended that well I'm I'm just upset that we think that the temperature for humans is 100 degrees but when we're talking about horses it's 95 so I would like to re-look at our inclement weather policy and maybe address that thank you okay so um I'm trying to figure out council member yeah no I completely agree and also if we don't think you know horses should be able to work pregnant I think revisiting our family medical leave policy would be a good idea too okay um let's see trying to count either consensus or or support or opposition for moving forward council member ryan I'm assuming you're moving forward council member davis moving forward I'm not sure mayor pro tem where you are yes sir I'd like to move forward to face right to have a formal ordinance draft to look at right so that's where I hang up to go forward to the next step to see what the what the prohibitions would be and what would be allowed yeah so your your direction isn't necessarily support or opposition to the then completed ordinance you want to see what the ordinance is before you make that decision yes sir if there's a consensus to see with that draft would look like that would be my desire all right I think you already stated yours nay yeah wow now I'm not even sure how to respond to that I don't know if I want to go after that yeah so council member riggs you're uh opposed is what I'm understanding council member armature you're opposed yeah um for the sake of the process I've stated my position my interests on this and I would say that I don't think that if you're opposed to this it's because of all the arguments that have been presented with either the the animal rights groups or these other social issues that we've talked about here today I think because this was I'm okay with it with drafting an ordinance and having a vote on it I think I'm pretty clear on where I'll be on that but I think it's it's it deserves a it deserves an up or down vote so I sort of share I guess Mayor Pro Tem in the sense of let's bring it up take a look at it I don't know if that's going to change my mind but I think it deserves an up or down but we there's certainly a lot of energy surrounding the issue so I think it would give people an opportunity either for or against to come before the council in a public meeting you know under an item for individual consideration or public hearing whichever that is to also express their concerns so I'm all for that process so okay yep all right we will move on to agenda item 3c receive report hold discussion of staff direction regarding the creation of a comprehensive solid waste management strategy for the city of denton well good afternoon mayor members of council brian burner director of solid waste for the city of denton I do appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to you today a little bit about a proposal we have to create a comprehensive solid waste management strategy for the city of denton many of you may remember over the past couple of years we or about a couple two years ago we had a consultant come in look at the operations of solid waste stem to stern we did some business case analysis on a few of the projects that we had running found some that were really upside down from a financial standpoint and really were not effective from a waste management standpoint and as a result we had had augmented how we deliver those services part of what we want to do with the solid waste management strategy is to step back take a comprehensive look at the way that we manage solid waste in the city of denton so what we're going to be proposing here today is really defining the elements of what this strategy is the process identify potential funding sources and set a schedule to move forward when we talk about a solid waste management strategy what this is really it's a opportunity for us to be future thinkers forward-lookers to really define what we want to do where we want to go in the next 25 years you know bob dillon once said times they are a changing and really that's really the things that that that we can invest vest our time in is that we know that things will change who who two years ago would have thought that china would have closed their doors to our recyclables and as a result a lot of the programs that we see across the nation now are scrambling to figure out what to do with the stuff that's in the curbside bins you're seeing prices go up you're seeing people having to land fill the materials because there is no option or opportunity what we want to manage that material so what we want to try to do is create this strategy that really puts us in the driver's seat puts us on the demand side of and of how our solid waste and is managed and when i talk about solid waste i'm talking collectively everything that we could manage where it's solid waste recycling organics i'm going to throw that all in into this one this one big tub really what we're trying to do is identify the trends that that may impact operations over the next 20 25 years because from a strategic standpoint what we're really trying to do is evaluate this whole situation and then once we we know what's going forward identify what's important to us we put this plan together to implement those specific sections so looking at what we've done in the past but really focusing on on the future trying to forecast waste streams you know right now we service about 34 000 residential customers we're going about 300 houses a day if this continues what would that look like from a service provision trying to identify a workforce once we have the material in our hands where does it go how do we manage it from from really soup to nuts and managing that material there are many things that we do have to consider some of these things that we've talked about in the past we've talked about recycling both at the residential and commercial level opportunities exist to manage that material in the multi-family arena we've talked a lot about food waste diversion organics diversion brush yard waste things of that nature zero waste plans and policies i think you know having a zero waste strategy is is good but how we approach that may be different than what a lot of people are doing a lot more effective so again looking at all these potential waste streams and really making making conscious and strong decisions on on how we move forward a couple of weeks ago i was in arizona at the what was called waste con and basically it's the big convention that all solid waste professionals go to every year and there was a very pointed question that was asked and it said what is the next china you know is it somewhere in the far east is it somewhere in south america in the southern hemisphere or is it in the united states right now what is and and probably the correlated corollary to that is what do we do when that next china hits and really what this strategy is to design to do is to help us help put us ahead we've already thought about that we've already made that decision so when that next shoe drops whatever it is we are flexible enough to go ahead and address that as opposed to operating in a reactionary mode and that's really what we want to try to do with this strategy so how do we come up with this strategy well with everybody's help it's going to take the citizens it's going to take council it's going to take staff it's going to take different interest groups to really sit down talk talk about things about growth and demographics talking about sustainability regional needs challenges market dynamics market constraints currently we've got some federal and state laws that really confine us on on how we manage some of our material we're dealing with packaging regulations that are 20 and 30 years old and you know if we could potentially you know put our lobbyists you know in the driver's seat and try to get some changes that could potentially help us on the back end when we're looking at recycling material reusing material so really you know this this this strategy looks not just at what's in your garbage can but really how we operate as a city and driving our our waste streams so we do have an opportunity right now we're sort of at this perfect storm standpoint every biennium the north central texas council of governments what they do is they administer a grant program on behalf of the texas commission on environmental quality the funding for this or the source of the grant funds is due to the landfill tipping fees that are paid on a quarterly basis in that we operate a landfill we pay 94 cents on every ton that comes across the scale so we see we give a lot of money to the state to help supply some of this so we're giving them the money it makes sense for us to come back and and get some of the the funding in reserve so what we want to do is to submit a grant application under an eligible project either a solid waste management plan or a technical study this could fall under either way this is a focus that they have we anticipate the cost of this project will be about a hundred thousand dollars the call grants though do allow up to about two hundred thousand dollars per project if that if we're unsuccessful in getting that funding then we would come back to you at some point in the future with a solid waste budget amendment from a timing standpoint we anticipate from the the direction to go it would take about 18 months to complete the rfp process and go through the whole scoping and the strategic planning process part of what's driving this is it really the cog schedule from the grant standpoint you'll see here that call grants are actually due in 2020 they'll award the projects late february early march with contracting actually occurring in april under the cogs grant guidelines we cannot begin implementing any project until we actually have a contract with them so what we would try to do is use this front-end time right here to actually develop specifications put an rfp out actually go up to that point where we actually start the contracting once we sign the contract with the cog if we're successful there then we can start with the with the public meetings the social outreach actually start assembling that strategy all the projects must be completed by may of 2021 but we would anticipate that we would be completed before that as we move forward so with that we have we did present to the committee on the environment yesterday we are scheduled to take this before the public utilities board on next monday and we're here today to receive input direction any thoughts that you might have all right with that open up for questions questions yes members part of the coe's discussion was about the the process of this so if the plan is general and it gets through and so there's all of these ideas how do we do we back that up and then talk about policy or do we talk about these items in this word bank and try to decide what's important to this council as we move along in the plan so that where we don't get to the plan and then all of a sudden you know there's there's no movement let me make sure i understood what you just said your your question is we can have a plan we can go through this whole process of creating a plan but then what's the process in place for plan implementation right say so zero waste is that is that a goal of ours do we want do we want to talk about that as we move along with this plan or you know residential recycling you know food diversion there's a lot of things in here that were in the word bank so if you could just address that city manager how that how that goes and if this plan would the plan be adopted at the end and then it would be how how legit is it well it was very legit i think i think i think i think the process that we would go through is just simply an update of you know how our current practices align with best practices out in the in the industry right now that's the purpose of going to cog and getting that grant is to make sure that we we've got access to that information then basically prioritizing you know what what areas are we not currently performing what areas do we have the ability to perform better in and that really becomes a policy discussion over the next two three four budget years how you would like to handle that if it's going to take rate increases it's going to take take challenge changes to services we'll work it through the budget process and but i think we're going to have to draft a kind of a work plan based on what you would like to see enhanced or added to our current portfolio well and if i may you know this is not going to be a one and done we we contract with the consultant and then 18 months later we drop a plan in your lap i think it's part of this it's going to be an interactive process there's going to be milestones that we were going to be coming back to you this is where we are this is what we found get feedback and move forward at the end of the day we've got this very robust strategy it's a strategy it's not a plan we got the strike sets the goals and the plan derives itself from the strategies and then uh you know so at the end of the day we've got something that's acceptable to council the community and we the staff has the ability to to implement but also to respond to those changes in market factors as they occur so ultimately ultimately it'll be brought back for your review once twice at a minimum and if there's areas that you want staff to specifically start focusing on costing out building into the budget we'll do that okay you have a follow-up to that just a follow-up so yeah so i'm just kind of curious so like do we want to focus on 90 diversion set a few things for the consultant so that if if council if we did do that then we would know how that effect is affected us i think you know just again you know conceptually and at the 30,000 foot view i think we would have a strategy to minimize disposal or minimize the amount of material going to the landfill for disposal and at that point we would put together a plan that basically says okay if we wanted to reach an 80 percent diversion this would be our opportunities to take advantage of to reach that if we wanted to be 90 if we want to be 95 what does that look like and what other parts would we have to to look at you know you're not going to reach 95 just by putting things in a curbside container recycle you have to look at other things like waste to energy you know bands on the front end about what we use here in the in the in the city what you know what how we operate as a city itself and in utilizing resources but you're saying that that comes after this that comes as part of this i mean it comes as part of this you know and then as we're moving forward five years from now you know market market factors may change and we're gonna have to come back to you and say okay originally we're focused at 85 but because of the market factor the legislative climate that may change a bit and we're going to have to have to take a ride but here's how we're going to implement this strategy or focus on this strategy from that point forward so you know i i um you know don't hear that much about other cities you know saying we've got a 85 percent reduction goal you know you know they obviously you know the catchphrase is zero waste so you know i i would love to see us have a zero waste goal for say 2040 and a nice round number and we can look at what other cities have done to put that forward and that's something if you could can you go back to the slide where you had the list of all the different things and again this is in no order these are just topics that i've pulled out of various plans and other projects similar to this so again you know it's just the the types of things that we are looking at it's just kind of you know i was looking at that and reading the backup for today you know all of the things that the landfill does um sorry i don't mean landfill the solid waste department does could fall under that category of zero waste and it could all be about that goal so i would kind of recommend for you know for cohesiveness sake um to instead of seeing the the the zero waste a zero waste goal is just a component of this plan to see it as kind of the guiding principle with everything moving towards that um i had two questions one if you could explain what and i could look this look this up but i i'm also asking because the public maybe people are watching wants to know too what is if you could explain what white what is are white goods and yes it's it's basically the industry term for appliances so it's it's dishwashers it's it's washing machines refrigerators uh it's called a white good yeah yeah um i i like what you had to say about um about uh bans i think that was the word you use or just you know legislation on um and i know that you know some things have been preempted by the state legislature so uh you know one thing that we can think about looking forward because we have uh we we provide um you know our our city lobbyists with a list of uh priorities for legislations that to say that we you know the things that don't meet our goals you know like those the plastic bag ban even if we don't know if we want to um to have that here i i definitely want to have that here um but if we if we believe in local control we can already start thinking too well you know for zero waste policy would help if we could at least have that as an option and put that forward um i was wondering finally i was wondering if you could say a little something about you we're talking earlier about on the demand side we want to do better on the demand side i think i know what you meant but i'm not entirely sure so i was wondering because i'm trying to think how does that work with the zero waste because zero waste yeah if you could say a little something about that my wife hates this joke but you know man walks into the doctor and says doctor doctor it hurts when i do this doctor says don't do that that's really the demand side of what we're talking about there's certain things you know we talk about okay we don't want to have we don't want we don't want to have to worry about throwing away star foam cups we don't buy star foam cups you know there's certain things that we do on this demand side from you know if we talk about green building here that is a that is a policy that would fit right into this strategy because again when you build a house there's a waste product how does that get recycled how does it get reused where's that public private partnership or maybe the city is not managing that but we're creating innovations where you know third party private contractors can come in and manage that material and it's built in such a way that it can be you know deconstructed reused whatever we're not in the mix but it's part of that policy yeah anyway i i completely agree then in that case about starting with that um finally you know i wanted to add that how important it is which consultant we end up using and that i would recommend you know that it be um consultant who is has worked with the city cities that have the kinds of policies that and the kinds of practices that we want to emulate uh you know instead of just people who are good at keeping you know solid waste departments running right we have a higher goal than that and i would have to agree with you what we want to try to do is identify a nationwide consultant that has a that would bring a robustness to this this observation we've got a lot of very talented environmental and engineering firms in north texas and even in this region but again we want to look at somebody can get like you said go in look at the best practices and as a result identify those strategies that that would be good for us to be focusing on and then help derive those those policies as we move forward and will that be coming before council the choice of consultant yeah we've got some other people wanting to talk so if we could if you could say that and we'll come back around yes councilmember davis so i i guess the overarching concern uh yesterday um that we uh that we've kind of touched on but just want to be absolutely clear on is a lot of times these plans you know the council is part of it you know we will we go through the dot exercise just like the public does and we go through the little focus group just like the public does but then the the final product is what we finally see like even though we have those early kind of kind of meetings so my concern is that um is that the goal setting from the beginning remains with the council though we have public input throughout the process but it's clear that the consultant is working from council directives because we're the ones that are ultimately have to adopt it or defend it or vote against it or vote for it and um i i like what you said about robustness um i i would be disappointed if we were to hire a consulting firm that was only in the business of zero waste plans that's all they did that's what they that they what they offer to every client they have or a consultant that has never recommended a zero waste plan has no experience in that area that can offer us all of the options and all of the different strategies to get there okay i apologize no worries my primary focus is kind of exactly what you you touched on it's this the council as a whole had has been cutting edge and it didn't work and it cost a lot of money you know and so i think it is important to take a very measured approach and make sure we're not out in front yeah lead absolutely but it needs to be something that's tried and true just because we're we're still digging out of the last leading edge round of things and so it's important to kind of balance that a bit you know i look at uh for front and center is the uh the the landfill gas management we had a version of that you know uh and so it's just it's important that we uh learn from those experiences and make sure we're managing uh the citizens dollars and kind of those risks well so i look forward to seeing the myriad of options but i do want to take them whatever is brought back it shouldn't be we're going to take all those things prioritize i'm making them actionable it should be then let's vet those and see what fits well and and kind of fit fits the personality of denton and uh is is uh conservative for our for our tax base council member malcolm yeah i'll i'll read share my input from yesterday uh in this word bank you've got kind of all mixed together things that are goals things that are sources of uh parts of the waste stream things that are tactics things that are environmental considerations i mean uh you know industry environment situations so i would just suggest as a thought process to start with a provisional goal and it's going to be a bit of an iterative process but so you start with at least a provisional goal whether it's zero waste by 2040 or something else you think might plausibly be achievable then it's some high level quantitative analysis where you say what are the components of our waste stream cut different ways by types of stuff that go into it white goods etc also by whether it's single family multi-family but what are the composite what's the composition what do you think at a high level might be the percent improvements that could happen in each of the components to hit the goal you pre-identified then you so now you've at least sorted it into where are the big fish versus where the little fish in other words not just a list of everything that sounds cool but just how can we quantitatively actually achieve the goal and by when too um and then then fit tactics under that to say okay if the big opportunities are really you know a b and q what are the tactics that fit that you know and then that those those that that that's just i would just offer that as just a you know structure for thinking about it um and and in terms of the the the goal i think it's it's got to have a few dimensions to it and like i said provisional goal once you find out you can't solve to it you know you might run through the model more than one time but um yeah yeah you got to have where do you want to be in terms of landfill you ought to have a buy when uh and there ought to be a financial constraint like without increasing fees or with only x you know and like i said i think you might run through the process more than one time to get to a solution so that's that's my input at this stage i um i appreciate you bringing this uh and this is something we certainly need to look at i think though that this will take a process that's different than the way we normally do it because i think on this council in and of itself you're going to have a different type of perspectives on what is zero waste how much diversion should be what is a requirement i mean i've seen all kinds of emails about it should be required and therefore so the public really has had no disc the general public has had virtually no discussion about this outside of those groups that are particularly interested in this and so we need to understand fully the impacts for the entire public not just for groups who are for it or who are against whatever policy we would come up with or diversion percentage but to me this is this isn't ripe yet for a consultant i think we have i think council needs to have a more comprehensive discussion about what would be in the plan as far as some overarching goals i think is sort of what council member melcer alluded to look at some of these up here white goods i didn't know what that meant zero waste i have no idea what that means i have no idea i can guess but what the implications are how do you get there what's it cost i mean all is it requirement is it volunteer all these kinds of things and i think it's going to be hard to give a consultant direction without some clear direction from this council on some overarching policy type of approaches because i think you'll have some different perspectives here you'd hate to get to the end with a you know sort of a draft plan and go oh well we need to do this or we need to do that so i'm not so sure that i mean this is good to understand that this is the process we're starting but i would feel uncomfortable if all of a sudden somebody's going out to vet to a consultant unless during that process staff and management is getting direction from this council on some of these goals and these sort of higher arching kind of themes that would give this consultant some direction because that would be uh that would be difficult i mean for me anyway councilmember davis and then we'll go councilmember armature i'm wondering because this is can you go back to the timeline page because this is a grant funding opportunity um i'm just thinking about our prior experience with consultants and the city's general experience with consultants and the way that they work uh in years past i'm wondering if there's not a way to build into the rfp to walk the council through that exercise you know because like can the consultant as part of the rfp do the the fist to five or whatever with us on exactly those options and walk us through that process because i think you're right i think there's conflicting definitions of what is zero waste it's like when something zero fat well there's actually there's a little bit of fat there you know what does that really mean when we make we throw out a term like that and maybe a consultant could yes it's grant funded consultant that we know and i and i can appreciate that so whether it comes from them or comes from staff i just think the process needs to be different than how we've typically done these kind of consulting engagements with really large kind of strategic plans that that we've developed so i i agree with you and that's if it's a timing issue to be able to get the money from the grant you don't have a problem with that councilmember armature then councilmember yeah no i just wanted to to second that point that you know i think it's important that before a consultant even gets gets chosen that we have a discussion about what we want what are our overarching goals and we did as i remember choose zero waste as as somehow part of our annual strategic planning session it got multiple votes on that it is somewhere on that list so you know that's something that keeps coming up we've gotten lots of letters from the public about that but you know that would determine what consultant we choose so you know i think we need to do this the right way and grants that doesn't i mean we don't have to i wouldn't think come up with a full of a full plan in order to apply for a grant we can apply for a grant for specific project i will be curious to know what staff thinks will be you know the best project or projects to apply for i saw the staff report there are a number of things listed and it sounded there were so many possibilities it almost sounded like everything that that that the department does could be a potential area for applying for a grant so that you know would be another discussion to have but anyway those are those are my my two cents yeah i was just going to also bring up the the grant and the timeline as councilmember davis did i i i do think process is extremely important as i mentioned earlier but i want to make sure that we don't miss out on the opportunity for free money like and and it is something that's needed a long-range plan for our landfill is something that that's definitely needed so again this is a strategy not just for the landfill but it's the entire way that we manage solid waste in the city of dentin and potentially the entire region yeah mayor thank you and i think i take your point mayor about the the definition and i think it's incumbent upon us in that next conversation to set that tone right and because i found nothing that says zero waste is a destination but if you're listening it someone would tell you hey this is a definitive end to this even if if i look at the epa's website and i list austin's definition it also says their definition of zero waste is 90 to to re redirect 90 not 100 and and so it's important to have those kind of stipulations in place and not i don't know the right word gin up expectations that aren't steeped in reality so i think setting that foundation that says hey here's reality here's what this vernacular means and it's not just a buzzword that it has some it vacillates but it has some kind of tangible elements to it and let's explore those and then now we're moving forward with the same expectation versus someone saying i thought it meant you know that sort of thing so i think i think that's a great point that regardless of how we proceed i think we need to have a start line that that if it's another work session that then kind of says here's where we are here's the industry terms that sort of thing and whether we get this grant or not i mean this is still an exercise that we need to go through so i mean yeah it'd be nice to be able to get it but i'm not necessarily going to sacrifice process for payment right and so if we could do that simultaneously and we could we can achieve both of those interests and we might be able to do that through the process of just instructing whatever consultant is eventually engaged to hey this is how we need to do this y'all aren't going to necessarily come up with the goals for the plan i mean you're going to be given the goals you're going to be and then you will craft that with the input from the public as well because that's vitally important we already saw how some of the things that we've you know some changes we've made to the to the process like with the yard waste and the carts and all that seems to be fairly good acceptance but there's also been some you know a little bit of pushback so we want to make sure that and this would be a much broader application and would have much broader implication it's important we we really make sure we cross our t's and dot our i's on this one so sounds like the direction is we want to move forward move forward with uh coming yeah move forward with uh engagement but instructing i'm presuming the consultant that we need to have a higher elevation conversation before anything really gets going to help give some clarity and definition and structure to their charge so if that's if there's some strong objection to that let me know but uh council member melser no i was literally just moving the mic out of my face since you gave me the floor uh i would just say as part of that you know that high level discussion uh i i had the feeling that the city manager was tracking what i was saying about the how to you know the high level quantitative analysis that they would just let us see what's plausibly achievable at least on a guest basis yeah i'm listening to the conversation i'm getting a little concerned with being overly prescriptive to the consultant before we've even know what's possible and we hear what's out there in terms of um things that we're not doing opportunities there could be opportunities to to change services to add more services and i'm kind of listening to you perhaps we just need to bring back a uh the rfp before we let it go out along with the scope of service what qualifications we're looking for from uh from a group make sure that all of your concerns are there i have total confidence our team can select a solid consultant for you to work with i think what your concerns are a process and why don't we why don't we just agree to bring back and have another workshop on the rfp before it goes out make sure you're all comfortable and we will we will set the tone with the consultant that you want this to be a very interactive frequently checking in type process and um i think that's easy to do and i think it's the only way it's going to kind of bring all of you together in terms of a little bit more of a common understanding and agreement on what we're looking for so we're more than happy to do that we don't want to spend a lot of staff time with something you're not happy with so we'll shoot in the next 30 days or so to be back to you and say are we generally on point okay all right all right is that okay with that direction everybody all right with that all right not seeing any objective thank you very much appreciate it very much for your time we'll go ahead and uh go to agenda item 3d since we've got some time limitations on these so it's not like they're going to go on i receive report hold discussion give staff direction on pending city council requests uh good afternoon mayor and council i'm stewart birdseye assistant to the city manager i am here for our standing city council pending request for information work session just in case there are those watching for the first time just a quick slide on how we got here and a reminder that uh up to 70 requests today we have four requests will be reviewed per meeting we'll introduce each request and then the elected official that made that request will have up to one minute to describe and justify their request the remaining elected officials will then have up to one minute uh to respond and provide feedback and indicate their support of the use of staff time or policy or work session uh request and we will respond to all requests where a consensus of council is established as i said we have uh four total requests today item number one is a request from council member armator and it's a request for a work session to protect veterans from a source of income discrimination for housing there was an isr that's provided in your backup number 2019 182 it includes information about the dallas fair housing ordinance and the source of income provision there in the hud veteran affairs supportive housing program so council member armator thank you so the city of denton has chosen as a goal to make homelessness uh rare brief and non-recurring for everybody but especially vets as a focus group uh veterans day is fast approaching and this is an easy way pretty much almost prescribed by our texas state legislature who has said that we can't uh pass that cities can't pass uh income discrimination housing laws except in the case of veterans uh so what what dallas has done and what other cities are doing too uh is to have laws that say that you can't be uh discriminate against veterans who have housing vouchers that applies not just to vash vouchers which are the special veterans vouchers but to any section 8 vouchers uh so again this has been pretty much it's been almost prescribed by our state legislature we have veterans day is approaching it fits with our goals to me it's a it's a no-brainer okay yes yes member yes i would be um very willing to have a work session on this and discuss um the ordinance for fair housing to protect veterans um from source of income it is it is allowed it's a it's protection in texas and i am pretty sure that it would house veterans um that would otherwise be homeless if we had something in place councilmember davis so i i kind of feel like uh meaning no offense i kind of feel like this is a solution search of a problem i feel like we work really well with our uh we have a lot of multi-family here in denton we probably could add some multi-family to our to our tax rolls and help a lot of people out that way we have a good working relationship with the folks who own and operate multi-family for doing these vouchers i think there's kind of a misconception that when a landlord doesn't accept their vash vouchers or section 8 it's because they they don't like a certain element or they want to be stingy there's an enormous amount of bureaucracy that a landlord takes on themselves and onto their operation uh everything from inspections to added letter letter layer layers excuse me of documentation that's very onerous especially for some of our smaller operators so i don't have a problem having the conversation i don't know that it's necessarily something that we that we need that we're somehow underserving our veterans in denton because we don't have this i i just don't see the same problem yes i'm happy to hear the work session yeah i um the thing that i'm going to start trying to be a little bit more consistent not consistent but understand more is when we have these requests they're very general and sometimes i don't understand exactly what's being asked for not necessarily specifically in this case so i don't mind having this conversation i don't know about the city of dallas ordinance because it was basically every all of that dallas ordinance has been preempted except for the stuff that's been carved out for uh so i mean if you have an ordinance that simply just has the language from the state legislature i agree with councilmember davis that i work with veterans i work with housing vouchers i don't think that people are getting turned away especially veterans in this city because they have a a housing voucher but what's going to be important to me is to make sure how is the enforcement if any because it is a city ordinance and just some of the devil's in the details so don't mind having the conversation not sure where i'll land based upon what's finally decided okay okay is that i think that's uh yeah all right thank you our second item today uh is from councilmember briggs it's to discuss the conversion of quaker town park creek the section near city hall from concrete to its natural state yes okay so yeah this is very specific it's about the creek out here and it's a look at using green infrastructure and many cities are restoring natural creek channels from concrete to enhance nature in park settings there are many benefits some restoring habitat provides healthy commute communities of plants and animals increased physical and mental well-being increased park usage for longer periods of time recreation better aesthetics and also education opportunities this is just a request for council to look at the presentation that committee on the environment received not a necessary complete policy change right now just a single possible project here on this historic campus it's very specific request um okay well since you've said specific three times i'm gonna be specific um i would before i agreed to a full-blown work session i would just like to get number one the presentation and maybe an isr on that as far as costs and things and just i mean because i know nothing about this about what you received and what y'all saw so i would like to have some additional information before i can make a decision on whether to have a full-blown work session because i just need to understand what the the issues are the concerns and i think that can be done more effectively you know i'm sorry and if somebody wants to send me the presentation that you guys got what was the committee um committee on the environment okay yeah that would that would be perfect yeah so not so much in favor of a full-blown work session could be once i received the information and look at that yes councilmember davis so i i took an interest in this before i was on the council um it's something i've been supportive of for a long time now even just as a as a private citizen with no eye towards being on the council i've looked over the information that was presented to the committee on the environment um and i've looked over the way that other cities have been able to do this i'd like to see this work session one because i think it's an improvement to our uh kind of the the backyard of the city the the main park that we use for events and we like to showcase but also because i'd like to see it as a pilot for other parts of the city in the way that we do drainage and the way we do natural creeks going forward it's a it's a better practice it's a better way to manage your resources it's not just about making a a culvert look nice again although that's one of the major benefits it's about better storm water management um and it's really a restoration to the way things were before we came in and channelized things and made the water go faster and uh created further problems for ourselves downstream so it's about good management and good best practices for storm water in addition we get a much nicer look in city park council member armature yeah i completely agree uh and i i think that you know for anybody who needs to learn a little bit more and see things in writing that could all be included as part of the the backup and could be part of the you know the what we do to prepare for our work session so i think uh that i feel ready to go forward on a work session with this i think it's a really really important idea does my right um i too would be probably more interested in isr to start out with uh not knowing anything about the budgetary constraints on this uh at least we we can plan this in but we've got a lot of other drainage issues that need to be handled throughout the city probably more of a high priority than what this is at this point but uh willing to look at it more is just a overall drainage uh projects within the city part of a a bigger work session council member mouncer i would support hearing it within the context of other drainage kind of strategic projects okay all right i'm trying to figure out if that gives staff clarification because we only have three right now supporting a work session specifically for this request we've got council member briggs council member armature and council member davis so your comment was within the context of other drainage well that would be my preference i'm happy to happy to hear it on its own but i you know accept the suggestion if that's that kind of fits in with kind of where staff might want to go anyway i think that would make sense does that give you the direction you need i mean we i don't want us to all of a sudden reevaluate this after the fact to decide okay do we move forward with just a single work session or do we put in the context of other drainage do you need more specific direction from i i think if the council wants to to hear this particular um a report on this particular project what the cost would be to i'm assuming illuminate the concrete and restore back to its um natural state we're happy to do that i mean obviously anything that we decide to do here is going to have to be taken up in the context of the larger budget itself so no we're happy to do that i'm saying from i guess councilman i don't see easier work session that works okay all right so we have we have uh the consensus to move it forward on an individual work session basis and we can also provide the information that was to the coe in an upcoming credit report sure you bet thank you anybody else on this yes not mayor pro tem here though on one left all right okay all right item number three comes from council member davis it is a work session request to discuss a comprehensive anti-discrimination ordinance so i'll use the first 15 seconds of my time to read out loud no not really the uh the item is a little lengthy it tried to be as specific as possible i think the item really speaks for itself uh you know that i had in a community event in july presenting different viewpoints from different community members on this topic um i i feel strongly and i haven't i haven't stopped those conversations i've continued talking to stakeholders in the community on this topic uh throughout the summer and into the fall um i feel strongly that this is the council to take this step that this is the council that can uh craft a consensus uh between different viewpoints um on this particular issue um i don't think in this particular city of our our size and our kind of demographic makeup i don't think we're talking about a sea change i don't think we're talking about a monumental drain on resources but i do think that there are folks who are experiencing discrimination that shouldn't be allowed in our city however you'll notice that i have some exemptions there uh oh you're over your minute that's all right uh councilmember barmiter so um i am really excited to move forward on talking about a anti-discrimination ordinance i support the work session i i don't like the exemptions but i'm i'm just really grateful that we're going to be um that that this discussion has been proposed council member briggs yeah i'm i'm willing to hear the um work session and excited to see what the members of the community and uh council member davis has been discussing and i'm i'm ready to go with the work session that's very much i support the work session yeah i think we've got four but i i want to just make some comments and that again i have very little information on this based upon your meeting i mean i've seen things there's some things in that request that are uh as we've already seen not necessarily a consensus here i just like to have some type of inform informal staff report about what it is that is really envisioned what are the issues what are the asks because i know nothing about what really is being asked for outside of what i'm reading here and understanding from some other people that have met but the exceptions are here which obviously is important to some groups in the community and then also the enforcement mechanism so uh something very basic you don't have to give me a whole staff presentation but it'd just be helpful i think to the council to understand what's happening in that regard and what what's really being requested so uh so i don't have a problem talking about it i just like to have a little bit more information about it but we've got four so it's it's going forward anyway okay uh we got one more one more the final item uh today is council member milter's request to discuss a dent in welcoming committee the idea of evaluating whether you know in a work session if it's uh doable and desirable uh customer service tells us we average nearly 700 totally new accounts a month so that's 700 new households coming to dent from other towns other regions and other countries and we have the ability to capture email addresses i propose we devise a welcome to dentin email with useful information also offering within that email an in-home visit with a gift basket and a chance for the newcomers to ask specific questions to get oriented we can have check off boxes on the email for specific interests now my pure guess testable would be 10 or about 70 a month might want actual visits in their home and i propose we enlist the chamber to create the gift baskets because tonight with offers and samples from local businesses and information from non-profits and from the city itself and i propose we enlist dentin's many service organizations such as lions koanas rotary black chamber and so on uh there are just okay that's my armature um i i'm thinking this is an idea that could come before the committee on what are we called the committee on citizens engagement that committee um i mean i'd be fine with it coming to do uh to council too so you can count me in favor but i'll throw that out there is the possibility uh as well so i like the sentiment um i think i think some of the proposal could be a little onerous i mean all the way to a gift basket and that kind of thing um i'd be satisfied with uh with an isr and this one and everybody else wants to go on to a work session i think it's fine but um i'd be satisfied satisfied with an isr if customer service could could just tell us here's how we welcome people to dentin um i know when you move you get a package of coupons and stuff from all the folks who found out where you move to the different coupon services and stuff the post office sends you a package of coupons if there's something additionally that the dentin business community wants to do that there's a desire for and we can facilitate that with our customer service information um and maybe that's something to explore but i i think that i'd be fine with an isr in this one yes so um the isr as well but also committee on citizen engagement i mean if we could go there first and we could really talk about it and look at the details and think about partnerships you know with the chamber and really work through it first and then maybe um see if we're ready for it to come up to council because i'm not sure that this is the the body to work through all of those very specific things but i'm i'm i want to hear it i'll make a comment um on these i don't think we had as part of the policy that they go down to another council committee so i'd be hesitant to do that um my concern honestly was in the presentation the word capture we capture people's emails which we capture those emails from our utility accounts which my understanding is you kill the utility account information could be considered confidential because i can't go get anybody's utility account information here so i think an isr would be helpful to me to have break out some of those issues i don't have any problem with if we can do it and do it in a way that's not uh intrusive on people some people don't want that so if it was an opt-out procedure somewhere that's fine but i'd like to get a little bit more information about this and some of the how do we do that and how do we get that personal information and how confidential is that and what can we use that personal information for outside of what it was given for as far as the city service so i think well anyway step you i don't i don't think we had four on that but i think an isr uh well we only had three for an isr i guess we had uh council member davis myself and council member briggs any other comments on this from any of the two council members okay yeah well i think you've already yeah you've already spoken so i'm not so sure that yeah of course you can you have an opportunity to override things if you want all right so that brings us to the conclusion of our work session reports what i'm going to do is go ahead and call us into closed session and then uh we will take a five minute break what time is it all right are are the judge and the uh internal auditor out here are they out here okay we're gonna move them for what happens oh okay i can't see through okay we're gonna we're gonna move through okay good all right we're gonna we're gonna move them up so i'm going to convene the closed session at 4 17 we will consider the following items uh consultation with attorneys under texas government code section 551.071 deliberations regarding real property under texas government code section 551.072 and deliberations regarding personnel matters under texas government code section 551.074 we'll do our personnel reviews and then we'll come get the appropriate staff for the remaining closed sessions all right thank you welcome everybody to this meeting of the dent city council on november the 5th 2019 it is 6 32 p.m our first item on the agenda is a pledge to the us and texas flag if you'll stand if you're able to be texas one state under god one and then visit us after rocky start okay we've got a couple proclamations our first one is national transgender awareness week who's going to be accepting that and oh come on down and if you just tell us your name my name is nix my pronouns are they them thank you you would tell us a little bit about uh national transgender awareness week if i read the proclamation yeah uh transgender uh awareness week is to raise awareness of transgender issues and trans people in the community in each of your communities um right now this week uh we have a few events coming up um sorry let me um transgender awareness panel november 17th 2 p.m at denton uterian universal fellowship a panel of trans and non-binary people will be there to speak about their coming out stories and experiences in our community the public will have an opportunity to ask questions as well it was well attended last year and made front page of the paper the next day it's free and open to the public and there will be a reception afterwards the author tracy james jones will be there and she'll be signing her book after the event as well um and then we have uniquely you transgender story time held at north branch library on wednesday november 20th uh at 4 p.m library staff will lead the story time geared towards children ages three to ten and read books that share messages about honesty love inclusion there'll be a puppet show and a chance to draw your own self-portrait to you free and open to the public open to all ages and then we have the transgender day of remembrance november 20th um that's going to be 7 p.m at the uterian church as well um if y'all would like to attend that'd be really great we go over the transgender people that have lost their lives in the past year due to various events so far this year we've actually lost 22 trans people that we know of at least um two of them were lost in dallas as well um it's uh yeah um i also want to go ahead and uh open myself up to this if there's anybody that has a business or wants to know any more about trans people or how to um better assist trans people in their businesses and their offices and their medical fields or anything like that you're free you're more than welcome to talk to me and i can help thank you thank you very much this is a proclamation by the mayor of the city of denton whereas there's an estimated 1.4 million transgender people living in the united states with at least 800 or more residing right here in denton texas and whereas transgender people have contributed to every aspect of american society including the business community government the arts education the military technology and more and whereas transgender awareness week is a time for transgender people and their allies to bring attention to the community by educating the public and advancing advocacy for issues experienced by transgender people and whereas we are also reminded that we are not truly equal until every person is afforded the same rights and opportunities now therefore i chris watts mayor of the city of denton texas do hereby declare and proclaim this week of november the 13th next week i guess uh through uh november the 19th 2019 as national transgender awareness week in the city of denton and ask all citizens to recognize the value and contribution the transgender community brings to our community and country so thank you very much um anybody here that's here to support this today would you mind standing up if you would like to come to the front and introduce yourself and your pronouns please do so now whoever wants to come down and introduce yourself come on down as i said earlier my name is nix i'm non-binary and my pronouns are they them my name is etio and my pronouns are he they my name is ian finseth my pronouns are uh he and him and i just think this is a wonderful day for denton so thank you very much to the council thank you so much for doing this for us and thank you next for accepting the proclamation i'm james jackson uh he him pronouns my name is britain brooks hall um and i use he him pronouns and i work at west hill coffee bar thank you very much you bet denton texas arbor day who's here to accept the proclamation for denton texas arbor day come on down yeah yeah yeah come on no no no parks director okay all right if you introduce yourselves and then just tell us a little bit about texas arbor day uh haywood morrigan urban forest the state of denton so texas arbor day was actually started in 2013 as the best time in texas to plant trees but of course the state of texas has been celebrating arbor day for over 130 years so this year uh the parks department and keep didn't beautiful came together to celebrate the first texas arbor day here in denton with the planning of 71 trees at the new dog park in north lake park approximately 65 volunteers showed up for the planning and made relatively quick work of planning 71 trees we were done in about an hour wonderful and i'm carly weld i'm the volunteering program coordinator it keeps it beautiful and i'm autumn natalie the nrm kdb program manager we actually had 84 volunteers thank you i have to hold information yep yep this is a proclamation by the mayor of the city of denton whereas across texas from towering pines to majestic oaks to scrubby mesquites the many trees of texas are beautiful and prominent features of our unique and breathtaking landscape and whereas we value our trees and the benefits they provide each of us every day benefits like clean air clean water improving our health as well as saving us money on energy bills and whereas this holiday this holiday for trees first observed in 1889 under the leadership of texas forestry association is an opportunity to teach fundamental lessons about the stewardship of our natural resources and caring for our environment it is an opportunity to learn what each of us can do to keep our community trees healthy and vibrant it is a time we can pause to appreciate the trees in our lives and whereas together we can create a brighter and more beautiful future for the next generation they in turn can affirm the duty of protecting our natural resources by being responsible stewards of this great land now therefore i chris watts mayor of the city of denton texas do hereby declare and proclaim in arrears november the 2nd 2019 as denton texas arbor day in the city of denton texas and urge all citizens to support efforts to care for and plant trees for the betterment of our community for this and future generations so thank you all so much i do want to thank you keep dent beautiful for all of the work that they do just over the year to help us continue that tradition thank you so much yeah okay okay our next item on the agenda is presentation from members of the public if we could go ahead and roll the review of procedures for addressing the city council please the denton city council has adopted rules of procedure including a code of conduct that applies to citizens as well as council members these rules were enacted to promote an orderly process and to preserve decorum here is a brief review of the rules that apply to citizen reports citizens will have four minutes to give a scheduled citizen report and four minutes to give an open mic report there will be an electronic bell when time has expired if the remarks are not concluded by that time the citizen will be asked to stop speaking if the citizen does not cease and a second request is made the mayor will request to have the citizen removed from the council chamber citizens are asked not to approach the dais if a citizen has papers or other materials to hand out to the council please let the city secretary know in advance for scheduled citizen reports the council may initiate discussion or questions following each citizen report for non-scheduled open mic citizen reports the council may listen to citizens speak however because no notice of the subject of the open mic report has been provided to the public in advance the texas open meetings act limits any deliberation or decision by the council to a proposal to place the item on a future agenda a statement of factual policy or a recitation of existing policy citizens are asked to direct all remarks and questions to the council as a whole and not to any individual member please refrain from making abusive personal impertinent profane or slanderous remarks anyone who violates this council rule of procedure may be immediately removed from the council chamber thank you in advance copies of the rules of procedure are available from the city secretary okay we have just to confirm we've had one person who is is rescheduling their citizens report so we're going to we've only got one scheduled citizen report and then we have a couple of open mics the citizen report from tristan is sekel pardon me if i mispronounce that regarding a moratorium on cannabis arrests at the city and or county level so if you're here you come down and state your name and address and your time will begin yes just set up all right my name is tristan cycle i live at 601 eagle drive apartment 101 hi there thank you all for giving me the opportunity to speak to you all today before we begin i want to pay my condolences to officer rodriguez and his family i deeply respect the sacrifices our local law enforcement make for their service i have come before the denton city council today to implore you all to reconsider the recent council decision to not have a discussion on the moratorium of cannabis arrest at the city and county level this issue impacts many dentonites and studies show that a majority of texans support a reduction of penalties on cannabis possession additionally house bill 63 which would have reduced class uh which would have reduced class b misdemeanor cannabis possession cases to a simple 100 ticket passed in the state house with overwhelming and bipartisan support but ultimately did not get enacted into law however the hemp law was another popular cannabis reform bill that actually ended up passing and this has created a host of problems in the enforcement of cannabis laws as the state expects local jurisdictions to cover the costs of the expensive testing that is needed to determine the difference between what is now considered the legal thc limit which is 0.3 percent and the illegal limit which is any product over that dismally low thc threshold according to the denton record chronicle testing to determine thc levels will cost more than 600 in most cases said chief or jeff fleming chief of the intake and grand jury divisions for the denton county district attorney's office additionally mr fleming stated that the county absolutely doesn't have the money for every case and that the volume is so high so they couldn't do it in light of these changes the denton county district attorney's office has issued a statement saying that they will not prosecute violations of misdemeanor cannabis possession unless the local law enforcement agency agrees to pay for the that pay for the test first with this in mind our city police department have some authority to determine whether or not we spend our invaluable resources on these tests however ultimately these public servants are expected to serve the interests of people in our community as well as uphold the ordinances that are passed by the city council which supposedly represent the interests of the entire community not just those who don't consume cannabis in this sense the city council retains the right to adopt an ordinance that would call for city that would call for city cannabis arrests to be made a lowest enforcement priority and that no city funds are spent to pay for the tests used to distinguish legal from illegal thc concentrations i've spoken to several local law enforcement officials and one considered there to be a lack of adequate resources at the disposal for local law enforcement with this in mind would it not be sensible to reduce law enforcement priorities on a non-violent crime that doesn't cause much societal harm as a way of conserving and better utilizing the precious few resources that do exist we have to ask ourselves is this something that we think our community should be paying for it what are the benefits of spending enormous amounts of taxpayer money to support the arrest and incarceration of non-violent offenders whose only crime is that they choose to consume a substance that has been scientifically proven to be significantly less lethal and addictive than the legal drugs available in our community thank you thank you again for your time thank you councilmember robert so thank you for speaking first of all i have a migraine that's why i'm wearing sunglasses so um yes thank you uh do you know do you happen to know if and i'm asking because we're supposed to ask in the form of a question um if the city is is paying for the for these tests at present it doesn't appear that we are um if given that uh i've seen numerous like there's several blotter crime reports saying that there has been instances where somebody was found in the possession of marijuana they were either smoking a blunt or consuming marijuana in some in some fashion and where they would normally have been arrested for a class b misdemeanor for possession they were just given a class c ticket for paraphernalia and the officer cited the lack of testing explicitly as why they didn't pursue that yeah thank you yeah i'm glad you noticed that and and i was i was pleased um i was pleased to see that and i just wanted to let you know i really like your idea about uh having a discussion about about priorities uh so anyway thank you very much for sharing that of course i just want to clarify it definitely seems like local law enforcement also recognizes sensibility of this approach and i think that's why the status quo is the way it is so thank you thank you very much appreciate it thank you i see no more questions thank you appreciate it oh oh okay yeah one more question to the speaker but uh uh some questions for for staff is that is that acceptable well because this is a discussion is permitted it discussion is permitted but i guess the council has has given direction on so i don't want to have a de facto discussion here at the dais that uh the council has said so i mean ask your questions but i just want us to be mindful of that yeah understood uh well i guess i'll put it in the form of a question that might that maybe could be responded to outside this uh but um yeah i would be curious to know whether that's in fact true that possession cases are not being prosecuted in den county i've heard that alleged a number of times i don't know if it's true or not and i'd also like to know if that's actually within the scope of what cities can do or whether it's constitutional or not uh so whether we have a discussion or not i'll leave it to the chair so chief uh dixon will have a an update in the friday packet he's got a memo put together for the city attorney and i on this issue and a couple of others to update the council on but if you'd like him to answer a question briefly we can do that otherwise there'll be an update in friday's packet for you i'll leave it up to you councillor melzer i'd be curious to hear the answers if that's possible we can keep it brief although although the uh the constitutionality question would be more to to the city attorney good evening mayor council frank dixon chief of police so currently uh the last direction that i put out was any possession case of an out or less will be issued a citation and they'll be released the problem that we have we are having that i will talk about in the memo on friday is three of our last home invasion robberies have been involved marijuana our homicide that happened about two and a half weeks ago involved what would have been a minor amount of marijuana in a transaction that led to the murder of a young man in the incarceration of another so i just want us to be mindful of not getting locked into the the uh the perception that having black and white moratoriums will solve all these other issues okay all right council member armature um so in in those cases you mentioned was there a connect suspected connection between marijuana and the crimes committed or was it just one of a number of factors no that was the motivation for the crimes for the crimes so so you mean a a drug deal involved in a relatively minor amount of marijuana yes okay and and are we to your knowledge pay uh well you would know paying for the testing is i understand work point of order not right i just don't know that i'd like the attorney to chime in on this conversation i i have had no advance notice of any of this and so uh i'm a little uncomfortable as you all know that this is a section 3b citizen comment which council is allowed to ask questions i know that the mayor has allowed the chief dixon to come up to answer those questions now that whether or not you want to engage in this discussion now this would be a council decision to make uh there is no right or wrong answer it's basically your decision if you want to continue this line of questioning i guess my question specifically is it's ongoing investigation ongoing case that we're talking about at the dais sorry i i just meant in general are we paying for the for testing have we paid for testing not in any of these particular cases just right not talking about any of these cases yeah we have not paid for any testing to date because we're being very thoughtful and strategic in how we're approaching every case taking on on its own merit awesome i appreciate that thank you so much thank you appreciate it certainly thank you all right uh we'll move on to agenda item c which is the additional citizen reports commonly referred to as open mic we have two cards wishing to speak now as we know that with an open mic presentation because of the nature of the presentation the nature of the posting council is unable to have questions ask the questions or have dialogue except for a statement of factual policy or recitation of existing policy so our first speaker is dewey marshall do if you'll come down and state your name and address your time and begin hi everybody my name is dewey marshall i live at 1700 willowwood street i'm really happy to be able to talk with you i'm first grateful that i get to speak with you in my own city i'm actually a resident here but i'm also talking with you on behalf of my agency i work for the north texas fair housing center we investigate and mediate cases of housing discrimination we're a private non-profit we actually work frequently with the city of denton the city of denton has its own compliance whereas we do advocacy and so we actually do work with each other in certain cases this is just one of the areas of my agency covers i'm talking with you today to actually thank you thank you so much for pushing the ordinance of income source based discrimination that would apply to veterans onto the work session and i'm here because i think that this might be the time they would be able to address council because i don't know if i'd be able to during session so i just want to talk about this ordinance that you pass on to work session this ordinance would prevent potential cases of homelessness which is really really important that's way different than any other type of homelessness intervention that's happening in denton county so a little bit about me i completed my social work degree from texas women's and i did my internship at the united way where i interned underneath the doors for denton county program so i actually got to be lucky enough to be exposed to the different type of services that happen all around denton and so i know the difference between trying to house somebody who is homeless and stopping somebody from being homeless in the first place it's obviously the ounce of prevention pound of cure but i can tell you every single day i see it every single day i also see clients that are homeless or about to be homeless that have housing vouchers housing vouchers alone giving them doesn't actually solve anything there has to be somewhere in order to cash them and this is something that i actually do see every single day and so it affects us now this ordinance as you know it would guarantee that veterans with housing vouchers would have those housing vouchers accepted within the city of denton housing vouchers can come in different forms especially for veterans that's section a it can also be something called vash it doesn't matter those or those vouchers would be accepted by the landlords the reason why that's important is because there's a huge campaign right now as you know to end veteran homelessness by 2020 so this would actually be a net catch for potential cases that would end up in homelessness otherwise so that's just my own personal experience having been a social work intern here in denton county under the united way program i get to know about different service providers i also know that similar type of interventions then goes to something called housing navigation you probably know we have one in denton county which is great and so that housing navigation only comes into play after somebody experiences at least one night in the streets so it's way harder than to get into a new unit than it would be to just simply accept a voucher so i'm also available for questions i'm happy to share my emails and my information my director would also be happy to speak with all of you or any of you and answer any further questions about this also for the work session because this is something that we we do every day and so this is my personal experience and professional experience so i hope that you vote during the work session to hear this during council and i hope that you meet with me because i'd love to talk with you more about it so thank you so much for your time good to see you in person yeah thank you yeah all right thank you the next speaker will be eva greco if you'll come down state your name and number your name and number jeez i'm used to i don't know what i'm thinking name and address i'm sorry your time will begin it's the weather it is yes eva greco 802 west oak street and then um i usually go on the website the city website oh good evening ladies and gentlemen first i usually go on the website and look at the calendar to find the meetings um for the work session the calendar says 2 p.m and it's always at 1 p.m i've noticed lately so i either don't make it or like the last time i come late i understand there was a contract with a company who works on the website and that's due to expire soon um we have twu we have unt i'm sure there were departments there um where something can be worked out instead of paying a software company which i'm sure is a lot of money um to better not not even to better i'll take that back just to be responsible for the software and updating and making the appropriate changes um and i also was at a work session last month we were talking about um public speaking at meetings and limiting times um and it went on like it was over an hour and then you all took a break it's to me i i just don't understand why it's so difficult to come to just a common ground for everybody on this we the citizens put every one of you up there except this gentleman okay we put you up there we voted for you um to address our concerns our needs you know in the city of denton and but yet we are hit with if you have an issue you can you're limited you can only speak so long you can't do this you can't do that i understand we nobody wants to sit at a meeting for hours and hours and hours sometimes it does happen you know we have to accept that it's part of we chose this we chose to run for election for mayor council okay it's part of our responsibility we need to be more open to the public and not putting so much restriction on the citizens of this town that put every one of you up there okay so it's something that needs to be i think looked into a little bit more okay thank you for your time thank you very much appreciate that thank you that concludes the public comment portion of our agenda presentations from the members of the public we'll move on now to agenda item four which is the consent agenda councilmember briggs i move approval councilmember ryan second we have a motion and a second for the consent agenda items uh and listed in agenda items four which is a through as let's vote on the board please oh mayor protem had a question first or yeah did we need to pull ar or is it just going to be duplicated in the oh okay never mind okay yeah okay um all right let's vote on the board please what happened oh all right we'll try it again so we have a motion and second for agenda item four which is a consent agenda motion carries seven zero as we had discussed during the work session uh there was a request for an update uh on officer rodriguez so i wanted to i wanted to move concluding items which is agenda item seven to the next agenda item so that we can facilitate that in a timely manner so if you i'm just going to sit can we repeat this concluding item at the end as well or if we move it we move it back down you can we don't close it out we don't close it out okay all right so um would you like to yeah yeah i just uh i'm aware that many of the community are praying for officer rodriguez and are concerned and uh if uh if there's if there's a way without um being indelicate or compromising the privacy of of the family if we can hear a word or two about how he's doing i'm sure a lot of people would like to know sure i believe chief dixon will provide us with that update good evening again mayor council chief frank dixon chief of police so we talked to officer rodriguez's family prior to releasing any information to make sure they're comfortable with it so i'm very happy to report that he is still incrementally getting better and progressing as the days go on he has a very significant challenge ahead a long road to recovery but considering where we were about six days ago i would say it's nothing short of miraculous but if i may i would like to also take the opportunity to thank mayor and council as well as our wonderful community for all the support that you all have given the dent police department it is not going to notice and i think it's a unparalleled and unmatched if you look around the country the level of support that we've received in the last week so thank you all very much thank you chief i appreciate that thank you all right we'll move back to our regular portion of the agenda which is items for individual consideration agenda item 5a is considered option of an ordinance of the city of dent texas a home rule municipal corporation approving and authorizing the city manager to execute an anti-local agreement with the town of little elm good afternoon mayor members of the city council my name is ethan cox i'm the director of public works this is a basically a rehash of the presentation we gave a couple of weeks ago so i'm just going to go to one slide and give you an overview of what we have for consideration this evening so this is the six of six agreements that we brought forward for council consideration for use of the city's landfill for the disposal needs either private haulers or municipalities and so up to this point we've had five of the agreements approved through the council the last remainder is for little elm i'm up here on the table you can kind of see that this is a much smaller volume contract that we'd be recommending this evening but like all the other contracts they are increasing the the rate that they're proposing from 2450 a ton up to 27 a ton a little bit later in the agenda tonight you are going to be asked to consider some rate reductions that were enabled through the approval of the other five agreements while this one is a little bit less consequential in terms of revenue we do recommend it at the staff level because little elm has been a customer a neighboring community been a customer for about the past six years and so that's really the limited overview that i want to provide but i'm happy to stand for any questions that you might have any questions for staff all right thank you i see no cards wishing to speak um the chair would entertain action on this uh mayor pro tem oh mayor pro tem move council member armature yeah i just wanted to say um i'm going to be voting no to this as i have uh consistently for such agreements before i'm concerned about uh increasing our landfill and i'm concerned about taking in continuing to take in trash from other cities when we have our own trash to deal with that we're trying to reduce i'm i'm pleased that we've got a rate reduction coming up and i'm skeptical about the idea that this is the only way to go about it and that it's dependent on these these contracts so i will be voting no thank you council member breaks yeah i just wanted to say um similar i um i did vote to approve some contracts that um helped us get the rate reduction that we will be looking into later i will not be voting for this although i appreciate them um being a customer of ours for the last six years um we do not need um to keep taking outside trash uh to achieve the rate reduction so i will be voting no on this contract council member ryan i'll second the motion we have a motion and a second uh let's vote on the board please motion carries four to three agenda item b which is consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas authorizing the city manager does he need to execute non-disclosure or confidentiality agreements mayor city council tony point the chief financial officer i'm here to present to you really quickly i have a couple of slides for you on non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements so back ends on september 10th and the 24th we had extensive conversations with council and work session regarding these agreements they are pertaining to economic development recruitment and also utilized in our electric and solid waste operations for a variety of agreements in which confidentiality and also non-disclosure is customarily required most ndas and cas and other cities are approved by the city manager of their designee in the past denton was allowed to execute these at those levels in 2017 staff made a decision to stop that practice until we had a formal policy and certainly that's what we've been doing this having discussions with the council over the last month or so some of the the things that are included in in this ordinance that are still included in the items that we've discussed in the past would be that this would grant the city manager or their designee the authority to execute these agreements with approval of the city attorney the ndas and cas would be sent to the council on a weekly basis as they're executed certainly if there's none then certainly there won't be anything to report to the council these agreements will be kept by staff and archived and written or electronic form the ordinances only apply to economic development and the electric and solid waste utilities this ordinance also does not apply to or grant authority for employee severance agreements based on the last discussion we have with the council there was a number of parameters or guard wheels that the council asked us to go back and and put into the ordinance so what's so what staff has now included is we've removed the statement that was previously in there about as needed there was some concerns about that being too broad so we've removed that phrasing out of the ordinance recognizes that agreements are binding contracts between the city and another party that do not disclose information recognizes these agreements may be limited by applicable federal and state law also attorney general opinions orders and rulings regarding disclosure of information and recognizes further action by the city council is required beyond these agreements so these agreements only authorize staff to engage in initial discussions with companies it does not give staff the authority and to get any further agreements without further discussions with the city council with that concludes my presentation be happy to answer any questions you may have council member melzer yeah a couple in section two of the ordinance it it still reads that the city manager is or is designees authorized to execute non-disclosure or confidentiality agreements as needed for economic development is that an error is that meant to be struck i believe it is that that as needed should have been struck okay i thought maybe it appeared somewhere else and it was it was in the caption yes sir okay and then uh there are there are uh probably more but there are at least two kinds of confidentiality agreements uh that that i think we've discussed anyway one being preventing disclosure of trade secrets and proprietary information of the party you're meeting with and the other being uh disclosing the fact that you're talking with someone and my understanding is that this ordinance is only about the former about protecting proprietary information of the party you're talking to is that correct or is there do first of all is the question clear and then is is is that correct no this this would actually cover both of those instances that that was the intent maybe that wasn't clear in the ordinance but that was the intent okay all right because i actually thought by you know reading section three that which talks about they're only for the protection from disclosure of trade secret certain commercial and or financial information covered under the agreement a little more to it that it was just the former kind which should frankly be easier for me to approve my concern expressed in work session was that you know we have a kind of a you know a narrow window of time for the city manager you know pursue discussion before it's got to go to council this doesn't really have a time element but i'm totally comfortable with it not having a time element if it's just about protecting somebody else's proprietary information and we've been very clear council member with with companies certainly on the economic development side that want to utilize project names we we are very clear with them that once we have discussions with the edpb and the city council that we will not be utilizing project names and so so so we fully disclose that to the companies to date we've only had what we've had two situations with that's arisen and both companies were amenable to utilizing their names and so that will continue to be our practice i appreciate that yes sir council member breaks yeah my question is similar because i i realize that these are needed initially to start conversations um but i'm and i'm wondering about the timeline at which to the conversations start becoming more transparent to the public and to um to this body so if you could kind of go over the process a little bit in in a timeline because say at what point would these ndas expire so generally speaking uh with the ndas certainly on the economic development side more so than on the utility side we will generally have discussions with the with the with the company about whether or not confidentiality has to continue even with discussions with edpb the economic development partnership board if the company wishes to to still continue to have some level of confidentiality except for the name we will have a close meeting discussion for economic development purposes we'll also do the same with the city council at the point that we get direction for the city council to engage in contract negotiations with them and that comes back to the city council at that point there is no longer any confidentiality and so we are able to do all that in open session so just to follow up mayor sure so by the time it it gets back and if there's any talk of incentive or anything else going forward all of that information will be transparent and public yes yes okay all right thank you councilmember armature so um so first of all i want to say i really appreciate um that uh there won't be any more of those of those uh project code names and i appreciate the improvements in this in this ordinance and i can see all the thought that was put into it and i appreciate that i'm still going to be voting no on just on on the principle that i i believe that something as serious as a non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement should be made by the council and it's not a trust issue of not trusting the city manager but it's just about that having elected officials have this capacity so anyway that is i just wanted to be clear that that's the reason why i'm why i'm going to be to be voting no i understand that that means that things take longer would take longer but that's a risk that i'm i'm willing to take because i don't see the economic development incentives agreements as a as a kind of a life and death public safety issue where the timing would be that important that's just my my view mayor pro tem move approval and if you'll allow me it'll save me from hitting the request to speak button i'll go on to say uh i i appreciate staff and the city managers uh adjustments and do recognize the fact that they're tasked with running this the day in day out operations of the city uh whereas us the policymakers only meet uh periodically and so there are times when the the need to be about the city's business especially for those that don't know uh the utility which is a hot button for this community to make sure we keep those rates low well those exchanges and those those terms happen very quickly so giving the city manager and staff this ability will will prove uh beneficial to our community undoubtedly so with that i i move approval councilman breaks so i i'm gonna second um which is really surprising because i have pretty adamant against these but with all the changes from our initial conversation and the the struggle that i had with it with removing as needed adding in the not applicable to severances and no code names and then the strict timing for anything that comes to council for further discussion that um that will then become transparent sitting on the economic development board i do know that it's it's critical to be able to start those initial conversations with businesses if we want our our community to continue to grow and and benefit so with that i will second councilman melzer would the motioner accept an amendment to i won't have the exact final language but the principle would be to separate the proprietary information piece from the fact that we're talking to an entity piece and put a 30-day clock on the ladder so in other words city manager or designee can approve an nda of that of that type and would have 30 days before you know and and could not and could under this agreement not disclose that we're having such a conversation for 30 days until it comes to council for further approval or extension can i ask a question i've read through the ordinance again you're saying that somewhere in the ordinance it says that he he can sign these to uh keep confidential who he's talking to just well i don't actually to be perfectly honest i didn't actually see that in there that's why i asked the question because i was asking hoping to hear information that would help me be be supportive but the response from uh you know from uh tony was that it actually is meant to cover those situations right it appears it appeared to me i was prepared to read it to the public frankly it appears to only be talking about the proprietary information of the other party that's not that's not what it says uh it does have proprietary information as part of that but it says certain commercial and or financial information covered under the agreement commercial information can be the actual name of the company i mean the actual name of the individual so um that that's yeah okay i i thought i was scouring this again to find that language that you're talking about so i apologize i just didn't i didn't see yeah i'm really responding to uh okay mr punty's characterization i apologize for interrupting you had made a request of the motioner but it wasn't clear enough anyway so he's probably gonna ask me to repeat it but we're just saying now we'll see yeah a little later no okay all right um council member ryan well i've got a little bit easier friendly amendment in section two uh right after the word agreements it has as needed can we strike are you willing to i think we're doing yeah yeah i think we're gonna and i was discussed i just want to make sure that it was in the motion so that it it made it through yes seconder do you agree with that but that yeah that's why question okay yeah we needed to take that out all right so to repeat the motion a motion is to uh approve the ordinance as presented by staff with the change of striking as needed from section two is that the correct motion that is correct all right is that you concur council member breaks okay um seeing no more requests to speak let's vote on the board please uh motion carries five to two our next let's see how long we've been going next item on the agenda is consider not an adoption of the ordinance authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement between the city of denton denton county for the payment use of hotel tax revenue we have several of these so good good evening council council the item c c3 were only pulled from the consent to ic so that recusals from council could happen and we do have a recusal so um all right so that's items so that's i'm just going to call them individually then so item c uh do you have a presentation or all right no presentation approval of item c council member briggs second council member armature yeah just i did have a question um this is something that came up in the hot funds committee meeting where we discussed this uh do you know of of any other uh situation where a taxing entity where another taxing entity has received hot funds from a city you know with with other cities yeah given the so the county is a tax taxing entity uh and they're applying you know so they were applying for uh you know hotel tax uh sponsorship from the city which is another taxing entity that that was my ambivalence going into this and it's the kind of information that's hard to just search on google although i tried i couldn't find any instance of it yeah off the top of my head i don't know i can't think of any other city right away it doesn't mean that there aren't any um but i can definitely research and get back with you on a list of those okay yeah thanks i was curious thank you okay we have a motion to second for agenda item 5c let's vote on the board please a motion carries five to one with one uh extension agenda item 5d considered option of an ordinance authorizing the city manager execute grant between the city of dentin and guana club dentin breakfast uh quantities for the payment use of hotel tax revenue providing an effective date mayor pro tem i move approval of item d council member riggs second we have a motion and a second let's vote on the board for agenda item d and council member ryan uh recused himself motion carries six zero agenda item e considered option of an ordinance of the city of dentin authorizing an agreement between the city of dentin and koala's youth services for the purpose of fourth of july fireworks show sponsorship oh is john still out there or is he no no okay he's not affiliated with this organization okay mayor pro tem i move approval of item e council member riggs second council member obiter so i had a question about this one that has also represented in the past and that is and so first of all i'll say you know koala's uh that they they do such important work um for for for children's health and and other things so really really worthy cause um but uh and and this the fireworks show is something that that we have every year is the city you know forty thousand dollars is a big percentage of those of the hot funds um and so i i would love to see you don't have to answer that now but i would love to see at some future point kind of if there's any way that this city could kind of continue to to donate to uh to koala's wall kind of cutting down on the cost of the of the fireworks show maybe uh while still having a spectacular fourth of you know fourth of july fireworks show that everybody wants but for instance that forty thousand dollar price tag and the breakdown of that uh if we could even reduce that a little bit while still having the same level of fireworks and still contributing uh to a good cause i'd love to know just you know to what extent that's possible okay all right uh we have a motion and a second for agenda item this is 5e 4e 5e let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero agenda item 5f considered option of ordinance of the city dent establishing the race for solid waste and recycling collection good afternoon mayor city council members nick vinson assistant finance director i've got a brief presentation with you to review proposed decreases for residential and commercial solid waste customers feel free to ask me any questions about the presentation if you have any you'd be happy to answer them if it's something i can't answer staff here present also i can come up and help um as ethan reviewed with you earlier uh to date six of the contracted waste volume and rate agreements have been approved by city council uh we'll review these with you shortly on a separate slide uh most in summary i like to say these agreements do stabilize revenues for the department coming into the landfill and also decreases subsidization the landfill receives from residential and commercial customers and as i said we have proposed rate decreases for residential and commercial customers being presented today so real quick in summary this is the table that ethan had showed you a couple items ago starting at the left hand side of the table you can see the different entities that the agreements are with and you can see the current tons coming into the facility about 105 000 tons proposed tonnage under the agreements about 185 for an additional 80 000 tons per year you can see the current revenues coming into the facility about 2.7 million under the agreements this does increase to 2.5.2 and this is an additional 2.5 annually in revenue coming into the landfill department and this does directly decrease the subsidization that the landfill receives from residential and commercial customers so we are proposing a three dollar rate decrease for residential customers we do have the current rates at the second bullet point you can see large cart customers and this is their monthly rate they pay for a pair of refuse a refuse cart and a recycling cart so currently a large is 29.26 a medium is 24.51 moving forward we are proposing each of these be decreased three dollars per month be 36 a year for residential customer so the large cart go to 26.26 and the medium cart would go to 21.51 i do want to note in the table below prior to tonight five of the agreements were approved you can see the five entities listed here tonight a couple items ago the city council did approve agreement with little am so that one actually is approved now so commercial rate decreases we are proposing decreases for siloed refuse customers and front load recycling customers we do have them itemized here in two tables the top table that you see you can see siloed refuse rates and the current rate is listed in the white the proposed rate is listed in the blue what this does is aligns the siloed refuse rate with the front load refuse rates so it establishes one set of refuse rates for commercial customers within the department so it's easy to identify what that rate will be for that refuse container front load recycling we are recommended to reduce these rates also you can see for instance a three cubic yard is currently costing 74.16 we are proposing it to decrease to 63.78 this is 14 percent below the refuse rate 14 equates to what the refuse component is of the refuse rate so for example in a refuse container and cost of service there is a refuse component associated with it because that refuse does go to the landfill recycling is actually diverted to the murph so we've actually taken that refuse component out of the rate it equates to about 14 percent with that i'll stay over any questions that you have guest member melzer excuse me hard to imagine voting against decreasing people's rates that's that's it and you know i'll probably vote for this too but i'm a little confused because when these contracts were presented to us i thought the purpose was to pay off this debt that we had no other way to pay off and now i'm not hearing about paying off that debt i'm hearing dealing it back in the rate which is also a good thing so are we not going to pay off the debt i'm just confused um so the the increased revenue will help to offset that debt payment for that day the majority of that debt falls off in the next two or three years and i actually have a pro forma that i can show you where it's falling off um so what we are doing we are retiring that debt over the next two or three years and we are also reducing the rates um so we're actually accomplishing both with this increase in revenue we've been holding off on a commercial rate decrease for over a year until we could get the um policy issues in front of the city council related to all those um clear pay agreements that had not ever been brought to council the landfill had been relying on those they are directly related to the landfill revenue and the debt out there and the commercial rates and the residential rates have been subsidizing that deficit so the idea was we can provide rate relief to the commercial and residential side while this landfill uh sustained itself by the time in three years when those contracts in theory go away the debt goes away so the council will be at a point at a point there where they can reset they can either re-up those agreements or not and the idea was the city would be even there but the commercial customers would no longer be subsidizing the landfill to that extent so if you remember last year we brought a 12 residential decrease to the city council and i'd ask staff specifically to hold off on the commercial reduction until we got the complete structure of the finances out there fixed council member riggs yeah so the weight the rates that we saw does that also include the dollar per month or the 50 cents per month that individuals have to pay now when they didn't have to and is there a reason why we're just going to decreasing it all instead of kind of folding that back in um so to answer your question it does not include the dollar so if a customer was to subscribe for yardway service it would be in addition to this rate so they paid the 29 26 plus the dollar uh moving forward if the rate decrease was approved to be 26 26 plus the dollar charge for the yardway service so it does it does not include it that's correct so they get basically a a two dollar rate decrease if they subscribe for the yardway service it'd be about a two dollar decrease from the existing rate okay thank you any more questions at least for now mayor pro tem yeah again say indulge me if so i'm i i want to thank staff uh and and everyone that kind of contributed to this i think it's a dynamic i i think it's it's it's to to point out it's both it's able to pay down debt that was um opportunities that the department took that did not pan out for those that do not know uh that's where the debt came from it was from trying to be from trying new programs that got us in the hole and so this is an opportunity to get us out of the hole and at the same time uh reduce rates which i consider to be a win-win uh in my estimation and it goes to staff again and the department heads for for working the budget and and passing those savings down so i'm grateful for for that work and diligence and uh for for all the work downtown and etc so i think it's just more placing the burden on those that are paying uh appropriately versus dumpsters and kind of people miss paying it's just right sides and everything so i'm encouraged by that so with that i move approval council member ryan i'll second let's vote on the board please for agenda item five f motion carries seven zero agenda item 5g consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas approving a first amendment to the employee agreement for city manager todd hylman are we having a presentation on this only if you want one oh we have a presentation i mean good evening mayor good evening city council tibby thompson so the next two items were previously on consent agenda and moved to individual consideration for tonight at council's direction to have a full council to weigh in on both of these items but happy to answer any questions that you have council member armature uh so i don't have so much a question it's just to kind of make a statement um anyway is my daughter would say this is a little awkward in her well you know teenager voice but it is i'm going to be voting no to this but not because of anything i'm going to do with the city manager um but because just based on principle that as i've said before that you know as long as we have uh contracted workers and part-time workers without benefits who are not making uh 15 dollars an hour i'm going to be voting no to uh it raises for our council appointees uh so i'm doing that out of out of principle um but i i am very happy uh to continue uh with uh mr hylman and um to give him more vacation time which he so deserves to get out a little bit uh for all the work he does so just wanted to make that clear council member breaks so i um initially pulled the item off the consent agenda um i guess a few weeks ago and i i pulled it off i was indecisive and it wasn't and it is not about mr helman or the job he does for the city i know that you work very very hard for um all of us and keep our taxes low i pulled it because my concern was about the the severance part that we added into the contract and in the past i know um how citizens generally felt about them and and how i did but after thinking about it and realizing the dynamics of the council and the instability um it makes sense um that that would be added in and so i'm going to be voting yes on this contract i just wanted to pull it out for transparency um to the public so that if this ever comes up um it's it's on the record all right i'm air pro tem yeah i'm gonna um gladly uh move approval i think the the turnaround has been significant and it's been swift and and i'm grateful as a resident here in denton primarily and this opportunity to serve in its capacity with with this team that he's assembled and that he manages and and i'll just say this i just can't i i'll ask it formally uh in an email but i find it interesting and i want to know if you and t pays their employees everyone across the board fifteen dollars an hour i think that's noteworthy i think if we're going to hold the city accountable then i think i'm curious uh if if other people's employers or other major employers in the city do the same and if they don't uh i'm curious about that prohibition on on those or where that they don't stand council member ryan a second we have a motion and second for agenda item five g let's vote on the board please motion carries six one agenda item five h considered option of an ordinance of the city of denton texas approving a second amendment to the employee agreement for city attorney aaron leal councilmember armater so again we're going to be voting no for the just based on the same principle um just to address uh uh mayor protem's comment uh city of denton is not at all unique as an employer in not lifting everybody up it's just this is um the only uh well this is my capacity right here in in which i can make a decision on this so and anytime that i have the opportunity to do that i i will do that councilmember ryan move approval councilmember davis oh davis second councilmember briggs so i want to just take the time right now to go ahead and and say um what i want to say so um mr lil has grown significantly since we first appointed him and the legal staff is fantastic um but i'm going to be voting no tonight on this contract and it's not um it's not a vote against the city attorney or anyone in that office by any means it's it's about the terms of the contract which i could not get comfortable with let's see we've had a motion a second all right let's vote on the board please um motion carries five two agenda item i consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas a home rule municipal corporation authorized the city manager to execute a contract with all in one services llc good evening mayor council i'm cassie ogden director of procurement and compliance here to talk to you about a contract for temporary labor services just really briefly temporary labor services are utilized for by various city operations for various tasks park solid waste drainage and streets are our primary users of these services they um contracts tasks include litter and debris pickup and light yard care within the scope of the contract it's required that the vendor sends an assigned employee to the city within two hours of request and we only utilize these services on an as needed basis so the city is currently operating without an active contract our contract expired several months ago and the operations are currently receiving three quotes before they um they employ any temporary labor services we did receive four bids with a spread from 247,000 per year to 145,000 per year all-in-one services was the lowest responsible bidder any changes to the scope of work or contract term requires us to reject the bids and re-solicit the services so we're seeking approval to adopt an ornament or ordinance to authorize the city manager to execute a contract with all-in-one services and i'll stand for any questions you may have mayor protan move approval council member melzer yeah my preference would be that we this is probably just require more conversation but uh that we adopt the policy that people who are represented as to the public as working for the city basically are paid similarly uh so you know uh here i think our actual outlay would be about the same as what we currently pay the city employees that are that are seasonal but you know that a lot of that is margin built in for the contractors so i would like to see us move toward a policy which would affect how we bid it so that the end user would make the same as you know what our seasonal workers are and then then our decision for what contract we go to wouldn't be based on how low they would get that you know that wage it'd be responsiveness and other factors you know quality of what's delivered council member i'm sorry sorry so uh yeah kind of in that spirit so i'm going to be uh voting no on this uh for the reason that i stated before um that i wanted to see uh our contracted employees also making uh 15 dollars an hour adjustable uh because we have the power to do that as an employer i appreciate so much that that staff is is collecting that data now and letting us know how much are the contractors are paying people we didn't used to know that so i really appreciate the data on that the transparency on that i'm going to be requesting a work session to have council discuss these these these priorities but i understand in the the process by which um these contracts are chosen but i understand you know in respect that it's done consistently in the same way that you're following a process that was put in place so no complaints whatsoever about the ways it's handled by um by staff i really appreciate it but i will be voting no council member breaks um so you said the as needed basis do you know um the last time i know the contracts expired but what what is that typically as needed in the past so for instance parks they use um temporary labor services for large tournaments to help prep for the tournament and then also clean up after the tournament and they use them when they get behind in their regular kind of rotation of um picking up trash and emptying trash and then also um yard care so and then solid waste uses them for cleanup at their um at their site so when they have a lot of debris that's floating around they they'll use temporary labor services to help clean up their site and can i follow up sure another question and in the um the original presentation um with the chart we learned that there was a markup between what we pay the company and what the company actually plays the employees um which was very insightful um so is that is that typical or is that just with this with this contract i i only know about this contract i'm not sure if it's typical or not um i mean with the other bidders oh with the other bidders i'm assuming the markup would be typical because they're the company would have to keep something to make a profit um and then pay the employees a certain dollar amount so the markup would be what the company would keep okay as their margin thank you customer ryan the second to motion all right we have a motion to second for agenda item five j let's uh i'm sorry five i let's vote on the board please motion carries four to three uh mayor protem you have the as i've got a recuse on the next one okay you can do from there if you want thank you thank you okay so we will call uh item five j consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas homeroom home rule municipality corporation authorizing city manager executive contract with cbs mechanical services inc and let the records show that mayor watts has recused himself hello again i'm cassie ogden director of procurement and compliance here to talk to you about hvac services um this is a service contract in which um we contract out for preventative maintenance on all of our um hvac throughout the city um they do do repairs and replacement parts so as you may remember we came to you in may and you rejected the previous bids um there were some um things we needed to clarify within the scope as far as the minimum qualification requirements for the technicians as well as the estimated annual quantities and the anticipated contract amount so we made those adjustments in our bid and re re solicited for the services and so we are back asking you to approve a contract with cbs mechanical and i'll stand for any questions you may have okay give me just one second make sure okay i'm not seeing any questions um council member ryan with approval thank you council member davis second all right we have a motion and a second we'll vote on the board so and the motion passes six zero with one abstention onto agenda item 5k consider nominations appointments to the city boards commissions and committees um council member armature i move to approve council member davis second we have a motion and a second let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero i keep looking up at that clock which isn't moving and it's saying 6 35 and i'm about to lose my mind so uh anyway uh all right we'll move on to anybody y'all wanting to break um let's take about a five minute break then we'll we'll go ahead and plow through these last two welcome back everybody to this meeting of the dent city council it's november the fifth 2019 7 54 p.m we're resuming our regularly scheduled scheduled city council meeting we're on agenda item six which is public hearings hold agenda item 6a is hold a public hearing together input regarding the amendments to the naming policy guidelines etc mayor city council gary packin director of parks and recreation um heather heather gray is going to step on and walk us through the the proposed changes and uh feedback that we've collected on the naming policy uh we were here back in september and presented the city council on a work session and at that time council asked us to gather some more community input so we scheduled uh three additional public meetings as well as this public hearing to try to gather some information uh we were fairly aggressive in trying to market the events uh we did not get a lot of attendance um but we did get some good feedback from a couple residents um this weekend we did have a flyer that went out was sent out and i think that that created some hot discussion and sometimes a hot topic isn't hot topic until it's a hot topic um but there's there's no intention of us renaming that carl young park i think that was the perception um so that that wasn't wasn't accurate um but we wanted to walk through the the process with you we've taken all the information uh from the meetings that we've had and put it into a draft that was uh provided to you in your packet by no means is that intended to be final that was just to kind of give you a starting point for discussion and then heather's going to go through that and then provide some additional comments that were not included in that but we still wanted to get some feedback from city council on some direction then from that point we'll take your feedback and any feedback from from this from this evening and put that into a draft and provide that to you at a future meeting for for consideration okay so we're not really we're not approving anything that's just public hearing that's okay all right thank you i'm going to go ahead and open the public hearing just so that i don't forget to do that so good evening mayor council members heather gray business manager with parks and recreation department so i'm just as gary mentioned kind of where we are on the timeline here most recently we held three public meetings and then last night we did give an update to our park park recreation board so just a reminder that this is an existing citywide policy it was last updated in 2012 the full policy name is naming policy guidelines for city buildings facilities land or any portion thereof it provides consistent citywide guidelines as well as outlined situations where renaming can occur and the approval process so this chart summarizes what's in the existing policy there are three kind of distinct areas that you can apply for naming so in honor of an individual there are certain criteria the criteria in the current policy is to be a resident of the city of denton have been deceased for five years be of good moral character and then make exceptional contributions for naming after an organization should they should have made exceptional contributions and not been convicted of any criminal acts and in the current policy it does have a section on purchasing naming rights that current policy states that a city asset may be named through a fundraising campaign through donations or by purchasing rights the existing policy also outlines an approval process just a note we did not modify the approval process other than we made some updates to the application form to make it a little more user-friendly but the application is given to the city manager and then that's referred to city council the review section of that would be council appointing a seven member ad hoc naming committee and then it would move to approval the naming committee would provide a recommendation to council but ultimately the final decision rest with city council and this is the summary of amendments that we originally proposed to you last time we visited which i believe was in september this is a summary of those amendments they're also in your in your packet so what we found when going through and getting some public feedback over the last couple months is it wasn't that citizens were necessarily concerned with the amendments that we had they were concerned with some of the things that were already in the existing policy and bringing this up just kind of brought it to the forefront to their attention so here's um i tried to summarize in this chart the feedback that we did receive anything that's highlighted are those items that we did not put in the draft because we thought those items required a little bit more input and discussion with council but everything else anything that's not highlighted we did go ahead and try to incorporate an amendment for in the draft that you have in your packet so just to kind of go through these in the first section regarding naming rights being sold some of the concerns we had were from citizens where the vertical build would be turned into corporate advertising we had a suggestion from one citizen to move this to the sponsorship and donation policy we also had some concerns about the disposition of funds so if naming rights were sold how would those funds be spent we had some concerns about buildings that are primarily used for the public that those buildings should not sell naming rights we were asked to distinguish a difference between non-profit and for-profit naming rights and then it was suggested that if we do sell naming rights instead of putting that business name on the building that we say sponsored by instead so for example if we sold rights for the dog park it would be the north lakes dog park sponsored by whatever that business would be and then in the middle section regarding names changing there was just some general fear and concern when this policy got brought to the forefront that that names were going to be changing a lot so there were concerns about historical preservation of names as well as citizens getting confused if a name change on on where that facility would be located since it changed names we also had some concerns about facilities being renamed they're already named in honor of someone so we did add some language to the to the draft to try to help clarify those and clarify situations when they could be renamed and then just in general we had some concern because there's not really a conflict of interest statement in the current policy so concerns about names being in conflict with the city's mission or values so we added a statement to help with that we did have a citizen ask for the individual criteria that we eliminate the class b misdemeanor but then on the other hand we had someone asked to strengthen the moral character in that section so those two were in conflict so we just kind of left that as feedback and we did we were asked to remove the deceased for five years criteria which we did take out in the proposed draft so on this slide through our parks parks and recreation master plan that we're going through we recently did a survey we had just a little bit over 2000 respond we asked the question if a new recreation center were to be built or if we made an expansion to an existing one how would you want to fund that and the number one response we received for funding was through the implementation of advertising naming rights or sponsorships and that's that first column on your left so it's combined with mildly and strong support there are 79 percent that said they would support using that method of funding now we realized this was specific for our recreation center so that response could obviously change depending on what city building it is that's being asked but this is just some recent data that we had so the next steps tonight we're just hoping to get some more direction and feedback and then we want to add amendments kind of finalize the amendments to the to the naming policy work with the legal department to approve that language and then we'd like to bring an updated version back to you as a resolution on individual consideration to seek approval and then once the policy is approved we'd like to use it to seek naming opportunities for example for the new dog park as well as we do have a couple of commemorative naming items that are are close to happening for instance patrick park we're working on as well as razor ranch and we have some ball fields that are that might be requested to be named so we do have some things coming up here pretty quickly okay we've got several people lined up to ask questions okay so council member melzer yes uh thank you if you could go back to slide seven it's just a point of of resident input that i just didn't understand i thought maybe you could clarify okay buildings used primarily for public should not sell naming rights as opposed to what kind of buildings i mean aren't all the army only talking about buildings used for the public uh the the resident asked about yeah primarily public buildings so probably um administrative type buildings rec centers libraries those type of facilities okay i still don't understand it maybe others do was was that in conjunction with the non-profit versus four pro and you sponsors instead of using the business name was that or were those separated i know they're separated but was the concern with the primary use of the public just about the selling or no name on it period whether it's a sponsorship or anything like that um they didn't did not want to to sell a name for for those buildings they want any name on whether it's selling or no for purchasing naming rights for the sale of naming rights would they be was that person okay with a sponsorship for someone on that building or no no okay i just didn't know if it was a nomenclature of the terminology right okay all right sorry councilmember i mean i guess i i won't spend lots more time let's just take one more run at it sure so uh would city hall be a building used primarily for the public or that be like an administrative building and therefore i think city hall would be primarily used by the public but also an administrative building as well so so this person would be okay with something that was like the service center that's totally administration that they'd be okay with that having naming rights sold is that the idea i get get the impression from them that they would not be okay with any vertical builds really just more specialized facilities would be okay all right thanks council member breaks okay um could you explain the name changing because i i saw that too and from what i read in front i'm a little confused because what i understood was that um a name that's named say netty schultz park um in this policy council could decide to re-change that to change that name in the future um if for some reason somebody came along and had money to do so or you know denya recreation or denya park any is that not what i'm i'm seeing here so in the in the current policy it is correct that council can override any of these guidelines um with a three fourths vote so that's currently in the policy we did not amend that um but what we did clarify is it's it's recommended to leave existing names to honor the the previous decisions from previous council and to to leave the honor for those that were named if a building is named after somebody i'm just i personally have have an issue with renaming um a park that's already been named in honor of someone um especially if we're going to do it to the highest bidder um that that seems a little insensitive to me and it also gets rid of the history of why it was named or who gave that land or um so i'm just a little sensitive to to that um that part of renaming and i know that you mentioned that one specific part name isn't going to be changed but if this passes it could eventually so i think um that may need a little bit more discussion so that's my concern there as well but i i am in favor of allowing um a sponsorship say north lakes and then that way those sponsorships could keep changing um as as you know the one runs out then it can be sponsored by another and that could help keep maintaining that park but the name is consistent um so those are my two comments sure just to kind of address your concern on the um if we could sell naming rights for an existing building that was named after somebody i did add a clarifying statement in section five under the guidelines for purchasing naming rights number two it states naming rights will not be sold for existing city buildings facilities land or any portion thereof that i've already been named after an individual foundation or organization per section three and four so three and four are the commemorative names so basically any legacy name then we're not going to sell naming rights for those on buildings on anything that's named that already has a name after someone yes ma'am just to add one comment in regards to the uh renaming of commemorative parks if it's named after a person the the rationale i think for that being in there and we add that clarifying that renaming should not typically should typically not occur to discourage that but if the uh requirements for the naming changed something happened the person that the park was named after you know something bad happened and council wanted to consider renaming that because of that moral character may have changed that was the consideration there we certainly could take that out if council deems necessary if that was something that was was uh not desired okay yes yeah or or follow up or put something in um and have restrictions on on renaming i mean if you if you take it out or if you leave it in have some of those guidelines on what would constitute um that renaming to to exist you mean the moral conditions yeah yeah something i mean if it needed to stay in there too but i mean i would just be happy taking it out okay all right council member davis just a few quick ones on this same slide that kind of resonated with me the first one was uh the moral character uh something that may be more helpful than listing a and b misdemeanors may be felonies or crimes of moral turpitude so there are certain misdemeanors uh there that we all know people who have been arrested for small amounts of marijuana or ddui or something like that in their youth years and in their twilight years may be making great contributions to the city or donating land and maybe we do want to name something after them regardless of youthful indiscretion so if we say crimes of moral turpitude that typically involves theft uh spousal abuse that kind of stuff and there are definitions that exist out there we could use um the other one was on deceased individuals i could think of situations where it'd be in uh appropriate and maybe even important to name something for someone who is not yet deceased someone who's maybe um soon to be deceased and we'd like them to see the the honor that they've been given and we've done that very recently um just in the last couple of months here in the city so i'd be open to changing that if there's a community desire for it i don't think it's a problem if we've got the moral character stuff in there i think it just becomes a factor to consider and not necessarily a categorical denial and then the last one that i thought really made a lot of sense and i think this was lenny mcadams i think this is where this one started with lenny actually the idea that maybe part of this is a naming policy the commemorative stuff and the other part of it belongs in a sponsorship policy i think that's where some of the the crossed wires with folks and the bad taste in some folks mouth has come from that part of this is really about sponsorship and not naming rights it's and i even like the idea of you know the city of denton dog park north sponsored by such and such as opposed to the petco dog park and maybe that has a little less cache for a corporate sponsor but at the same time that model is used to good effect in other places it's done in lots of places you know you know the ballpark whatever maybe has the sponsor's name on it and maybe it's sponsored by instead it's in different ways different places so i would be in favor i think of a change for the corporate sponsorship to go into a policy that is specifically about sponsorship and i think that takes a lot of the anxiety away about buying out names changing names in the future because someone's showed up with a check and that kind of stuff so and i appreciate those comments from council member davis on on both points i concur uh you know i think that the moral character i mean actually for me i would just be fine just saying good moral character uh and just kind of not specifying um you know what kinds of crimes or misdemeanors you know we have that you have martin luther king bridge and you know he was arrested a number of different times uh for um standing up against injustices so you know if we just stick to moral character and not even try to um specify uh what the what the crimes are so um i i too uh prefer the uh sponsored by idea sponsorship idea i realize that these highlighted items are not included um in the the ordinance as it stands now uh that if it were that would be something that would make me like it better uh it's and as council member davis said that would feel less like we're offering public uh parks and buildings you know for sale to the highest builder and instead they're just chipping in and and and helping out kind of like how it a you know baseball game soccer game you'll have signs up or you know the team will be you know the denton wildcats or whatever and they might have a little sponsored by you know some corporation but they're not named after the corporation that kind of thing makes a big difference so anyway but i i do appreciate um the changes that have been made but i will be be voting no because i still i still can't get behind it as it is for those reasons mayor pro tem thank you uh thank you gary staff everyone that kind of all the meetings etc is really really uh good good information uh but i have a question for legal uh mr city attorney this council can't encumber future future councils so uh even if there's something in this document that says regarding the naming and changing names uh there had future councils have the ability to to go back and change those names or am i understanding that wrong no that is exactly correct that does occur from time to time in other cities when some of the facilities named after an individual that later a living individual that uses that later then ends up being convicted of major crime they tend to remove that name yeah so that's that's why i don't know that it i'll just maybe you can add some sort of memo that would supplement when this comes back but i just don't know that we can we should spend a lot of time wordsmithing that because there's no there's no wording that that will then be enforceable uh going forward and so i just think we we we uh kind of make our thoughts known day of but but going forward we understand future councils have the freedom to act as as they see necessary okay all right seeing no more requests to speak uh thank you very much appreciate it this is a public hearing anybody wishing to speak please come down state your name and address your time will begin anybody wishing to speak on this public hearing it's my understanding that once we close this public hearing it'll come for item of individual consideration or would it be another public hearing on the ordinance but here we had a public hearing but it depends on how the staff and operations has decided to bring it back as an ic or public hearing and action item all right okay i will now close the public hearing see no seeing no one wishing to speak and this is just a public hearing only so no action is taken so we'll move on to our next agenda item which is 6b which has been withdrawn but do we need to have a we don't need to have a motion on this since it's been withdrawn yes okay that's correct all right so it's been withdrawn so we'll scratch that one off the list agenda item 6c hold a public hearing and consider adoption of an ordinance of the city of denton texas amending the denton development code related to use specific standards for medical offices and medical clinics good evening mayor members of the council hayley zagorski with the planning department so this is a staff initiated code amendment we're asking you to consider adoption of an ordinance to amend sub chapter 5 of the ddc specifically related to the use specific standards for medical offices and medical clinics within our mixed use regional district so the mr district transitioned as of october 1st from what was previously our regional center commercial districts those are primarily located along our major arterial roadways and highways within the city these areas specifically include both of our major hospitals within the city so those are marked on the map with the black stars there so you can see that these are pretty widespread areas but they do include both of our major medical centers our code defines two separate uses within these districts a medical clinic as a medical psychiatric or surgical service facility that primarily operates on an outpatient basis it includes things such as ambulatory surgical centers dialysis facilities and freestanding emergency rooms whereas a medical office is more on an appointment basis to see treatment by a doctor dentist or similar practitioner and that would include any of our typical dentist or a doctor's offices both of these uses we do frequently see around the hospitals they're very common supporting uses for our hospital facilities in the 2002 code medical clinics had no limitations in these districts medical offices were limited only in the rccn district and they were limited to 10 000 square feet inadvertently with the adoption of this code we have made many of these existing facilities non-conforming with the limitations that were imposed so as it's written today in the mr district a clinic can be no more than 10 000 square feet per lot and the main entrance and ambulance loading zone has to not face a residential zoning district medical offices are limited to 25 000 square feet so when this came to our attention we brought this court as quickly as possible to remove those limitations so that these uses are not non-conforming and can continue to operate and expand we would propose that medical clinics maintain that limitation regarding the location of loading zones because this mr district is located adjacent to residential districts in many locations so this is just a look at what the strike through would be in sub chapter five so again striking the size limitation for both uses within this district but maintaining that restriction on loading zone locations staff is recommending approval of this request and the planning and zoning commission similarly recommended approval on october 16th i'm happy to stand for any questions any questions for staff seeing none thank you appreciate it i will now open the public hearing for agenda item 6c this is a public hearing anybody wishing to speak on this agenda item please come down state your name and address anybody wishing to speak all right seeing no one we will close the public hearing mayor pro tem move approval council member melser i second we have a motion to second let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero oh i guess i should call it out yeah sorry about that i thought i called it already agenda item 6d hold a public hearing and consider adoption of orders of the city of denton texas amending the dentin development code yes sorry good evening um mayor council richard canoni development services department uh this is similar to the last one this is a staff initiated amendment to the ddc what this does it creates subsection 1.7.9 master plan communities this is under the uh sub chapter general standard specifically under transition from prior regulations really what this ordinance does is essentially codifies language that was already approved as part of an ordinance that adopted the the new zoning map and so i took sort of the um a little snippet of that of that ordinance section 2 paragraph 2 section 2 where we transition those existing mpcs those zoning districts stayed the same you can see the zoning district transition chart that was part of that ordinance so while these mpcs still exist what this ordinance does is essentially houses a place for them in the 2019 code so if someone were to want to find those specific ordinances related to these mpcs they are located in that in this proposed new section 1.79 it doesn't change any of the mpcs again all this does is just recognize as a place where they're located as well as the ordinance is governing them staff does recommend approval of this and p and z also recommended approval six zero i'll be happy to answer any questions councilmember breaks so it's just for organizational um aspect of it so that if somebody was looking they could find it absolutely that's why i wanted to make sure i included if you look at the language that was from that original ordinance section 2 it's essentially the almost identical to 1.79 it just codifies it and then we list those mpcs and the ordinance is governing them but if we didn't put them in the ordinance it wouldn't make them non-existent they would still exist and all the rules still would be the same they would still exist part of the challenge is while we have a lot of the information on the on the interactive zoning map if someone clicks on that mpc it's going to show the the ordinance for the new district you could go to the past zoning and you just kind of have to dig through it it gives you an ordinance number and then it this would just be much easier for someone to look into finding okay thank you any other questions for staff before i open the public hearing seeing none we'll open the public hearing for agenda item 6d anybody wishing to speak on agenda item 6d please come down state your name and address your time will begin anybody wishing to speak on agenda item 6d seeing no movement we will close the public hearing council member ryan i move approval mayor pro tem second let's vote on the board please motion carries seven zero we will now bring back our concluding items from the top of the agenda this spot on the agenda so concluding items mayor pro tem real quick so two events on the ninth of this month at both at 6 p.m there's the marine corps ball at the embassy suites and there's a texas veterans hall of fame banquet at spring hill so i those that are interested i i would uh recommend those to you and then thank everyone for their those that have served for in advance for uh veterans day and then i think lastly the chamber has an event uh this weekend as well so that's at the appleton center i do believe so that's it thank you okay any other concluding items Seeing none we will stand adjourned at 8 24.